I've got one more book to go before polishing off my 2015 goals. In perusing the list of eligible books, however, I find I'm not in the mood. I'm going to let it go until the week after Christmas which I've got off, but it's risky, especially as I'll have company. But I'd rather clear the decks first of a few titles which have been languishing partially read. I'm also enjoying this month's book club selection and it's a long 'un.

Only 22 more days left everyone. As Issybird said, it's time to clear out that clutter before next year.

I want to get around to December's literary club selection, but I won't sweat that. I'll get to it. It might be the first book of 2016, but I'll get to it.

Trying to finish up two titles before a bit of a reading break before the new year and it is time to start requesting a couple of the hard to find titles from the library for next year to give them some time to find them. :)

I'm going to start that when I've finished my current book.

I keep buying stuff, and I'm qualified for a free Kindle book if the promo code ever appears (I'm probably going to have to contact amazon uk about it), so I think I'm going to have to deploy some emergency short stories to finish ahead on my TBR. It will be a bit of a pyrrhic victory, but my actual target to was to gain no more than 1.5 times what I read, which I have easily managed.

Woohoo! 20,000 pages.

I only have nine books left to match my goal, so if I continue reading the shorter, regular sized books on my list (the ones that only take a couple of days), I might be able to reach it this year.

I have until Christmas to try; I'm off of work between the holidays which is a good time to settle down with the longer, more involved novels that I put off when I'm only filling a few minutes here or there.

Working really hard to finish up some random reading so that I can start on some holiday based reading/listening. I really didn't get to much beyond listening to A Christmas Carol audiobooks last couple of years, so ready to plow in for 2 weeks.

Well, I'm usually pretty absent from the boards over he last couple of weeks of the year, so assuming I finish the last two books I've got on the go right now here is the yearly damage report:

general statistics
72 Books Read
20,464 pages read
53 different authors
37 new authors
20 countries
7 new countries
$0.00 spent on books
64 library books read
53 paper books read
19 electronic books read

most read countries
17 - United States
16 - United Kingdom
14 - Canada
7 - Japan
2 - Austria, Iceland

new countries
Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Denmark, Iran, North Korea, Togo

most read authors
6 - Terry Pratchett
4 - Catherynne M Valente, Jasper Fforde
3 - Margaret Atwood
2 - Haruki Murakami, Richard Wagamese, Sjon, Lisa Moore, Tom Holt, Wolf Haas

I don't bother to keep a tally of pages or average number of pages read, but I just saw the Goodreads summary feature, See Your 2015 in Books, which is nice (no idea how accurate it is). My stats are:

- 87 books read (will probably end up as 89 or 90 by year end)
- 23,326 pages read
- Average book page length 320 (longest 519, and there were a few short stories in the list)
- My average rating 3.6 out of 5 (a few I couldn't finish or didn't like much)

Back to evens today - 126 books in, 126 books out - and I only had to deploy two standalone short stories to cheat the numbers a bit. I am hoping to finish at least two more books before the year is out, which will give me a bit of breathing room to receive books for Christmas. Plus there is one book I really want to buy soon. But overall it's looking good for my TBR.

C'mon gis a clue :D

It's the third book in Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy, The Magicians' Land (I'm not sure where that apostrophe goes, to be honest, it could be one magician). I've read the first two this year and I'd probably say they were my top reads of the year. The price is only just acceptable (£4.99), but it has been a good bit higher, and I'm concerned it might go back up. Also I would definitely read it soon, unlike some of my other purchases.

I really doubt I will finish my current book before the end of the year so here are my assumed year-end stats. If this is the way I end the year, this will be my second highest year as far as pages read and tied for second lowest number of total books.

Page Goal: Finished 11/3/15. Final tally 28,315 pages read, 79 books/short stories completed.

Overall Summary Stats:

• Read 37 Books from 32 new authors
• Read 48 library books (61%)
• Read 24 books that either won or were shortlisted for a literary award
• Read books published in 45 different years (highest from 2015 with 7)
• Most read author: Terry Pratchett with 9
• Average length of books: 358 (vs 330 normally)

I have updated my goal post with more detail.

I'm doing pretty good. I should be finishing "Ghost" by Peter Straub today and hope to knock off 2 more started books by the end of the year. That puts me over my goal!

I am going to come close to my stretch goal of 150 books for the year, but I'm not going to make it. I'm at 141, and I might manage to read one more, maybe two, but that will be it, I'm sure, with the load of work I've got lined up for this week. And I've slipped on my secondary goal of tracking purchases and books read a bit as well, as the level of overload this month has been high. But overall, I'm reasonably pleased, even with the tracking. It's more sporadic than it should be, but it IS happening.

According to Goodreads, I've met my goal of 200 books this year. But that includes 6 short works which are fewer than 50 pages each. I've read 194 full-length books. There are a couple of short ones (~100 pages or so) which are predominantly books for mid-grade (5th - 8th grade) readers. I have almost completed reading Vicky Peterwald: Target, and I expect to finish two more books by midnight on New Year's Eve. But even if I lump the 6 smaller works together and call them a "book", I'll still finish up with 198-ish books for the year. BUT ... I've read more than 56,000 "pages", so this is definitely the year in which I have read the most -- both books and pages.

I'll update on 1 January to note the final statistics for the year.

Hope everyone is enjoying the end-of-year break and holidays -- whichever you celebrate.

I'm close but I probably won't make it, at least partially by choice.

I've started what should be my last challenge book (The King's Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History), but I've had too much going on to give it much time. I could either try to speed it up (but I like it a lot and that would mean giving it less than my full attention) or abandon it for now and pick the shortest possible qualifying book and squeeze that in. But I have company who'll be here through the new year and I think the best choice in terms of my reading pleasure and enrichment is to acknowledge that I'll be a book short. I've surpassed all my other goals, so I'm content; I just won't have bragging rights. :D

The purpose of a challenge is to help us grow and stretch, not to beat ourselves over the head with. You've done very well indeed this year, and I think you are right to just let this last one go. And yes, you should STILL brag. :)

Thanks, Charlie! I do agree with you about the purpose of our challenges. And I'll postpone any bragging until the end of next year, when maybe I'll hit all my marks.:)

I'm on track to beat my 2015 goal by 59 books.

I've read 93 books -- 94 is my 2015 goal -- but I don't think I'm going to make it. (For one thing, I'm not reading right now. LOL)

I don't want to pass it just for the sake of getting over it and the book I'm currently reading is a long one that I'm only about halfway through. I could switch to a shorter book, but since I choose books based on "what I feel like reading right now", to read something else would feel like cheating. :D

This is the closest I've come to this goal (since originally setting it) and I'm satisfied for this year. :thumbsup:

Less than two days remain in 2015, so let's see how I did this year.

My goals for 2015:

1. To read my 54 unread ebooks from 2005 and 2006.
2. To spend no more than £25/month on ebooks on average over the year.
3. To reduce my TBR list in calibre to below 700.

The first I have competed. My oldest unread bought ebook was bought 29 January 2007.

The second I will complete. I still have £7.99 unspent from my 2015 budget, and I shall not exceed my £300 budget for the year.

The third I have utterly failed at. My TBR currently stands at 778, and is likely to end the year above 780.

As to the number of books read in 2015: Not as many as 2014, but still a good number. I think I'm going to end the year with my total at 226.

I'm setting myself similar challenges for next year, but in a different order:

1. To finish 2016 with my TBR below 700
2. To read my 75 unread ebooks bought before 1st July 2008
3. To spend no more than £20 per month on average

I'm confident I can manage the second. I think I might manage the third, although it will be tight. Unless there's some amazingly good bundle during 2016, I think I'll manage the first goal this time.

I have 120 reads under my belt this year... there's still time for another, depending on how busy the next two days are, I suppose.

I will have to take some time to figure out how much I've spent on ebook purchases this year. I suppose that is something worth tracking.

I'm glad I don't have pdurrant's TBR, though...

:) What's not to like? I have 700+ books I would like to read.

OK, I admit I'd prefer to have it down to around the 100 mark. Perhaps I'll make that before my 60th birthday.

Hehehe... my TBR is in the low 100s and that gives me enough anxiety over whether I will actually get around to reading it all: what do I read next? why did I buy this? is this interesting enough after that last book/series I read?



... yeah, I got issues. :rolleyes:

There's a very small chance I might finish my 114th book tomorrow, but I'm not going to rush it.

For the third year in a row I've read more than 40,000 pages and I did read 4 book of over 700 pages. Though this year the trend seems to be shorter book than in 2013 and 2014.

Another trend this year was trying out new series. A lot of them I didn't continue with, a couple I did continue with and finished most of those. I did reasonable on the active series. I have seven of those, one of them has only one book left and the during the coming months it'll be one of my priorities to read more of those.

I'm really looking forward to my 2016 monthly theme challenge (pick a theme and read 4 books related to it). I'm also looking forward to my week vacation in just over a week, I've planned to spend most of my time reading, catching up on films and tv series, napping a trying to create the perfect fire in the fireplace.

I think I should make that part of my goal as well Paul. I'm sure I still have some older audiobooks I haven't listened to yet. Off to check those numbers....

Now that we've reached the end of 2015, don't forget to sign up for next year at the 2016 Annual Reading Challenge List Thread

With less than six hours to go, I think I can safely say that I'm staying within my budget for 2015! By £0.06!

Yes, seven more books bought this evening, for a total of £7.93.

Thanks to everyone for making the 2015 challenge thread interesting, and I hope to see you all in the 2016 list!

:yahoo:

Highly deserved congratulations, Paul! I know it took a ton of resolve.

I finished The Three Musketeers with 4 days to spare! I've read The Count of Monte Cristo numerous times, but a paper copy of TTM was my airplane book for years. Several books in my 2014 reading referenced TTM, so I bought the excellent Pevear translation as an ebook and started it at Thanksgiving. d'Artagnan didn't do much for me, but Athos was more fun and Milady clearly escaped authorial control.

I read one series that had languished on my physical TBR shelf for 15 years, but didn't make as much of a dent as hoped beyond that.

Of my new 2015 reading, my favorite book was probably Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor, which I re-read twice, then read two of her excellent short story collections (Addison is a pen name for Sarah Monette). Favorite non-fiction: Jordan Ellenberg's How Not to Be Wrong.

Well, I almost made it to my stretch goal of 150 books, coming in at 143 for the year, finishing up with an excellent Miss Silver book. I also managed to do quite well at keeping track of what I spent and how many books were bought. While I wasn't perfect, I definitely did better at it, and am encouraged going into the new year.

Time to take stock. I had three challenge areas for 2015.


-My first was to read 50 books in 2015. I did that! I was very far behind heading into mid-December - I was at 40 out of 50 read. But I battened down the hatches and even pulled a partial all-nighter on the 30th because I was on my 50th book and determined to finish it out.

So, I read a fifth of my year's books in the last half month, heh. It's not quite as grand as it sounds though. I read some really long books earlier in the year and I'd focused on the longer subchallenge books first and purposely left many of the shorter and easier ones for the end knowing I could go through them quicker. After finally finishing Les Miserables midway through December everything went much faster. Still though, they weren't all short and easy reads the last few weeks and I had to really focus and put in time and effort at the end to complete it. I do now know that, judging by my pace the last few weeks, it's theoretically possible for me to have a 100+ year.


-My second was January-June subchallenges. I outlined my final progress on those mid-year but suffice to say that I completed them all.


-My third was July-December subchallenges. This included reading 8,000 pages, which I'm almost positive I did even though I haven't tallied it all up yet. This also included a variety of specific books and themes:

6 Partially Read. Status: 5/6 completed. Everything but A Brief History of Time. I'd even already newly bought the special illustrated version in pbook in preparation but alas, I just ran out of time. It would've been the very next one. I purposely benched it though when on my final mad reading dash because, though short, I knew I might get bogged down in it as I did the first time I tried to read it years ago.

3 Young Adult. Status: 3/3 completed! When I said above that I saved easier ones for the end, that included these and so I breezed through all three in the last week or so. The Maze Runner was my 50th book and the one I pulled the partial all-nighter for on the 30th.

2 Print Pile. Status: 1/2 completed. I never got to Start Your Own Business and I didn't decide to nix it without reading which I'd allowed myself the possibility of. I almost started it a few weeks ago but, it being long and dry, decided that I needed put it off to better my chances of reaching my main goal of 50 books read.

1 Tome. Status: 2/1 completed! I planned on it being Les Mis, but I read a tome in Dhalgren for the book club first so that's how I ended up with two. If I had taken the easy way out and skipped Les Mis entirely, I probably would've finished all my challenges completely. As it is though, I'm very glad I read Les Mis anyway.

1 Club Nominee. Status: 0/1 completed. I planned on The Martian but I preferred to work on specific subchallenge books first at the end and so didn't get to this one.

All in all, I read 10/13 of my subchallenge books for July-December. Those three unread were the only thing I missed completing for the entire year so I'm happy anyway.


Overall, as for my three challenge areas, I completed two. As a wise man once said, and I agree with him, two out of three ain't bad. :D

I ended the year having read 199 books. And, if I lump the 6 small works together with their total of 200 pages, that's equivalent to one more book, so I'm going to call it a success! On my secondary challenges, I completed all of them except for the 42 Challenge. I had a goal of writing 42 reviews of SF items -- books, movies, TV episodes, podcasts, short stories, whatever. I didn't get 42 reviews produced, though I certainly experienced more than 42 during the year.

I read 57,588 pages toward my secondary goal of 50,000 pages. (I set the page goal to keep myself from getting to the total number of books by reading short books.)

Stats:

Total books read: 200 (100% of goal)
Total pages read: 57,588 (115.2% of goal)

Format:
eBooks: 160
audiobooks: 15
DTB: 24

By genre:
Adventure: 4
Fantasy: 21
Historical Fiction: 2
Mainstream: 22
Mystery: 79
Non-Fiction: 3
PUF: 21
Romance: 6
SciFi: 41

Library books: 100 (+ 8 KLL, + 6 KU)

Progress toward series challenge: 36 of 36 books

Eclectic Reader Challenge: 12 of 12 books/categories

2015 In Review
 

I had a very good year quality-wise even though it was lacking in quantity.

The absolute best read for me this year was The Martian by Andy Weir! I absolutely loved it!

The most disappointing read was the Clover Omnibus by CLAMP. Unfortunately, the story was never completed, yet CLAMP was fine publishing the collection unfinished. It felt like a complete waste of time.

I read a lot of manga this year, which I've come to really enjoy (and that I definitely prefer to watching Anime), plus, I cemented my love of all things Ilona Andrews by being introduced to the series The Edge and by finally starting their Kate Daniels series.

All in all, despite my terrible long reading drought (about 8 months all told), I would give this year a 5/5 for what I did manage to read. So, I guess I can't complain too much about that. :)

I wish everyone a very Happy, Healthy, and Fulfilling New Year!

I reached my goal a couple of months back, and good thing too, since the last two months turned out to be slow reading months.

My goal was 60 books, and I completed 65. I also had a sub-goal of 5 non-fiction, and I read 8. Overall, I am happy with my reading year. I was on a break from work in January and read lots of easy reads and books I've read before, as my mind was not in the right space for long, complex books.

Two of my favourite fiction books in 2015 were The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper and The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, and two of my favourite non-fiction reads where Rape: A South African Nightmare by Pumla Gqola and Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend by Arianna Stassinopoulos. I started reading more paper books this year than last, partly because I started using the library again and partly because I moved back home and was reunited with hundreds of paper books I had not seen for years.

For short reviews on my five favourite fiction books, go here, and for my five favourite non-fiction books, go here.

I didn't reach my goal this year. I wasn't so interested in reading and felt pressured by the goal I set, so in 2016 my only goal is to keep track of what I read.

I tallied my pages read and I ended up at 8,254 out of my goal of 8,000 for July-December. It was closer than I thought. Added to the 8,164 from January-June, I ended up reading(/listening to) 16,418 pages in 2015.

Though working toward the same 8,000 pages goal each time helps to explain it, I'm still surprised by how similar my pages read were between the two six month periods - only 90 pages difference!

Here is my full MR list of books, ratings and short reviews for what I read in 2015; it feels like I read the first book, Under Fire, years and years ago, not just last January, heh.