The 2020 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[library addict]

I set some general goals and planned out 7 reading challenges with 20 books each. I want to keep my goals lighter for next year as I have some big projects that will impact my reading time.

[tourneur]

Will take part for the first time here, looks like fun! I will go for a book a week, so 52 books.

[pdurrant]

Welcome to the challenge thread. I hope you find keeping track enjoyable.

[CRussel]

Well, I signed up again, but I confess I'm not sure how active I will be with it. I was doing well at keeping up to date until mid-summer this year when "life" took over all my spare time. I had time to read, but NOT time to update here. And I found a clear majority of my reading was "comfort re-reads", not anything new and definitely not anything challenging. Sad, but hardly surprising given how I've spent the last 7 months. OTOH, a lifetime of voracious reading has given me a huge back catalog of books to re-read, so that's the good news.

[astrangerhere]

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

January Totals:

0 books - 0% of my goal - Ready to start!
0 short stories - 0% of my goal - Ready to start!
0 pages - 0% of my goal - Ready to start!
0% female/nonbinary authors / 0% male authors - Ready to start!
0% US authors / 0% non-US authors - Ready to start!
ETBR Reduction: Reduced by 0 - 0% of my goal - Ready to start!
PTBR Reduction: Reduced by 0 - 0% of my goal - Ready to start!

[pdurrant]

Some posts here have been moved to the List Thread, where they can be updated to track goals.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Apache

My goal next year is to just read. I do not care how many books I read, just that I enjoy them.

I suspect that enjoying the books we read is a goal of all of us as well.

[Apache]

It seems to me that if you spend the majority of your time tracking all of the minutiae of your book reading experience your are spending more time tracking than actually reading.
Apache

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I suspect that enjoying the books we read is a goal of all of us as well.

The point of goals is that they add to the enjoyment!

Originally Posted by Apache

It seems to me that if you spend the majority of your time tracking all of the minutiae of your book reading experience your are spending more time tracking than actually reading.
Apache

Well, "majority of your time" is obviously hyperbole; that said, it's a trivial amount of time to look up a book at Goodreads and click currently reading when you start a book and then click read when you're done. Goodreads does all the work.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by Apache

My goal next year is to just read. I do not care how many books I read, just that I enjoy them.
Apache

That’s a good goal. I should try that too.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Ginwen

I’m shooting to read about 78 different things this year.

What a wonderfully specific challenge!

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Apache

It seems to me that if you spend the majority of your time tracking all of the minutiae of your book reading experience your are spending more time tracking than actually reading.
Apache

Seems that way, but it is also part of the enjoyment. Goals actually help me to read MORE than no goals. Based on my family's history, I have about 18 years left to read all the ebooks/audiobooks I bought already that I have not yet read. My current estimate is that it will take 6-7 years to read/listen to everything already purchased if I buy nothing else from today onwards.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Byrdie

52 BOOKS

This year I want to:

1: Finish all the Miss Marple books remaining in my TBR pile. I started the series back in April but got distracted halfway through. 7 more ought to do it.

2: Read 3 non-fiction books.

3: Borrow more books from the library instead of buying and therefore increasing my TBR list. Not sure if freebies and Kindle Unlimited count as buying, though.

4: Read at least 3 books considered to be classic literature.

An impressive list of goals! I especially like 2 and 4. I might try to do that myself. There are lots of classic books from the 19th and 20th century that should be very good reads.

As for 3, it's really up to you what you count as buying. Personally, I've stopped getting freebies unless I would have bought them if they had been on offer for £0.99.

Welcome to the 2020 challenge group.

[jbcohen]

Does seem that way however, the enjoyment here is seeing if I can reach my goals. I don't get very far into the minutiae, as I define it. I don't really have the time to get that far into the details. Its sort of a two list thingy, the ones I have read on the top and the ones that I am working on the bottom.

How many of us reached our goals for 2019? I pledged 135 books and would up at 95. However this year I have latched on to a series called Space Force that should carry me all the way to the goal posts and beyond. Thus I am a bit more hopeful that I will obtain my goals this year. After all I am already up to book number 15.

Originally Posted by Apache

It seems to me that if you spend the majority of your time tracking all of the minutiae of your book reading experience your are spending more time tracking than actually reading.
Apache

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

Last year was a poor reading year for me; I went from over 100 books completed in 2018 to just over a dozen in 2019. I'm hoping to get back into reading again and at this point, I'm hoping to at least double my tally.

12 books a year is the average reader in US. So at least you haven't fallen below average!