I finished my 100th book of 2012 last night. Last year I've read 120 books but I think I have read longer books this year and I'm at about the same page count as at the end of last year now.

I've no idea how much I manage to read in the final three week. Normally I wouldn't read much with the extra days our store's open but we've decided not to open on the Sunday and Monday before Christmas and the Monday of New Year's Eve so I got a couple of extra days to read.

I'm so close to my goal. Three books in the two weeks remaining! I have a Stony Man going and those are always fast (go here to find out what Stony Man books are - www.mackbolan.com)

Ugh. It doesn't look like I will quite complete my re-read the WoT series challenge this year. It is possible, but will come down to the wire. I am only 40% done with the last book. I lost a couple reading days this week and with Christmas coming I am sure to lose a couple more days. Maybe I need to plan on working Christmas Eve to get in a couple more hours of reading. :) Fortunately I have a few days buffer before the next book is released to finish it up next year.

I did finish my page goal early and since I am planning on doing a similar goal next year this would give me a good head start on next years goal. I count pages as complete only when the whole book is complete and this one is 1,264 pages. So if I get to where I expect to, I will be at about 1,000 pages on January 1. :thumbsup:

Looks like I'm going to miss on two of my three challenges. I have read 7 out of 6 book club choices, so that's done, but I am at 71 books out of my 75 target, and with Christmas upon us just can't see how I can manage another 4 in 9 days... Also, I haven't read all my named list either, and with 10 or so still left, there's no chance.

^No Updike? I'm shocked!

Only 180 pages to go to finish book #83 and just a smidge more than 25,000 pages.

No, I still haven't got round to it. What did you think of your first Updike?

I really liked it. I shall have to read some more some time.

And I'm done! Just finished book 13 of the Wheel of Time, now I get to wait 2 weeks for the next one to come out.

It has been very interesting to see how everyone has progressed and what different "challenges" and goals people have for themselves this year.

See you again for the 2013 challenge!

The 2013 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread is now open: HERE & The 2013 Annual Reading Challenge – List Thread is now open:HERE

Hope to see you there. :)

I've just updated my list for 2012 and there's good news, bad news, and neutral news.

I read 27 books about/from different countries, exceeding my goal by two. On the other hand, even if I finish the two PBs I'm reading (and I'm going to try), at 24 I'll still be short by one of my goal. And if I finish those books, it will bring my total books read to 111, which comfortably exceeds my benchmark of 100, but falls short of last year's total by a whopping 20 books. This last is partially because I was busier and tireder, but also because I read slightly less trash.

I'm pleased with my challenges and how they played out, even if I didn't quite succeed. The many countries was a blast and even though I won't be repeating it in 2013, I'm going to be mindful of it. And at 24 PBs (I hope), the challenge really spurred me; I suspect close to 20 of those books wouldn't have been read without it and some of them made my best of the year list.

I'm going to air a view contrary to one expressed more than once about reading challenges: the bottom line is that I read whatever I want at any given time; length in particular is not a criterion. The challenges give focus to some of my reading, help get me out of ruts, and heighten my enjoyment immensely. I've gotten a lot from the challenges of the past two years and I'm looking forward to my challenges for next year.

Congratulations on your successes. :thumbsup:

I really like how you summed up the challenges. I think it is a prime example of what a reading challenge should be. May I quote you on that?

I especially agree with the focus. My 2011 challenge was supposed to be just to see where I was. My 2012 challenge was very ambitious, for me, concentrating on all of the series I like/want to read, but not really allowing for "free" reading. At times it felt like a chore.

With 2013 I'm specifically trying for both moderation and motivation.

I have always loved reading, but not always given it the priority and time it deserves. I'm hoping, with my simplifying my goals, that I will get myself back into the habit of just reading, on a consistant basis.

Thank you! And quote away. :)

Good luck with your 2013 challenges. I've just about finished formulating mine and I'm pretty sure I'm biting off more than I can ingest, oh well. But I always leave half my goal "open," because sometimes you gotta read what you want.

I just finished my last book of 2012, Curfew by Phil Rickman.

In the end I read 105 books this year, which is 15 less than last year. However, I read 37246 pages, which is more than last year when I read between 30000 and 35000 pages. I abandoned 2 book. The average rating I gave the books was a 7.1 (out of 10), the average length just under 355 pages and the average date of publication was 2002.

I don't think I'm going to read as much as the previous two years in 2013, my reading has slowed down in the past couple of months. Next year's main goal is to read twelve classics.

Well, I've finished only 81 of my hoped-for 100 books. :smack:

I've currently got two audiobooks, one paper book and one ebook in progress, but they won't be done by tomorrow night (though maybe the ebook mystery might if I stop playing games on my PC).

I'll have to do better next year - less games, more reading.:chinscratch:

I am indeed going to miss my target. I was aiming for a reduction of 80 in my TBR list, and instead I'm only going to have reduced it by 72 or 73.

On the plus side, I have read lots of fun books, and I have managed to restrain my book buying to (mostly) wanted bargains, such that my average bought ebook cost this year is only $2.27, compared to an average cost of books read this year of $2.85. (Which was also the average cost of the book I read in 2011, while in 2010 it was $3.71.)

It seems that having a large TBR does one's average book cost a great deal of good, since one can wait for the special offers and reduced prices..

Is there a plus infinity button here somewhere for the ruts? I'm looking forward to the 44 books on my required reading list for 2013.

Since this year was all about the decades and letters challenges for me I've taken a bit of time to summarize how the challenges went. I finished all my challenges for the year. All 26 letters and all 13 decades. I also read more books and pages than last year. So on to the useless statistics.

General Statistics
Books Read: 83
Pages Read: 25,253
Authors Read: 59
New Authors: 35

Most Read Letters
P - 13
B - 7
D - 7
A - 6
G - 4
M - 4
S - 4

Most Read Decades
2000s - 26
1990s - 16
2010s - 11
1980s - 10
1960s - 5

Most Read Authors
Terry Pratchett: 9
Diane Duane: 5
Robert Lynn Asprin: 4
Dave Bidini: 3
Chuck Palahniuk: 3

I won't be completing any more short stories or books, so I just updated my final 2012 progress. I read much more consistently in 2012 than in 2011 where I had some very wild swings in how many pages I read each month.

Here is my final progress, more details in my main 2012 post (see my sig):
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-x...00/2012Bar.png

I read 49 different authors, 41 of them were new to me.
I only re-read 23 books, which works out to 64% of the pages I read :( since over 1/2 of them were the WoT (minimum 750 pages).
I read 34 books by indie authors, including my favorite new read of the year, Wool by Hugh Howey.

Other charts:


2012 was a good year and 2013 should be even better! Happy New Year everyone!

Well, it's three hours until 2013, and I have missed my goal by 7. A net reduction of 73 ebooks, and I was aiming for a net reduction of 80.

However, that's still a lot better than I managed in 2011.

I read 185 books (incl. 6 abandoned and 2 re-reads).
Of the non-free books I read (177), the average book cost was $2.85

I bought 137 books at an average cost of $2.27

I discarded 25 books from my TBR pile, either because I found I had already read them, or because I decided not to (re-)read them.

Next year, my goal will be to buy no more than 120 new books. A secondary goal is to reduce by TBR list by 67 books.

I think I can achieve this.

While I didn't have a 2012 challenge, I was hoping to match 2011's total but fell short by 9 books and 3000 pages. Don't know what happened. Just stuff, I guess.

So, for 2013 I'd like to again try to match 2011 numbers.

I failed to complete my 20 book goal but am still happy with doing the challenge and with what I got out of it. I got 16 of the 20 goal read but I liked seeing what I read and starting to see how long it takes. I'm not totally surprised with missing the goal with how the later part of the year went for me. That combined with getting distracted by fanfiction again led to me coming shy of my goal. (and I could count the fanfiction to my page totals if I actually payed attention to tracking it better and converting to #pages but I haven't bothered)