The 2016 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I have been struggling to keep up with the challenge this year, but as we get into December, I think I'll end the month with a lot of shorter, easy stories (read simple plot). I think then I can jump back into a heavy scifi rotation. If you like thrillers (i.e. faster speed than typical investigation book), I recommend The Forgotten Man by David Baldacci. This is the second book I've read by him, a second series book and well, he's just a good writer! While this is the second book in the series, he refers enough info to the previous book that if you don't want to or can't get to the first one, it's ok.

I read about 1/3 of A Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames and gave up. As much as I like cozies, I hate when they don't do reasonable research on technical details. I guess that's the difference between really good cozy writers and the mass of drivel coming out with cute titles.

I too have read The Forgotten Man, and also DNF A Long Quiche Goodbye! I abandoned the latter because there were too many characters and the writing was confusing.

[CharredScribe]

I am way off my reading goal for 2016. However, this year generally did not turn out how I thought. As of May 2016, I have been working on overlapping projects non-stop, and my life only just slowed down. The good news is that I am not too fussed about reaching my goals. I also joined a book club and have been reading lots of books that I ordinarily wouldn't have read. I also anticipate that December is going to be a good month for reading as I am not working the crazy hours I have been since May. Still, time to step it up. I miss reading as much as I used to.

Also on the plus side, I have met my goals of purchasing significantly fewer books and also keeping a rating system.

[JSWolf]

I have just 3 more books to read and I'll have hit my challenge.

[bfisher]

This year I wanted to clear at least 75 books off my TBR. I read 12 and have added 65.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bfisher

This year I wanted to clear at least 75 books off my TBR. I read 12 and have added 65.

I've only added 30 books or so to my TBR pile this year. I win!



I hope you find more reading time next year.

[Rumpelteazer]

Yesterday I finished The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter. Which means that not only have I reached my goal of 40,000 pages I've also surpassed the number of pages I read last year. The latter I hadn't expected to achieve, since I've had a couple of slow months.

[BookJunkieLI]

This year has been interesting for me. I had plans to do various sub-goals and reading challenges but that was all completely derailed when issues at work, starting in April, caused my work week to jump from 50 hours to 70 hours plus until late June. And then it was August before I picked up another published book.

My two big goals this year were reading 100+ books and keeping my reading spread evenly between new reads, rereads, and fanfiction.

It looks like I should just squeak by on the goal of 100 books. I'm currently at 93 novel length books with 3 more currently in progress, 2 of which I expect to finish by Friday.
Current statistics are:
38 New Read novels
23 ReRead novels
32 Fanfiction novels

Unfortunately, due to all of the short story and novella length fanfiction I read when I wasn't reading published books my Page and Word counts are skewed heavily towards the fanfiction. Oh well.

[CRussel]

I completely lost track in the last 3 weeks. I got carried away buying books (I know, different thread), and didn't get any of either the purchasing or reading recorded. Now I don't really remember either. Sigh.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I completely lost track in the last 3 weeks. I got carried away buying books (I know, different thread), and didn't get any of either the purchasing or reading recorded. Now I don't really remember either. Sigh.

That's why they call it a challenge and not a walk in the park. But I'm right there with you.

Goodreads makes it easy for me to keep track of my reading. I find it takes less effort to check the website (or there's the app, but I prefer the web page) for a title and add it that way as I start it, than to maintain a list manually.

The mess I have to deal with at some still-undetermined point in the future is Calibre maintenance, which I haven't been able to do for months. I have dumped each title into it as I bought it, but none have been tagged or gotten my own metadata or had their covers fixed.

Continuing to buy books even as I can't read them is another issue entirely.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by issybird

That's why they call it a challenge and not a walk in the park. But I'm right there with you.

Goodreads makes it easy for me to keep track of my reading. I find it takes less effort to check the website (or there's the app, but I prefer the web page) for a title and add it that way as I start it, than to maintain a list manually.

The mess I have to deal with at some still-undetermined point in the future is Calibre maintenance, which I haven't been able to do for months. I have dumped each title into it as I bought it, but none have been tagged or gotten my own metadata or had their covers fixed.

Continuing to buy books even as I can't read them is another issue entirely.

Goodreads doesn't much work for me. It's ANOTHER step. Calibre is where I do my book management, except it doesn't really handle audio books well. But at least whenever I get a new book, I suck it into Calbre (removing any DRM in the process, of course) and then Edit the metadata, update covers, etc. And convert it if I happened to get it from Kobo or other ePUB source.

The problem is that I haven't had a column for date started/date finished, so stuff got lost easily. And while I have the cost in Calibre (except the audio cost), that's less useful than it could be if I don't get it over on to the Challenge list.

If Calibre had a way (other than "blank" books) for Audio books, that would be a huge help. But the only plug in that exists is old, not apparently supported, and doesn't do even close to what I want.

[Tarana]

Still 14 books short of challenge.

Just finished the audiobook Charming by Elliot James. I wanted to really like this (the narrator was great), but it's just an average read. It's Dresden Files-like so if you like that kind of urban fantasy, you should give it a shot.

A couple of days ago, I finished The Island by Michael Stark. This was apocalyptic, which is not something I usually read. However, he was quite good with descriptive suspense. Kept me reading. This is a 5 part book that came out in 2013, but you can now get all 5 parts together at Amazon. I plan to get the next book (technically book 6 but a complete novel), but I'm not in a hurry as there will be 2 more books after that to complete the series. So, I wishlisted it for next year.

[orlok]

Finished my 2016 challenges successfully.

Books read = 82 (75 was the challenge)
Page Average = 308 (300)
Something for Everyone challenge = 40 (40).

[issybird]

Originally Posted by orlok

Finished my 2016 challenges successfully.

Congrats!

[drjd]

I guess the time has come to sum up my reading activities in 2016. This year I took part in the reading challenge for the first time, and decided a personal goal of 120 books to be read during the year. Now the December is nearly ending with a festive week on hand, I have finished my 121st book today, and I hope to read at least one more in the coming week. So I may conclude that I cleared the race in a photo finish moment.

My TBR was literally scary in the beginning of 2016, 1458 Ebooks and 29 Pbooks. I had wished long to mercilessly shred the TBR off the freebies and some purchased books I was carrying, which I really did not wish to read now. So I did the surgery, and cut down my TBR to a reasonable and respectable level, ie., in three figures. Finally I have come down to 971 Ebooks and 21 Pbooks now.

Another achievement, I restricted my wild ebook buying habits in full control this year and bought only 17 ebooks in comparison to 186 I bought in 2015.

So all in all, it was a 'feel good' year for me!

2017 will be a dull year for my reading because I am aware of my future engagements in other activities of life, and therefore I'll reduce my reading target to 100, which will be even difficult for me to achieve, but I hope for the best.

I wish everybody a happy reading year in 2017.

[issybird]

^^Good for you, Doc!