So, we are talking reading challenges?
Next year I am challenging myself with reading all the e-books listed as unread in Calibre. Or remove them.
I would like to read more Non-fiction. Both paper and e-books.
Also, I would like to download interesting books from Runeberg.org, proofread them, format them and add them to Patrica Clark Memorial Library.

Thank you and Issybird, I will happily stay in the challenge. I did not want to disrupt anything that I may have overlooked - I didn't really take it personally, but wanted to cooperate in the social construct of the challenge.

Yes, I do want to see how far I can go. I'd like to see how many e-pages I can read at least. (I find "number of titles" to be ambiguous for me as so many books are different sizes. "War and Peace" vs "The Pearl" haha) But my e-reader makes "just reading" for a few minutes here and there so desirable that it will be interesting.

Take care all!

This year my goal is to read two books. I used to be a big reader and would like to be again. This year I read one book. It took me 8 months to finish it. I enjoyed reading the book but I am too easily distracted so it took longer than it should.

Great to have you. I think the first responder to your challenge is making this more constrained than it should be, which is fine for them, but doesn't fit everyone.

I know I fought with the size of books last year and didn't want to read just short books in order to make my goal, so I changed to a page count goal which helps me. I am using 200 pages/book as my watermark, but I would change that to be approximately the length of the type of books you normally read. By doing that you can get a better "feel" of how much you have read.

Also, it looks like Amazon is now showing an estimated page count "based on the page size of a paperback book" for all e-books. So if you get it from Amazon (or if they just have a copy of it) it is easy to see how many pages a book is. In the past I had kept careful track of locations/page and used the average to estimate the books without a page count. I think I will get rid of that now. (Although my average seems to have worked out OK on most of mine, my estimate was about 9% lower than they have when averaged out and was intentionally conservative so I didn't inflate my page count.)

I'm with you, Kevin8or. While I've read most classics, that was 50 years ago in many cases. So going back and visiting/re-visiting those classics makes sense. Reading 100 books? That's easy for me. But making sure that 20-25% of them are ones that might actually be considered "literature" or classics? Harder.

That's food for thought. I have always meant to try some westerns, and read Riders of the Purple Sage this year as part of one of the MR Book Club nominations. I think I'll add a couple for this year - any suggestions? I was thinking of some Louis L'amour, perhaps?

This is a challenge that I want to take on, too! Thanks for articulating it so well.

I'm so excited about what I want to read next year, that I am completely brain dead as to what to read for the remaining 11 days of this year. :o:rolleyes::p A Christmas Carol is just not holding my attention anymore.

Ha ha ha. :p

I was reading a little of it each night before sleep, but then I became distracted another book, which was the first in a series...

Must.. finish.. Dickens

Even if you read them 50 years ago, they're part of you on some deep level. No, you can't quote them, but they've subtly contributed to the fabric of who you are. :thumbsup:

Certainly, they've contributed, but in some cases it's a bit more subtle than I'd like. Plus, reading them as an adult completely changes what one gets out of them. Plus, of course, many books I would classify as classics for the purposes of this challenge are also out of copyright, so I can read them without hurting the other part of my goal by having to buy them. :D

I hear ya on a large library. On this last deployment, I graciously "inherited" 10GB worth of books, of which I only added 500MB worth of classic sci-fi so far.

I think next year I am going to go for page count vs. book count. I read 30 books in 6 months while on deployment and now that I am back the "free time" will be significantly less.

According to goodreads.com, I read a little over 7,000 pages during this challenge, so I think a reasonable goal will be 14,000+ pages for 2012 as well as finishing the Dune Saga, the Malloreon series, Lord of the Rings and the Narnia Chronicals.

Best of luck to everyone!!!

I'm grateful for this exchange because I had hoped to join in both a book club and this challenge. But it is all quite a bit to figure out in the month I've had my reader, so this makes feel much warmer/fuzzier about jumping in and constructing something suitable for me at this point.

I want to challenge myself to read and reduce my p-books while at the same time making the most use possible of my e-reader. I think 50 books for 2012 is a good start for me, since I'm just obsessive enough to want to surpass the number rather than fall short :o

And I want to challenge myself with a book club--reading and participating! (It's the second part that will be more difficult, I do believe.)

Thanks for the welcome and explanation given to spindlegirl; I shall warm myself in the reflected glow!

V

Welcome to MobileRead, e-reading, the 2012 challenge and (hopefully) the book club(s)!! :D

The Book Clubs: The Book Clubs are located HERE. We have two - The Mobile Read Book Club which offers a different genre every month and the Literary Book club which concentrates on literature. You can join either (or both) at anytime. In the Mobile Read book club we are currently voting for the January 2012 selection. There was no nomination process, as January is our "2nd Place" category - we vote between all of the 2nd place books from Feb. to Dec. of the year before. Feel free to jump right in!

In the Literary Book Club, we are still reading December's selection, but its not to late to start. Discussions will not start until January 1st.

Hope to see you in one or the other.

Don't forget to reserve your spot in the Challenge thread list (see my signature for the link).

:book2:Happy Reading!:book2:

~Nyssa

Thanks, Nyssa! I'm jumping in and paddling fast. I think I voted for the next MR BC selection, and I think I got myself listed in the Challenge thread.

All too cool!

You are definitely listed. :) I've added your spot to the Participant ToC in the 2nd post of the list thread.

Plus, yes, I saw your vote at the BC.

I hope you have a great time here!!!


~Nyssa

I think in my case that my ambition for 2012 is to read more consistantly, rather than in spits and spurts,

I really really want to read more Literary books too,

Reducing the TBR list would be a great achievement, even if perhaps a little unrealistic, being a member of MR lends itself to the TBR growing daily!

It is of course all your faults mentioning interesting books without thought for other peoples TBR lists,

Book Club reads I have been woefully inadequate in keeping up with those, so to read at least half of the years choices is one of my goals,

Finding more International writers particularly in Mystery / Thrillers so far UK, US and Australian are about all I've read so must find others countries to try is a must,

And to read MORE independant authors too,

Well I guess thats enough for now at least!

Added :- I'll try to ignore others TBR lists ... I only add more to mine

I reached the challenge in 2011, but I also found myself reading some books because I was doing a challenge.

In 2012, I want to:

1. Read and enjoy 70 books. Edit: decided to make it 60.
2. Continue to discover new authors.
3. Reduce the amount of books on my Kindle, currently 102, to 50 or less. Edit: By reading or finally deciding I won't be reading it this year.

I guess I'll need to report my goals as follows:

1. Read "xxxx" and enjoyed it. A New author for me. Books on Kindle now "xxx."

Simple and hopefully attainable.

Dean

I'm a slow reader and I have a short attention span so my goal is to read 52 books in 2012.

I'm fickle when it comes to what holds my attention and can start a book, but if it doesn't 'hook' me in the first few chapters I tend to abandon it and start another.

I think I abandoned more books than I actually finished this past year. :(

Still one book a week would be pretty good for me so that's my goal .. should be fun.

Have fun reading everyone!

I signed up for the 100 books in 2011 challenge and didn't even get halfway there! I've read 35 books so far this year. So next year, I'm going to challenge myself to read 50 books. And also, I want to clear out the 10 or 11 unread dead tree books that I have laying around (I'm not sure if I'm going to read them all though-there are a few I don't think I'm interested in that I might just take to the used bookstore.)

Mike & Jessica, Glad to hear you'll be joining us for 2012! :) I hope you both grab spots over on The 2012 Annual Reading Challenge – List Thread! , and share your reading lists with us.

I can't wait to get started. I have my first 4 books (and a few bonus stories) all lined up rearing to go. I'm just waiting for the outcome of the Book Club vote.

Continued Happy Holidays & :book2: Happy Reading.:book2:

~Nyssa

Just wanted to say hi and welcome those who are joining in for the first time for 2012! As we are now several pages into this discussion, I also wanted to remind everyone that we also have a group on Goodreads: MobileRead Book Challenges. It's a great place that gives us room to spread out a little, and we've got personal challenges, group challenges, discussion, and general silliness going on. :D It makes a nice home base if you're thinking about using Goodreads to assist in tracking your 2012 reading.

I'm so antsy to get going with next year, I'm having trouble finding things to read this week. "Oh, no, I want to save that book for next year." I'm not sure what that's all about. :D

Ha! I'm finding exactly the same problem - I want to save stuff for next year's challenge, so I don't know what to read. I'm actually reading a DTB which I got for Christmas - the first DTB this year - so that I won't have to infringe on my growing list on my Kindle.

That's some goals you have there I don't think I could reach that, one book a week.

Since the books I have now are not likely to finish by the end of the year I am starting a tad early on the reaching 15K pages, thus far I am closing in on 14K but have not reached that point as yet.

Hey it's very very unlikely I'll get anywhere near all the goals, but this is what I'd LIKE to achieve,

By way of explanation, I am retired due to health issues and largely housebound so have LOTS of time on my hands ... Of course I still don't find enough reading time :blink: :o

I just want really to MAKE more of my reading time, and to get even more than I already do from my reading :D :thumbsup:

Truth is I rarely achieve ANY goals ... So maybe this time ... Right ???

BTW ... Good Luck on Your Goal,

Wish me luck :)

Thanks to pdurrant for all the lovely titles.

I have already started with next years goals. :o It wasn't planned, but I read Magic Bleeds, and then I started at the beginning. Oh well. There are plenty of other books for me to read. Like the 200 (:eek:) unread books I have in Calibre.

I've just got my replacement Kindle (old one developed hairline cracks in the bezel) and I'm now waiting for the indexing to be done. Hopefully I make Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman last until Saturday because, like others, I wouldn't know what to read.

I'm already having problems with my set goal of not starting a new series before finishing two I'm currently reading. I need to finish one more series before I can start a new one at the moment but there are several series I want to start asap.

I've started on Hogfather today. I plan to finish it before 2012 and I'll just wait until 2012 to start anything else. What it might do is give me some time to sort out what's next.

Finished my 100 for 2011 - yay!

Congrats! :balloon:

Thanks!

I think that anyone can edit their post's title even if I'm the one who added it. If I'm wrong, just ask me by PM and I'll happily set your post's title (in the list thread) to whatever you like.

Track your book lists in Google Docs!
 

So, I mentioned in the 2011 challenge thread that I use Google Docs to track things for me....if anyone wants to play with what I have done, here is a public link. (Read only of course, save a copy if you want to use it.)

Spreadsheet V5, September 2012: REMOVED

Mini Spreadsheet (Mini V5), October 2012: REMOVED. This version has most of the analysis stripped out and is a little faster to use. I will probably not update this version as often as the other since it is feature complete as-is. It does not include the yearly progress charts for inclusion in a signature, but those could be created if desired.

Please let me know if you use one of these! I would love to know what people think.

I am an engineer, so I have liked having more information than Goodreads gives. I also (so far) don't care about publisher/published date/etc, so those things (and anything else I don't care about) are missing.

I have left my information in for 2011 and 2012 to have data and show what the charts should look like, but 2013 is blank. Just delete the current 2011/2012 sheets and duplicate/rename the 2013 sheet to enter your own books.

There is an instructions sheet, but it is minimal. I have used this as a means to learning Google Docs Spreadsheets, so not everything is done as efficiently as possible and I am not going to provide tech support. (Exceptions at my discretion. :D)

Edit 5/23/12: I had included a "progress bar" for inclusion into a MobileRead signature, but it has been having problems. It appears that unless the spreadsheet is open somewhere the bar does not always work. I have removed this feature for now. Of course, since I tested it while editing the spreadsheet I never saw this until today. Doh.
Edit 6/25/12: I updated this to account for some changes on Google's end that broke some functionality. Should be easy to import from V3 to V4.
Edit 9/13/12: Updated to V5 with additional functionality and bug fixes.
Edit 9/25/14: I removed the links to the files since they are very out of date. Send me a PM if you want access to a working and updated file.

I read 30 books in 2010, so my goal for 2011 was 31.

I have fallen woefully short, as there were a number of months when I didn't read any books for various reasons.

I have decided to change my goal for 2012: I will read at least four evenings a week at least forty weeks in 2012.

This is an interesting take on the challenge. It seems like an excellent idea to me, to deliberately set aside time for reading, instead of just hoping to find time.

I must admit that with me it's sometimes a case of setting aside time for other things apart from reading...

Not sure
 

Odd isn't it? For years and years, without even trying, I was reading an average of about 120 books a year. I joined in with the challenge this year . . . and trailed off badly, I think I am weighing in at around 68 /69/ 70 which obviously won't change much now in 4 days. This is very surprising as I had reached 50 odd by April. Perhaps last winter's snow allowed me to concentrate on reading more, dunno for sure but maybe it was that.

So, I will join in the thread, but I am not setting any targets. That can be a bit of a fun-killer to be honest, so will just read when I really feel like it.

SofP

Same here! Since getting a Kindle, my other hobbies/interests have taken a serious backseat. I want to return to a few of these hobbies, while still hoping to read at (only) a slightly reduced pace. No idea how it'll play out :chinscratch:

My reading goal for 2012 is to just read and enjoy. I'm looking forward to re-reading books by my favorite authors like Jeffrey Archer, Ken Follett and early Stephen King.

If I had to put a numerical value to that goal, then I'll maybe shoot for 100 again.

As for the 2011 Reading Challenge, I'm on my 100th book! I might be able to squeeze in one more before the new year but it might be tight.

On June 2nd, 2011, I was in a near fatal motorcycle wreck and spent the better part of three months on pain killers. Even after getting off the pain killers, I found it very hard to concentrate on reading for another couple of months.

As of Dec. 27, I am less than half way through Drood by Dan Simmons. I expect to finish it by New Years, but I probably won't start anything else until New Years Day. I made it through 58 books, with a five month period where I only read three books. Not counting those five months, I averaged 8 books a month. I think I shall try again for 2012 and hopefully won't spend five months with my brain addled.

I'm going to set my goal at 25,000 pages, I got close to that this year so I'll try to get a bit more next year.