The 2020 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[pdurrant]

Here we are, the end of another month. 7/12ths of the way through.

"My goal is to buy fewer books than I read"

So how have I done? Not too badly at all!

Bought Books (Jan-Jul): 8, 6, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6: Total 37
Books Read (Jan-Jul): 4, 15, 9, 12, 16, 14, 17: Total 87

My buying has been low, and my reading a little above average.

My TBR pile now stands at 933.

(Just finished another book. 932!)

[HLS]

Just finished Rose Madder/ I skipped over a big chunk for King in my opinion got a littl too wordy and i got bored and wanted to finish by today. Still a good book but he got a little wierd like he did in the Talisman and could not take it. lol Still reading The Terror by Dan Simmons. Je wiz its a long book

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by HLS

I use audiobooks to help get threw those long books like The Terror over 900 pages. i could never read that and finish otherwise

Me too. I can't read enough to get through the long, long books. Audiobooks are key here. Also, I found that the voice that reads text-to-speech books on my Echo is quite pleasant. So less robotic than other programs.

[Tarana]

End of the month and how am I doing? First, well past the minimum goal of 3,000 pages.

Ebooks - Currently 55 over beginning of year. Down 10, so progress!
Audiobooks - Currently 14 over beginning of year. Down from 26 over so getting better here too!

August is my Western month. Last year, it was the Sacketts' by Louis L'Amour and it was hard to read other westerns without getting the plots confused. So, this year it's Frank Leslie (Yakima Henry) followed by Jonas Ward (Buchanan). Mom doesn't want any more westerns, so I'm only acquiring the final 2 books being published in Aug. and Sept to finish out the series.

[astrangerhere]

Through the end of July 2020:

Goals:

Length Goals:
Total Books: 50 (stretch goal of 75) | Total Pages: 25,000 | ETBR Reduction: 25 | PTBR Reduction: 10
Substantive Goals:
Read at least 51% non-American authors | Read more female/nonbinary authors than male | Read at least 52 short stories | Read at least 10 of the New Leaf Book Club/Literary Book Club selections

Cumulative 2020 Totals:

67 books - 134% of my goal (89% of stretch) - GOAL MET / Stretch Goal On Target
36 short stories - 69% of my goal - On Target
20021 pages - 80% of my goal - On Target
58% female/nonbinary authors / 42% male authors - On Target no change from June
36% US authors / 64% non-US authors - On Target
ETBR Reduction: Reduced by 20 - 80% of my goal - On Target
PTBR Reduction: Reduced by -28 - ABANDONED - my wife has been buying a few books a week from our local independent bookstore to support them while they are closed due to Covid-19. She plans to keep this up until they are able to re-open, so my print TBR goal may just be shot for the year. Still, worthy cause.

Overall TBR Reduction 28 - reduction of Ebook TBR and Audiobook TBR. I have removed paper books from the calculation for the reasons above

[Paperbackstash]

Behind with reporting, but....

June Recap - Books Read: 10

E-books: 4
Kindle Unlimited: 3 (and 1 audio from it, technically 4)
Scribd Audiobook: 0
Audible Audiobooks: 1 (from KU)
Paperback: 5
Hardback: 0

This month KU paid for its monthly price since I read 3, and did a free audiobook.

This month my monthly price on Scribd was wasted since I did not use it at all

• I no longer have an Audible membership but the use of it with the free KU book was a delight with The Butterfly Garden (recommended)
  
• Overall, a lighter reading month. I read more Paperbacks than anything else.
  
• I finally started a Karin Slaughter Series (Blindsighted). The book was good but did not blow me away, her writing and themes tend to be ultra depressing.
  
• Oath Sworn by Kristen Banet is part of a fun KU Urban Fantasy find, like the world building and have now read the series (trilogy) while waiting for the fourth to come out. Same for Spiked by C.P. Rider, Ebook, KU, which is another fun series I am now working on that has three books.
  
• Soap Making: 365 Days of Soap Making by White Lemon, E-Book was a cheap ebook I counted as non-fiction reading goal (cough), but it's not a recommended guide, better to pass on this one.
  
• I added a cozy to my cozy mystery goal with Buried in a Book by Lucy Arlington, Paperback, which is sadly not recommended as a good book or series starter either.
  
• I've been doing well this year with my Scribd Audiobook goal for Perry Mason, but this month I read an old paperback I owned for it, which was a delight - Perry Mason: The Case of the Stepdaughter's Secret (Paperback)
  
• I finally read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Trade Paperback -- good book, but not as good as Sula.

If I rated my progress and experience, and enjoyment this month, I'll go with 5/10

I did however buy plenty of sales and deals

I also now have a new Oasis 3 which I'm enjoying =)

[Paperbackstash]

July Recap - 21 Books Read

E-books: 9
Kindle Unlimited: 5
Scribd Audiobook: 4
Audible Audiobooks: 1
Paperback: 7
Hardback: 0

This was a varied and good reading month. I'm happy with my goals, variety, and enjoyment of new books. Rating of the month for progress and experience is 8/10

My subscription to Kindle Unlimited was worth it this month with 5 read

My Scribd Audio subscription was worth it this month with 4 audiobooks

I listened to an Audible Audiobook from a gift (no membership, so n/a on that one)

Yearly goals met or almost met this month
Read more Noir and Hardboiled crime detective fiction. Goal: 10/10
Continue the Perry Mason Audiobook Marathon on Scribd. Goal: 9/10

Yearly goals I had progress on
Read more Water-Themed horror backlog for eventual website feature. Goal: 1/5
Get caught up on some cozy mysteries backlog. Goal: 10 Series Firsts Trials. Progress: 7/10


Book Breakdown/Thoughts

I was in the mood for mysteries, and a few re-reads, and more horror lately. This is in thanks to a few sales. For bookish news I bought a batch of 6 books (trade paperback) due to a July 4th sale from Flametree Press.

I re-read a few this month.

• Dracula was a re-read to read the audio version, and also see the Kindle-in-Motion pictures
• The Amityville horror (horrible book this time around, the writing style, ugh!)
• Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine - was in the mood to re-read this one
• Beginnings by Kelley Armstrong, Paperback, even better the second read

I had fun with the Scribd Audio

I listened to the Noir classic Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, and 3 Perry Mason books: The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe; The Case of the Substitute Face ; The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

Cozy Mystery wise, I own several paperbacks of the Cat who.... series. I finally read one, out of series order, for a Goodreads challenge. The Cat who Sang for the Birds was okay, but if I don't like the first of the series more than this, I will likely discard the remaining paperbacks for shelf space. A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie - I'm a Poirot fan through and through, but this was a surprisingly good Miss Marple

I finally read a Historical Romance for my yearly goal, one by Johanna Lindsey, and enjoyed it quite a bit -- I have plenty of her to read that's been sitting on my shelves. This one in particular is Tender is the Storm

I can recommend The Culling Trials, Ebook, KU, as a great trilogy to read -- all in one book form, from K.F. Breene and Shannon Meyer, had a lot of fun with this one

[Rumpelteazer]

I had an okay month this August. I had hoped to be able to finish my current book before the end of the month, but that isn't happening.

I did finish my goal of reading 52 books, I'm hoping to read at least 75 by the end of the year now. The average length of the books I read is 364, which is only a couple of pages under my average, so that isn't too bad either. I was able to read 2522 pages and seven books. Mostly because I was house sitting and I didn't take any other hobbies with me. On the other hand we had an eighteen day heatwave, sitting still and reading was one of the few things that was tolerable to do, but the reading was slow because it was hard to concentrate.

My favourite read was David Hewson's The House of Dolls, first book in the Pieter Vos series. I put off starting this series for a long while, since I'm Dutch and regularly go to Amsterdam and often non Dutch authors writing about the Netherlands often doesn't ring true to me. But I really liked this book and it felt it portrayed Amsterdam is a realistic way.

In the next week or so I should be able to finish listening to Stephen King's It, I count the pages of the paperback towards my reading goal. That's over 1100 pages, so that's nice for my page count in September.

[astrangerhere]

Through the end of August 2020:

Goals:

Length Goals:
Total Books: 50 (stretch goal of 75) | Total Pages: 25,000 | ETBR Reduction: 25 | PTBR Reduction: 10
Substantive Goals:
Read at least 51% non-American authors | Read more female/nonbinary authors than male | Read at least 52 short stories | Read at least 10 of the New Leaf Book Club/Literary Book Club selections

Cumulative 2020 Totals:

75 books - 150% of my goal (100% of stretch) - GOAL MET / STRETCH GOAL MET
39 short stories - 75% of my goal - On Target
22759 pages - 89 of my goal - On Target
62% female/nonbinary authors / 38% male authors - On Target 2% increase since June.
38% US authors / 62% non-US authors - On Target
ETBR Reduction: Reduced by 22 - 88% of my goal - On Target
PTBR Reduction: Reduced by -28 - ABANDONED - my wife has been buying a few books a week from our local independent bookstore to support them while they are closed due to Covid-19. She plans to keep this up until they are able to re-open, so my print TBR goal may just be shot for the year. Still, worthy cause.

Overall TBR Reduction 32 - reduction of Ebook TBR and Audiobook TBR. I have removed paper books from the calculation for the reasons above.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

My TBR pile now stands at 933.

(Just finished another book. 932!)

927 now!

I'm doing OK.

[Tarana]

3,000 pages per month : Met again this month! Almost 6,000 pages!
Ebooks - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: +65 Not so good. All but one on good sale at least.
Audiobooks - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: +0 Haven't met but I'm now no higher than beginning of year.
Magazines - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: +1

Short stories and Novellas: finished 67 so far this year! I might still hit 100 this year.
August is my Western Month and I finished almost 10 westerns.

Very much enjoying my stories this year. Not too many 1 or 2 star. I returned a couple to Audible as not for me. I decided on total pages vs. number of books because I was trying to get a lot of short stuff finished this year. I did a lot of rereading earlier this year (2 series), so now it's all new books.

Plans for September are continuing on Shannara series, Clover Myrtle series and lots of random books.

[issybird]

My reading challenges for this year have been a failure. I blame the coronavirus. Why not? I do think it’s responsible at least in part, as stress has led to my reading a lot more junk than I ordinarily do.

My specific categories have not worked out at all, which is a pity as I always feel I get a lot from targeted reading. But in trying to salvage what I can, I’ll note that I’m well ahead of my benchmark rate in terms of total books read. And while I never have a specific goal in terms of TBR reduction, it is going down, albeit slowly, and this will be the fourth year in a row. Unfortunately, it seems obvious I won’t hit my goal of reading everything I’ve bought this year, although I’ll end up the year having read more of my purchases than typical. Another situation where I did fine through March and then lost it.

It occurs to me that with one-third of the year to go and with the onset of fall after the summer that wasn’t, I might productively set a few mini-goals to achieve by year’s end. I have to give this some thought.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by HLS

Just finished Rose Madder/ I skipped over a big chunk for King in my opinion got a littl too wordy and i got bored and wanted to finish by today. Still a good book but he got a little wierd like he did in the Talisman and could not take it. lol Still reading The Terror by Dan Simmons. Je wiz its a long book

Oh, me too with that one. It was fine and actually quite good until the last quarter, then it just got weird and kept dragging. (Rose Madder)

The Terror IS long but I love it and it keeps growing on you

[pdurrant]

A bit of a milestone - I've added 48 books to my TBR pile this year so far, but I've removed 144 - three times as many!

And more than that - I've bought 41, but I've read 88 - more than twice as many!

(The different numbers are because some books get added as freebies, and some books gets discarded unread.)

My best numbers for years. Possibly ever.

[Fbone]

I weeded down my library to books mostly likely to be read. The number currently stands at a manageable 92.