Reading Challenge - Are you on track?
 

Since 2011 is half over, will you make it?

Can you pick it up in the home stretch?

Or, perhaps, a little too much January ambition and need to make a downward adjustment?

There are no winners and losers. Having fun is more important. Good books, too.

Personally, I'm behind schedule but still hope to make my 20,000 pages.

I haven't been counting pages, but I am at 59 books so far

I'm way behind. My goal was 31 books, and I don't think I'll make it.

I think I can say firmly say "No" I will not make 100 books this year; I don't even know if I'll make 50 (my secondary goal). What I will be able to do, however, is learn what I should aim for next year; it might be as few as 25.

My goal is 144, and I'm at 65. 4 books behind. I'm trying to read some shorter books now so I can catch up. :p

I started my goal at 100. Then moved it up to 150 last month, and I'm still 8% ahead. I figure a little padding is a good thing now, in case things do slow down :)

I think that this would be better as a poll.

Well I want to reach 100 so I'm only 88 behind more or less. I wasn't keeping track of what I read earlier in the year via a 'read' collection like I am now though. I used to set a goal for how many books to read during the summer as a kid and always overshot the mark so I might still make it. Six months is six months after all. lol.

Am I on track? No way. I'm currently bogged down for the third time since January (I force myself to finish a book I've started unless it's completely horrid). I still have high hopes of getting close to 100, though.

If I counted work-related reading, I'd be ahead of the pace.

I'm reading books 70 and 71 right now, so I think I'm on track for 100. That doesn't count any paper or work-related books I've read or any children's books I've read. Just ebooks. Just indie ebooks.

Wish I were further on my progress on the tbr and reviewed list!

I am definitely behind (reading books 34 and 35 now), but I'm really loving my reading this year. I've encountered a wider assortment of authors than in any previous years and I've even given classics some loving for the first time in many years.

I knew it was unlikely I'd make the 100 book target from the start so falling behind doesn't stress me too much.

For my classics challenge, I've read 4 out of 12 so am 2 books behind at the moment. I think I'll probably achieve this one.

I stopped counting. Just read everything that you can!

I have not "officially" joined the challenge but I am determined to read 100 books this year as well. I finished book no. 50 on June 30th at 11:30 pm, so I am on track.
I had read 46 books by the end of May so I expected to be further ahead by now. During June I started several books just to be detracted by other interesting books that came along. I have about 10 books in various stages of progress by now, but I am determined to have finished them by the middle of August.
There are some heavy tomes among them, though, so they may slow me down somewhat.

For me the challenge is a tool to impose some discipline but I haven't enjoyed my reading so much for years.

I'm a little ahead, mainly because I am travelling a bit more than usual, and listening to audiobooks when driving. Should get to my 100 in 2011 ok :).

I certainly won't make it. Still, thanks to this challenge, and my trusty smartphone, I've been reading like there's no tomorrow. In fact, it's been ages since I last has so much fun with reading... how dumb I feel now for having lost so much time with games, TV and movies for the most part of my 20's and 30's. :p

BTW, I'm on bed in the dark. I awoke and just read Poe's "The Raven". Unfortunately, most such short poetry and tales can't enter the challenge because are not full books. I should've adopted the pages counter. No, that wouldn't suffice either, as page is meaningless in ebooks. Perhaps words?

doesn't matter, what matters is that I'm reading a lot again.. :)

I find myself a little bemused by this thread really. :chinscratch:

I'm not trying to be a party pooper, but, for me, it goes against everything that reading means to me..........

What relationship the number of pages/books one reads has to the enjoyment/information/experiences to be gained from the pursuit of reading, is quite beyond me.
If I find a subject I want to find out more about, I may read 6 books over a couple of months - sometimes because they're really big (!) sometimes 'cos they cover complex issues, and need careful consideration.
On the other hand, I may hit on an author I click with, and I could race through 6 books in a couple of weeks (ie the George Martin 5, recently).

I can what is rather grandly described as speed-read if necessary, but I rarely use it if at all possible.
And I am not suggesting that my approach is any more "righteous" (!) than the target-led method.........

I suppose I look on my reading as a leisurely family meal (rather like memorable ones in France) or perhaps an Irish wake - where the end is relatively irrelevant, but the company and the getting there is all-important !

Of course, it may be a hang-over from childhood, when I was always told/nagged "don't rush your food, you never know where the next meals coming from." :blink:

(Not desperately logical, but it fooled me, I suppose............. :)

carpetmojo, I think the purpose was to tease people into reading by estabilishing a goal. It succeded in this. I'm certainly not rushing through the books and certainly am enjoying reading much more than the prospect of getting a medal at the end of it. :D

You are exactly right. The challenge is to encourage reading! It is so easy to be distracted by other things, and to forget one of the basic joys in life...a good book.
When I was younger I read all of the time. I read to escape, I read to pass the time, I read to be alone, I read to have a friend, and sometimes I actually read for knowledge. I could check out 10 books and actually have them all read in the allotted 2 week period....but for me, that is practically unheard of now. So I joined the challenge (and the book clubs) to get back to reading, and I'm tracking what I've read just to see how I'm doing.

:ditto: to everything you just said :)

Right now, I'm only a quarter of the way through. Partially it is me, because the books I picked to read are like a 1000 pages each (The Lord of the Rings books are the shortest on my TBR list right now), part of it is because haven't had as much opportunity to read (Normally fulltime work and fulltime student hasn't caused big limitations on my reading, but between moving, and having mandatory overtime (11 hour days, and they're even forcing us in on the weekends, yay!). Usually the books I read are in the 300 page range, which last year read 160. I think I'll be able to pick up and get back on track. Years only half over.

I've finished 109 books so far this year. I read about 160 in 2010, and it looks like I'm on track for 200 this year.

If I keep this rate up, I'll be getting to the end of my TBR pile mid-2013! Well, if I don't buy any more books before then, and that seems most unlikely....

:greedy:

'ang on, 'ang on - I didn't realise there was a medal at the end of it.

Plinky, plonky, discordant tinkle of ivory keys......

[ Me possibly changing my toon......? ]

;)

I like these kinds of challenges they are fun and help me keep track of what I have read. i have always been a consistent reader, but until getting an ereader never kept track of the books I have read.

No as I've only read 36 books so far, so it's unlikely that I'll reach 100. However I will make my secondary goal which is to read more books than I read last year (49).

I've almost finished my 71st book of the year, so I'm 20/21 books ahead of schedule. However, I know that in November and December I won't be able to read as much since those are the two busiest months of the year and I'll help out in the store more often. I've read several short(er) stories but since I also read several 600-800 page books I figured the length of the average book I read is still well over 150 pages long.

Although I've set 100 as my goal I was more interested to see how many books I would read in a year. I figured my average is about 2 books a week, a bit more in summer and less in winter so a 100 book goal seemed reasonable.

-hides- Compared to all the lofty goals set by everyone else, I feel like a kid. My goal this year is to read 12 new books (1 new book per month; does not count re-reading books in my collection). However, I think I've overshot my goal. By this time I've read at least fifteen or more books, I lost track after that.

I always forget to count the books I've read.

So yeah, I guess I've overshot my goal.

My other goal -- apart from about 1 book a week -- is to post a review of each book. By review I mean a paragraph or two that sums up the story and my impressions. Most of these I have posted here in Reading Recommendations or over at Goodreads. These "reviews" are generally nothing elaborate but a bit more than "I loved it" -- enough to give a flavour to someone else to pique their interest.

Not even close for me, but better than in years past.

I think I would have read more by now had I not been posting a review for every book as well ;) My reviews are several paragraphs, in general.

Read 52 so far and a third of the way through the 53rd. I reckon I am on track currently.

I ended up losing track at around 20 books 3 or 4 months ago, because I had no internet connection at home for a few weeks. I might be on track... but probably not. I've been very busy lately for the past few months and am only just now finding time to get some reading done. I'm off to go do some now, actually ;)

I would never read books fast because I'd need to get a goal by the end of the year. I'm with you on that one. But I was just curious how many books I read a year, so I'm keeping track of my books read this year.


I'm using Calibre to keep track of my books read. I made custom column, "Year Read" and when I finish that book, I'll just fill that column. No internet required!

Great idea! I do read p-books, too, however, so I'd probably do well to keep them written in excel. I get lazy though :o

If I may ask, how did you create that custom column in Calibre. I use it, but just to have a list of books and make it easier to put on my reader. I would love to expand my use of Calibre.

By the way, I am behind in the challenge, but I joined the challenge in March. I am quite a few behind, but my reason for keeping track is to see how many books I actually read in 2011. I am a slow reader, so I knew it would be hard. Still, I am enjoying trying and seeing how far I really get.

Simply add an empty book in Calibre, and let that represent your pbooks. I plan to add all my pbooks in Calibre as well, once our lounge is finished.

Go to Preferences -> Add your own Columns. Then press the "plus' icon on the right. The first field is the field Calibre itself uses (and you can use if you want to make templates). The second is the text you want your column to have in your overview.

So, for instance:

Lookup name = year_read
Column Heading = Year read
Column type = Text, column shown in the tag browser

Thank you for the information, Sweetpea. Always glad to get more ways to use it.

I never make my challenge, but that's partly because I always set it to 365 (a book a day) and then just see what happens. I like it, though. :D

The reviewing slows me down a lot, too. And my writing... Never enough time in the day, it seems. :(

Loving the Calibre suggestions in this thread. Thinking I make have to backfill some stuff...

I never get the hate on the Reading Challenges. The whole YOU READ SHORT BOOKS TO PAD YOUR TOTAL seems kind of hysterical strawman to me. I mean, I'm all about the sky is falling panic, but getting upset over a Reading Challenge just strikes me as odd. :D

I am and I'm not. I've read 46 complete books but I'm in the midst of reading five others. Plus, I've gone back to read back over the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire before reading A Feast For Crows. I don't count those three since I was just refreshing my memory by speed reading through them. That also applies to the Harry Potter books before the last movie comes out.

It's not really about the numbers for me, though. I'm just keeping track of what I'm reading for the first time in a while and it's nice to see how many books I've actually read. It helps me focus more on reading books in my spare time instead of spending so much time online. That's a good thing in my opinion. Music is my first love, by a slight margin, so a good bit of time goes toward listening and playing. Oh yeah, and I love movies. Still, this challenge has helped me to become passionate about reading like I was when I was younger and I think that's the best thing about it.

I've read 67 out of the 100 which was the goal. I 'cheated' at start, by finishing some six or seven books started at the end of last year -- but I guess that won't affect the total number too much in the end. What did help is that someone handed me a stack of Jim Herriot books (paper -- I don't think they even exist as eBooks) which are a breeze through :)

No way I'd read 100 books in any year. That's one every 3.6 days and I read way too slow for that to happen. Unless I count the books I read to my son every night, then I'm probably at around 1,200 now.

I do keep track of my reading and am aiming for 10 pages a day. So far this year, I'm at 15.608.

As far as keeping track, I just use an excel spreadsheet and a few forrmulas.