The 2012 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by jersysman

That's how I have been for about the last 4 months or so. Hope yours does not get that bad!!

Originally Posted by Kindoll

I was the same way recently. It'll come back.

Thank you both!

[Yapyap]

I've read very little this month, and most of what I've read, I ended up not caring for.

I think it's the inevitable slump that happens after reading your most anticipated book of the year, the one you pre-ordered months in advance and counted down days to (and loving every moment of it once it was there) - I've found before that I need several weeks to get back to the routine of reading and enjoying other books.

I'm still way ahead in my challenge, though, so I'm sure I'll manage to meet my twice-upgraded overall goal for the year.

[jbcohen]

Don't you love that anticipation of a book release? I have a few authors that I have read most everything they have written and I am awaiting more. At the moment I am looking forward to the release of David Weber's Star Kingdom series book 2 Fire Season. I know its described as a young adult book but I frequently like young adult books.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Don't you love that anticipation of a book release? I have a few authors that I have read most everything they have written and I am awaiting more. At the moment I am looking forward to the release of David Weber's Star Kingdom series book 2 Fire Season. I know its described as a young adult book but I frequently like young adult books.

Looking forward to book releases is one of the reasons that I'm trying (not very successfully) to reduce my TBR to more manageable proportions.

[jbcohen]

I know what you mean, after participating in a few bean bundles on this forum my to be read stack had exploded, I have made some head way into getting the list under control, however I still have a long way to go before I can call that done.

[CRussel]

I had to get positively hard-nosed about not adding Baen bundle books to my TBR unless I actually thought I might enjoy them. Doesn't mean they won't get read, but means I'm NOT going to plan on it. They'll get slotted in if, and only if, the time is right and nothing on my TBR is calling me.

[Dazrin]

Well, I have only read about 30 pages over the last week due to an unexpected surgery (herniated disc in my back - I can walk now!) The drugs didn't let me focus enough to read, so I vegged more than anything; that said, I am still ahead of schedule and am mostly off the pills now, so I hope to get back up to stride these next few days off.

Since this is basically the 2/3 mark of the year, how is everyone doing?

I had been hoping to hit 25,000 pages instead of just meeting my 20k page goal, but that seems a little unrealistic now (we'll see the next few days though). How about everyone else, are your challenges updated and on track?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Since this is basically the 2/3 mark of the year, how is everyone doing?

I was doing really well, but a Georgette Heyer sale clobbered my numbers.

My TBR pile is currently at 350, and I want to get down to 300 by the end of the year. It might jut be possible, if I not only resist buying books, but also winnow my TBR a bit more, chucking out books that I've read but forgotten, or find I just don't want to read. But that might be counted as cheating a bit.

[jbcohen]

How many of us have gone to sales like pdurrant has and ended up expaning their to be read stack?

Personally I have been busy for the last three months attempting to get that stack down. Troubble is that all of the books that I got as a part of the bundles are the last in a series of books. Thus if I want to read that book I need to go through the whole series to get there and that takes a while.

[HomeInMyShoes]

"Not I," said the robot.

[DrNefario]

I've cut down quite a lot on my ebook purchases, and even freebies, but I was still a bit surprised paging through my unread books on the Kindle last night. Some things I thought were recent purchases were pages back, and there's a lot of stuff I'd more-or-less forgotten about.

And then I've been having a bit of a run with second-hand pbooks, lately, particularly golden-age crime, which I've got to stop.

On the other hand, I'm on my 40th of 50 books, which is nicely ahead of schedule. I'm thinking I'll probably move the goalposts when I get there. My first book of the year was mostly last year, there are three audiobooks and one unpublished manuscript. That's five I can attempt to replace.

[jbcohen]

I have been going through some what of a scince fiction stage lately with my electronic book reading. I found out about Baen late last year and love doing business with them since they are willing to sell book at a lower price than most publishers sell at, some times half of the new york times bestseller prices. I have also hear d other say on these forums that baen "gives away too much", that forum member is probably right but who am I to complain, I love getting my ebooks for $0. Since baen is in the business of selling science fiction novels I have caught on to that genre of books and thus far I have read most of the books that several authors have written including: David Weber and Larry Corriea and I am working on SM Stirling and Timothy Zahn. Although I will most likely elect not to read the Star Wars books from Timothy Zahn. I am eagerly awaiting the release of the Star Kingdom series book two Fire Season from David Weber, I know I can order an earc from baen of the book, however I do not like the associated price tag with the earcs thus I tend to wait for the actuall publicaiton of the book.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I was doing really well, but a Georgette Heyer sale clobbered my numbers.

My TBR pile is currently at 350, and I want to get down to 300 by the end of the year. It might jut be possible, if I not only resist buying books, but also winnow my TBR a bit more, chucking out books that I've read but forgotten, or find I just don't want to read. But that might be counted as cheating a bit.

I don't consider that sort of cleanup to be cheating, but rather intelligent selection of what's worth reading. That's not to say that at some point in the future a book you winnow off your TBR now might not find its way back. But it's much more realistic to only have books on there that you actually think you might read in the next year or two.

I did some of that cleanup myself, realizing that certain books just weren't going to make the cut.

[HomeInMyShoes]

We're just a smidge short of two-thirds of the way through the year. Is everyone two-thirds done?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

We're just a smidge short of two-thirds of the way through the year. Is everyone two-thirds done?

I was well over 2/3rds of the way to my goal. Now I'm not even half way there!