The 2014 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by CRussel

You shouldn't beat yourself up, Nyssa. You got the thread going, and got us all started down the right track. And I well understand a reading slump. For me, what usually works is to reread a favourite series, but we all have to find our own way through it.

I'm at 149 books this year, one short of my stretch goal. It's good that I got here early, because it's knitting season, and I can't knit and read at the same time. Except reading audio books.

Thank you so much CR.

Congratulations on [almost] meeting your goal, and with time to spare! Audio books do count, by the way.

[CRussel]

To celebrate hitting my stretch goal, I chose to read South Coast (Tales of the Shaman #1), the latest book from Nathan Lowell as the 150th book. I expected it to be one I would thoroughly enjoy, and I was not disappointed. Very much in the mode of his other books - no overt violence, no real evil characters, but conflict and problem solving in a nicely paced, enjoyable read. Lowell is a consummate story teller, and this is a good story, and the perfect book to read for my 150th book of the year.

[Hampshire Nanny]

I'm blowing away my book goal this year. I've completed 144 books toward my goal of 150, and with the long holiday weekend and a "Giving thanks for books" read-a-thon over the weekend, I should roll into book 150 early in December. I am, however, a bit behind on my pages read goal. I set a companion goal of 50,000 pages (an average of 334 per book) to keep myself from padding out the count of books by reading lots of short works. I'm currently at 45,199 pages (average of 312 per book). I'm confident that I will complete the remaining 4800 pages. Two of the books I'm reading are pretty hefty -- 480 and 656 pages.

My subgoals were to read all the way through three series that I had started a while back. I finished two of them: Aunt Dimity mysteries and Kitty Norville paranormal and urban fiction. I'm 1.5 books away from completing the Honor Harrington military SF series.

I have declared 2015 to be "The Year of Juvenile & YA Fiction", so I will be increasing my book goal significantly to account for the lower average page count in books for young people.

Originally Posted by CRussel

I'm at 149 books this year, one short of my stretch goal. It's good that I got here early, because it's knitting season, and I can't knit and read at the same time. Except reading audio books.

I'm also knitting. Right now, I'm about 1/3 of the way through a sweater for my granddaughter. While at home, I knit when watching TV. When I'm on a business trip, I listen to audio books while knitting.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I'm also knitting. Right now, I'm about 1/3 of the way through a sweater for my granddaughter. While at home, I knit when watching TV. When I'm on a business trip, I listen to audio books while knitting.

I'm knitting an Aran vest, for myself, out of some lovely Blue-faced Leicester I got last year. Wonderful soft, strong wool, easily the nicest I've ever worked with. And I knit while I watch curling, the OTHER Canadian winter sport. And while I read audio books, of course, on those weekends where there is no curling.

[jbcohen]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I'm blowing away my book goal this year. I've completed 144 books toward my goal of 150, and with the long holiday weekend and a "Giving thanks for books" read-a-thon over the weekend, I should roll into book 150 early in December. I am, however, a bit behind on my pages read goal. I set a companion goal of 50,000 pages (an average of 334 per book) to keep myself from padding out the count of books by reading lots of short works. I'm currently at 45,199 pages (average of 312 per book). I'm confident that I will complete the remaining 4800 pages. Two of the books I'm reading are pretty hefty -- 480 and 656 pages.

My subgoals were to read all the way through three series that I had started a while back. I finished two of them: Aunt Dimity mysteries and Kitty Norville paranormal and urban fiction. I'm 1.5 books away from completing the Honor Harrington military SF series.

I have declared 2015 to be "The Year of Juvenile & YA Fiction", so I will be increasing my book goal significantly to account for the lower average page count in books for young people.
I'm also knitting. Right now, I'm about 1/3 of the way through a sweater for my granddaughter. While at home, I knit when watching TV. When I'm on a business trip, I listen to audio books while knitting.

Blew my goals away back in June and I am still going. I am going to try for that 100 books read, although I doubt that I will get there.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Last month. Time to start looking at the results and make a number for next year. My number is going to be low: 30 books.

Just trying to finish up number eighty for this year. Seventy-one different countries.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Last month. Time to start looking at the results and make a number for next year. My number is going to be low: 30 books.

Just trying to finish up number eighty for this year. Seventy-one different countries.

That seems low for you and makes me wonder what the other component of your challenge will be, they are generally very interesting. Or are you planning on an easy year to make up for all your travels this year?

[Tarana]

I'm still a little behind on my reading goals (and am realistically looking at reducing my goals for next year), but I think I will still make the main one of 120 books this year. I'll be finishing both a book and audiobook today, so that helps.

I'm switching to simple ribbing on my socks so I can use up this fine yarn that I have and actually have warm socks to wear! Then, I can knit and listen at the same time.

[Hampshire Nanny]

If you need ideas for challenges, check out the various reading/book challenges for 2015 listed at A Novel Challenge blog.

I'm only 3 books from meeting my goal of 150 books in 2015. I should finish two of those in the next day or so. I set a secondary goal of 50,000 pages and I still have 3200 pages to meet that goal. There should be little problem completing that many pages by 31 December.

I also have one more book to read to finish reading all of the Honorverse novels -- well, all of those which had been published by the 31st of January.

I have decided that I'm going to put a big focus on tween/middle grade and teen/YA books in 2015. Accordingly, I'm setting a goal of 200 books with at least 100 tween-to-teen books. Same goal of 50,000 pages since the juvenile books have much smaller page counts.

I'll also set a "complete the series" goal with a couple of series which have at least 10 books in the series and which I started reading prior to 2015.

Beyond these, I'm still looking at some of the challenges listed at A Novel Challenge

[pdurrant]

It looks like I'll make my main challenge, of keeping my ebook spending under $480 for the year.

It required great retraint in the last quarter, but the end is now in sight.

I've also made one of my subsidiary challenges: To read all my unread bought books from 2003 and 2004.

I've almost made my other subsidiary challenge: To read all the books I buy in 2014, unless doing so would mean reading a series out of order, or would mean reading a series too fast.




I'll have to set tougher challenges for next year, or my TBR will never go down.

[sakura-panda]

According to Goodreads, I'm currently 5 books behind beating my best-read-year-total of 94 books. I am okay with that.

In fact, I am *sooo* okay with that, I have started yet another book (to now have six consecutive books ongoing) so that I have no chance of accidentally finishing any one title before the year is out.

(I just realized that we are in the last month of the year! When did that happen? I think it is funny that I'm adding books to read now even though I have several already started and only a month to finish up my tally for this year. Normally I don't add any books after Thanksgiving so that I can try to finish up as much as possible what I've already started.)

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

That seems low for you and makes me wonder what the other component of your challenge will be, they are generally very interesting. Or are you planning on an easy year to make up for all your travels this year?

Haha. I set the bar a little high the last two years. I will definitely be making up for this year. Next year is just a few simple challenges. Challenges have curbed my bookclub participation too much and I will try to get to more bookclub reads. I should have kept my challenge to 50 books and not the 70 I aimed for this year, but I kept finding interesting reads for countries.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'll have to set tougher challenges for next year, or my TBR will never go down.

I have not enough time, and the last few weeks, after finishing Musashi, I have chosen to spend the time I have otherwise, only reading on my very short 25m commute.

Thus, I'm about 7,000 pages behind in my main challenge, and I'm not going to make half of the secondary challenges.

Also, I've found it a chore having to NOT read fantasy when I want to read Fantasy, or having to read X, trying to meet a challenge, while I'm in the mood for Y.

I'm going to axe the challenge. Again, just like last year's.

Next year, I think I'm not going to set a challenge apart from reading 30 pages (using my own page count) a day. That is one hour of reading, and would mean I'd read 14.600 pages in one year, comparable to my current challenge. I'm not going to set other challenges. That would be 48 normal sized books.

If I fail that challenge next year, again, I obviously don't have enough time to read, and then I'll delete all ebooks from my computer, disconnect from the internet, leave IT, and go to work as a toothpick counter. Or something... Maybe I'll just go stark raving mad

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It looks like I'll make my main challenge, of keeping my ebook spending under $480 for the year.

I like the idea of setting a dollar limit on the books you buy. This year, I simply said, "I will avoid buying any new books of any format unless I'm spending a gift card." I didn't quite live up to that because I bought a couple of books from Baen and I let myself be tempted by bundles at Phoenix Pick. But I did pretty well over all.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Also, I've found it a chore having to NOT read fantasy when I want to read Fantasy, or having to read X, trying to meet a challenge, while I'm in the mood for Y.

Next year, I think I'm not going to set a challenge apart from reading 30 pages (using my own page count) a day. That is one hour of reading, and would mean I'd read 14.600 pages in one year, comparable to my current challenge. I'm not going to set other challenges. That would be 48 normal sized books.

If I fail that challenge next year, again, I obviously don't have enough time to read, and then I'll delete all ebooks from my computer, disconnect from the internet, leave IT, and go to work as a toothpick counter. Or something... Maybe I'll just go stark raving mad

So far, I've only set "quantity" reading goals. So I'm not faced with the "but I don't want to read a classic" issue. I read what I want, when I want. I did name 3 series that I wanted to finish in 2014 and I will pick 2 or 3 more series for 2015. But these are high-interest series that I've already read the first 1-4 books of and know I should enjoy the subsequent books.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Next year, I think I'm not going to set a challenge apart from reading 30 pages (using my own page count) a day. That is one hour of reading, and would mean I'd read 14.600 pages in one year, comparable to my current challenge. I'm not going to set other challenges. That would be 48 normal sized books.

That's basically the approach that I have enjoyed the last few years.

While I have really enjoyed following HIMS travel challenge and some of the other unique ones here I prefer the keep it simple approach for my own goals. A yearly page challenge which pushes me a little and allows me to read whatever length books I want combined with some long term goals that mostly let me read whatever genre I want at any given time while forcing me to read some things that are new or are a little out of my comfort zone.