The 2012 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread!

[DrNefario]

I am 93% through my 25th book, of 50, so I'm looking okay for my book target. Although I'm going to be reading shorter works when I've finished the Hugo novel shortlist, none of which I will be counting, so I might lose some ground.

I'm way behind on my graphic novel challenge, though, at 5 of 20.

What do people think is the best book they've read in the first half of the year? I'll reveal mine when I've read the last 7% of this current book.

[Rumpelteazer]

Although my goals were to reduce my "current series" list and to count pages this year I think I'm going strong this year. I'm about to start my 49th book so I probably won't beat my 120 from last year. However, I calculated that last year I've read between 30000 and 35000. At the moment I've read 17341 pages so unless I slow down for some reason I will read about the same number of pages as last year.

My series challenge is going okay. I've cheated once, starting a new series when I'd only finished one current series. But I'm making that up by having to finish three before starting a new series. I've slowed down because I've finished all the series with few books (left).

[Dazrin]

I am a little over 1/2 way (10,600 out of 20,000 pages) so far, so it looks like I will meet my goal.

Originally Posted by DrNefario

What do people think is the best book they've read in the first half of the year? I'll reveal mine when I've read the last 7% of this current book.

The best new book I have read this year is Wool by Hugh Howey. Absolutely loved the story and am very glad the masses convinced him to keep writing. I am in the middle of #4 now, but just the first one was enough to make the top. At least the first one will be added to my favorites that get re-read every few years, probably the whole collection the way it is going.

[HomeInMyShoes]

So far, I've completed 36 books of my list of 50 and only a few books left on my required reading list.

Originally Posted by DrNefario

What do people think is the best book they've read in the first half of the year? I'll reveal mine when I've read the last 7% of this current book.

There's a couple in the running:

8. John Steinbeck, Cannery Row (1940s). A brilliant piece of writing.

There's some others that were very good, but that one stands out as brilliant.

[jessicalynn]

I'm right on track numbers-wise, but I haven't read anything off the 1001 book to read before you die list (my goal was to read at least five). However, the year is far from over.

[pdurrant]

I'm just on track, with my added/removed ratio at 2.04:1 and my TBR pile at 328.

Unless there's some crazy sale somewhere, I think I'll meet my 2012 goal of a TBR less than 300.

[DrNefario]

Well, I finished Among Others by Jo Walton last night, and it could very well be my favourite book of the year so far. I'm not totally sure I don't like it just because the main character is an avid reader of science fiction, so I'll also give an honourable mention to Small Island by Andrea Levy, which was mostly excellent, but I thought fluffed the ending a bit.

[jbcohen]

328 to be read! Eeek, that would take me a few years to read, you must be a speed reader. Mine consists of mostly freebies, things that are no real big deal if I do not get around to reading them, but 328 thats a lot of books on the stack.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

328 to be read! Eeek, that would take me a few years to read, you must be a speed reader. Mine consists of mostly freebies, things that are no real big deal if I do not get around to reading them, but 328 thats a lot of books on the stack.

If I bought no more books at all, it would take me until at least the middle of 2014 to finish them.

Since I know that (buying no more books) is not realistic, I'm aiming to get my TBR down in stages, mostly by also aiming to buy no more than one book for every two removed from the list.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Yep 328 books would take me at least six years to read. My TBR list stands at 1.59 books. It's time to request a book or two from the library.

[jbcohen]

Excellent that you can get books from your public library, I have given up on mine years ago. Their slogan should be "What ever you want we don't have it, what ever you don't want we got." That's one of the reasons that I like electronic books so much is that the prase "we don't have it" it just about impossible.

[Nyssa]

It took awhile,but I finally finished Echoes of Honor (Honor Harrington, #8), which happens to also by my 30th book for the year.

I'm still really behind on my over-all goal, but I'm making good progress with this series in particular...hopefully, I won't have any more week long reads, though. Its 770pgs did help me make it just shy of the half-way mark for number of pages read this year, so that is a plus!

[Yapyap]

I upped the goal of my Goodreads challenge to 150 books (up from the original 100, which I adjusted to 120 after January).

Even with the new goal, I'm well over the halfway point to reaching it, but as I've slowed down a lot in the last week or so (football Euro cup hasn't left me with almost any reading time), I don't want to push it too much.

[jbcohen]

I read that book last year Nyssa I liked that one as I do all of the Honor Harringtion novels. Unfortunately I have been that interested in any of the other David Weber books, although I was inerested in Empire of Man. I am also glad to hear that someone needed to move the goal posts back a ways as Yapyap did.

Currently reading this one, starting out real well, its a presidential thriller (a type of thriller novel where the US President is involved some how)

[HomeInMyShoes]

Just having a celebratory coffee as I've completed my two main reading challenges for the year. I made it through the alphabet of authors and all the decades now. I also finished book number 39 and should be able to easily surpass last year's totals for books and pages.