The 2015 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread
 

Welcome to our 6th Annual Reading Challenge!

Maybe you would like to read a certain number of pages this year, finish a certain number of books, concentrate on a specific genre or deplete your ever-growing TBR list. Maybe you're looking for ideas or you just want to see how far you can go…

This is the thread where we can share our personal goals and strategies or ask for suggestions and support. New ideas are encouraged and always welcomed. :)

The Annual Reading Challenge is neither a race, contest, nor an "exclusive club", anyone can join! This is just a fun activity that some of us have enjoyed doing in the past. Many of us have found reading challenges to be an entertaining way to set goals for ourselves, get ideas for books, and see what others are reading.

You are welcome to keep track of the books you have read in the "List Thread", here: 2015 Annual Reading Challenge List Thread

Plus, if you would like to discuss a particular book, please participate in the Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading? thread and share your thoughts about the book with others.

2015
 

My reading goals for 2015 are centered around a genre-centric group I joined on Goodreads. We concentrate mainly on Speculative Fiction, which includes: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, and their many sub genres. We also added Young Adult as its own category.
One of the moderators there came up with an ongoing series challenge, that I, as an obsessive series starter really wanted to try in order to not only motivate myself to finish the series that I've already started, but also rediscover and sort through the hundreds of first books of "new to me" series sitting on my TBR list.

Since I fall into the same trap of becoming overwhelmed from biting off more than I can chew, every single year, I've set my challenge up in steps this time:

Main Goal: Have a Much Better Year Than 2014!
(I will not be participating in Buddy Reads or Mini-Challenge Reads this year)

Group Reads:
Primary - One Group Selection from Each Month: [00 / 12]
Secondary - Additional Group Selections from Each Month: [00]
Bonus - Unread Group Selections from 2014: [00]

Series Challenge::
Primary - One Series Book Every Month: [00 / 12]
Secondary - Additional Series Books Every Month: [00]
Bonus - Complete a Minimum of 3 Series by the End of the Year: [00 / 03]

As usual, I've gone from K.I.S.S to ridiculous and elaborate. I just can't seem to help myself! :D So my initial goals shown above have turned into this:

I don't have a detailed idea about my challenge for 2015. I do know it will be a simple goal, not broken down into sub-challenges. I'm thinking of reading 10 books that are more than 500 pages, and maybe 100 books for the entire year. I'm reserving my thoughts and will come back to see what others have in mind.

In 2014 I set myself two challenges: to read 52 books and to read all the bookclub selections. The second challenge was quickly abandoned as I wasn't enjoying all the books and it was seriously slowing my reading. I'll meet the 52 challenge comfortably so my next challenge is just to read a few more books in the year, I've upped the number to 60.

I'm going to aim again at limiting my spending on ebooks. I think I'll also add in making some reduction to my TBR, but by buying fewer ebooks that I read, rather than just deciding to remove some ebooks from my TBR list.

The exact targets I'll decide a bit closer to 2015.

My goals are similar to this year's with a few extra:

A) 150 books (counting fiction only)
B) Try to balance reading among different genres (this year I was a little light in Science Fiction and Historical Fiction)
C) Reduce "Purchased but Unread" balance to below $100 (currently at $167 and change)
D) Participate in the MR Book Club
E) Participate in the "What are You Reading?" thread instead of just reading it (new challenge for me)

I'm probably staying at the 120 books / year target, with short stories recorded but not counted. That 120 will include audio books, of course, and will include abandoned books. Secondary targets, if any, will be decided closer to 2015, but I will have a stretch goal, probably 160 books for the year. (14 books a month, one every other day.)
A secondary target I am sure of is to commit to recording books on the List thread not less often than once a week. (If I let it go longer than that, I forget books and start to just give up on the whole thing.)

I'm about in the same boat for my challenges as you, although I'm only aiming for 30 books.

1) Read Some MR Book Club Selections (8)
2) Read More Canadian (6)
3) Read More Countries (6)
4) Read Previously Purchased Stuff (5)
5) Read Second-Chance Authors (5)

Second-chance authors is where I pick authors I've only read a single title from. Too many options here, but I've got: J G Ballard, J M Coetzee, William Faulkner, David Malouf, Alfred Bester and Frederik Pohl leading the potentials right now.

If you're willing to go non-fiction for Pohl and haven't already read it, he has an excellent semi-autobiographical work, The Way the Future Was, which is available via Baen, and which was kind-of continued on his very entertaining blog, The Way the Future Blogs, right up until he died. I bought this as part of one of Baen's Pohl bundles a few years ago and really enjoyed it (moreso than what I've read of his fiction thus far, sadly).

Anyway, my goals for next year are kept simple so that they'll hopefully be attainable this time around: read stuff (and catch up on my backlog of unwatched Blu-Rays and DVDs, while I'm at it), and record it so that in the future, I'll have at least some idea of whether or not I've read/watched something before.

^Pohl always shows up on the lists so I read one of his for my age challenge, I believe it was The Cool War for 1981. It was alright, but not something worthy of being on those lists, so I'll probably try him again next year. Thanks for the information which I will check out. I think for my challenge I'll go fiction.

In the list thread I am adding people's goals as a title of their post. Only moderators can change a post's title after it's been posted, so if you don't like my summary, please ask me (via PM) to change it, and I'll get it done.

My goal is to read. That's it. Just read.

I might set some achievable goals other then reading. But what I know I plan on doing is reading some of the eBooks I've wanted to read but ended up getting pushed aside when something else came along I wanted to read more.

Thank you. :thumbsup:

I'd also like to thank you for adding the image to the original post in the List thread. It livens is up a little.

Feel free to add one here as well if you like, I'd just like to know how you get the text to align on the side of it the way you do. :)

The image is from MobileRead's owner, Alexander Turcic, and the clever alignment is because the list thread is now a front page item.

Making next year's list thread a front page item IS something I can take credit for, but the discussion thread will just have to remain plain.

Actually, the image ("Youth reading" by Reza Abbasi) was reduced in size and cropped from a public domain picture at Wikipedia by Yours Truly. I added the picture when I linked our MobileRead Facebook page to the thread. If you're interested, here's the original Wikipedia version. (Click three times for max resolution.)