The 2025 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[DJUNGELSKOG]

50% done with my Mobileread TBR reduction challenge.

34/60 books read year, 7 in Dutch and 27 in English.

I keep failing miserably at reading my own books instead of borrowing from the library.

[Tarana]

60 books: 32 Still on goal
20,000 pages: 12,977 Still on goal
4 books over 600 pages: 2 Still on goal

Read 4, bought 6. Needed to use up my remaining credits at Audible. Very much enjoyed The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson so used 2 credits for the final 2 books. For August, I'm primarily reading unread magazines. I have not put a dent in that collection for years.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In June I bought 10 and read 15. Another step in the right direction.

In July, I read 16, but bought 38. Whoops.

20 of them were the first 20 Charles Paris mysteries by Simon Brett. Another five were Kazuo Ishiguro books on special offer.

But however I look at it, July was not a good month for my goal of reducing my TBR pile.

[sakura-panda]

I caught up on all my book club books and and now I'm only one book away from matching my number of books read in 2024.

2021: 83
2022: 42
2023: 31
2024: 23

I'm excited that I'm breaking away from the reading fewer books each year trend!

[Dazrin]

I had a good July, lots of reading while on vacation or traveling for work. I have 4 books in progress right now that will get me over my goal if I complete them in order. I doubt I will though since 2 are books I started with kids during drives and I am not sure when we will be able to continue them. I'm sure I'll finish the others soon though, so hopefully I'll finish either this month or next.

[sakura-panda]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

I caught up on all my book club books and and now I'm only one book away from matching my number of books read in 2024.

2021: 83
2022: 42
2023: 31
2024: 23

I'm excited that I'm breaking away from the reading fewer books each year trend!

I finished book #23, the number of books I read in 2024. On my way to reading more than 2023!

[Tarana]

Still meeting my goals.
60 books: 41
20,000 pages: 15,010
4 books over 600 pages: 2
10 Magazines: 4

Overall in August, for books I acquired 6, read 7, DNF'd 2. Completed 4 magazines (for some reason, bought twice so counted both) and several short stories. So a small win this month in knocking down Mount TBR.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In July, I read 16, but bought 38. Whoops.

In August I bought 8 and read 16. Progress! But I'm still up 27 from the start of the year. Perhaps I'll break even by the end of 2025.

[DrNefario]

I'm doing OK on most of my goals, but I think I'm likely to fail at least one of my purchase-related goals.

My headline goal of reading more than I buy might be OK, although I am behind (and cheating by not counting bundles), but it's getting into dangerous territory.

My other target of starting at least 50% of my new purchases is possibly dead in the water. I've started 16 of 68, right now, so even if I don't buy any more books, I need to start 18 more new books to hit 50%. For me, that could easily be 3 months' reading, and there are only 4 months left in 2025. It doesn't leave a lot of margin. This was already a reduced goal from previous years, too.

There are two issues: Firstly, I'm not very concerned about the money. Compared to my other hobbies it's basically nothing, so why not just buy? And secondly, my other goals are conflicting; leading me to dig deeper into my back-catalogue rather than read the new stuff.

[issybird]

I hit my 120 books read benchmark last night; that’s generally not a problem for me although this is early this year. I’m slightly ahead on my travel and Music of Time challenges but my doorstop challenge is dead in the water. I’ll never make that one, although I’m trying to resolve to push forward, knowing I’ll fall short but with the goal of salvaging more from the challenge than the two books I read before I fell off the cliff.

[Tarana]

Slowed up towards the end of September. Been spending more time with my Mom and we watch TV together. Books and pages total still achievable but I think I won't get 2 over 600 pages done before the end of the year.

2025 Goals

60 books: 48
20,000 pages: 16,603
4 books over 600 pages: 2

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In August I bought 8 and read 16. Progress! But I'm still up 27 from the start of the year. Perhaps I'll break even by the end of 2025.

In September I bought 10 and read only 8. Reading was a bit slower than usual due to two large non-fiction books.

I shall have to do very well indeed to break even by the end of the year.

[DrNefario]

My purchase goals are doomed. I might have to add a target to read some 2025 purchases to next year's challenge.

- Read more than I buy - I am already at 85 purchases, which is more than I have read in any year since 2019. There's an outside chance I can still pull this off, but I think it's unlikely.

- Start more than 50% of my 2025 purchases - No chance of this, since I'm about to take up a Kindle Unlimited offer which will see the year out. I've been running at about 25% for months, so I need to read 20-plus purchased books to bring it up to 50%. I expect I will read 3 or 4 more, with most of my reading being KU.

- Reduce my paper TBR - A bit more surprising, this one, but I have ended up buying a few big coffee-table books which I'm not likely to finish (but have started). And two weeks ago I impulse-bought 3 cheap paperbacks in a sale. Again, I'm now unlikely to read them because I'll be concentrating on KU.

My other goals and challenges are all good. Two letters to go in the Alphabet Challenge.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

In September I bought 10 and read only 8. Reading was a bit slower than usual due to two large non-fiction books.

I shall have to do very well indeed to break even by the end of the year.

In October I bought 11, and got two freebies, and only read 11.

And I've already bought 7 in November.

I think I will fail to meet my TBR reduction target this year.