The 2014 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread!

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Clearly, you go back to the shop give them the one you have already got, and buy the one you haven't. If you're lucky they'll just let you swap them.

Different shops, sadly. I'll just pass this one on to another charity shop, and hope the other one is still there next time I visit that town, which is probably unlikely. I might have to count the cost of the book as the sum of the two purchases. It would still be one of the cheapest Christies I have.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I have only seen one episode of Sherlock and I thought it was brilliant. Unfortunately it was the final of series 2 (I think). I must try to borrow the DVDs from the library, if I can find the time to watch them!

I think Sherlock is brilliant, and would strongly recommend that you make the effort to get hold of all three series. If anything series 3 is even better than 2, with some real character development - I was blown away.

My challenge is really lagging - I haven't been reading as much as usual due to other pressures and distractions. I've only read 5 out of my 75 challenge, and am 3 books behind according to GR.

[pdurrant]

I'm doing OK on my challenge. I'm only $10.41 over budget at the moment, which isn't ideal, but is mainly due to some unmissable bargains on series I will enjoy reading over the next few years.

Even counting those series, I'm doing well on my TBR - currently two down for the year, at 798. (58 removed, 56 added). Admittedly, 22 of those books removed were short stories, but I'm still pleased.

Now all I have to do is keep control of my spending for February and March, and I'll be almost back inside my budget.

[jbcohen]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm doing OK on my challenge. I'm only $10.41 over budget at the moment, which isn't ideal, but is mainly due to some unmissable bargains on series I will enjoy reading over the next few years.

Even counting those series, I'm doing well on my TBR - currently two down for the year, at 798. (58 removed, 56 added). Admittedly, 22 of those books removed were short stories, but I'm still pleased.

Now all I have to do is keep control of my spending for February and March, and I'll be almost back inside my budget.

If you looked at your TBR stack on a per page basis, pages removed - pages added = ? What is the value of ?

[Tizzalicious]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Even counting those series, I'm doing well on my TBR - currently two down for the year, at 798. (58 removed, 56 added). Admittedly, 22 of those books removed were short stories, but I'm still pleased.

If it's going down, you're doing well!

I am doing really well on my challenges too. I am way ahead of schedule with my 75 books a year, and I have read a book from the "1001 list" every month. More than one, even.

The Bible is going well too. I'm at 74% now, reading 1% a day, so it shouldn't take long before I finish.

As for clearing out my TBR...I have read 29 books and bought only 2 this year, so that is definitely going well too.

[Tarana]

I'm doing well on my short story/novella goal. I have a lot of them in my Audible account, so I'm listening to them in the morning with my coffee. Most are pieces I have no interest in ever listening to a second time, so I'll get them deleted out of my library so I don't have to keep scrolling through them in my Audible listening apps.

Speaking of Agatha Christie, one of my morning audiobooks is an autobiography by Agatha. The recording is poor, so hard to listen to, but interesting because her focus is on her writing and writing choices. One of the few that I will keep.

Started Blood Rites, a Dresden files book, #6! Only 8 to go. Well, 9 if you include the one coming out in May.

[Tizzalicious]

A little something for us all!

[Katsunami]

LOL

I'm doing OK as well. I've set a goal of 14.600 pages (counting at 2400 characters per page). This means:

- 14,600 pages in a year.
- 1,217 pages in a month.
- About 3.5 novels of 350 pages a month (which is a "normal" book, IMHO)
- Yoshikawa's Musashi (~1200 pages) will take me a month
- Clavell's Tai-Pan (~1200) will also take me a month.
- Together, Musashi and Tai-Pan equate 7 normal novels.
- My subchallenge (reading 6 non-fantasy novels, and 6 classics by 6 different authors) is 12 books in total, which will take me 3.5 months to finish. I might opt to go for shorter than normal books. Most of the challenge of the non-fantasy books will be filled in by the five books from the Hitchhiker's trilogy, for a total of 705 pages. (Yeah. A trilogy of five books.)

As I don't want to make subchallenges overlap, I can't file a book under "non-fantasy" and "classic" at the same time; I must actually plan what I read to be able to meet the subchallenges. Reading something like War and Peace this year would be a bad idea

At this point in time, I've finished five novels, am 75% through my sixth, and the projection is that I will succeed in this years challenge, reading 15,622 pages.

===

For some reason, I'm on a Shannara re-read streak.

After finishing "Heritage of Shannara", I immediately followed that up with "The voyage of the Jerle Shannara", and "High Druid of Shannara". This makes 10 Shannara books in a row. Normally, I don't do that. When finishing my current book (Straken, High Druid of Shannara 3), I'll have re-read every Shannara book I also owned in paperback (before giving them away).

I'll turn my attention to something else for a while, probably the Professor Challenger stories. When I return to Shannara and Word/Void, the books will all be first-timers for me.

[Rev. Bob]

I'm hanging in, but I've used up my early lead. I've just started the sixth book of my mini-challenge (RBR, "12 TBR books you've had for at least a year"), meaning I've made some headway in the Ent cemetery. In addition, finishing this book will mark two series I've "put to bed" this year, catching up with completed series (Staked and Dog Days). That's not all I've read, of course, but being the smaller goal and having a distinct checklist, it's the easiest to track.

What I'd like to do is finish enough physical books to move one full stack from a wobbly spot into storage - or at least into the spot where the RBR challenge books currently rest. If I count it strictly, that's about 20 books, but a more realistic count is more like 35 - to include a couple of subsidiary stacks of "gonna get to these Real Soon Now" books. I've got some extra incentive on one of those, as it's written by an author I've recently corresponded with and finishes a series.

Of course, the damning thing is that I can make an excellent case for why almost any of the books in my stacks should be next on my list...and too many good choices is almost as bad as no choices at all. It's the old "analysis paralysis" problem, and usually winds up in me sticking with New Shinies instead of digging into the older stacks...

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'm plugging away. I have a feeling that this year's challenge might end up running into next year, but that's okay. This isn't an easy list to get through this year.

Currently I'm in Peru. Country number two from South America. I need to get out of South America and the Caribbean by the end of March and I still have eight titles to read before I even get to Africa.

[Yapyap]

I'm glad I was ahead on all reading counts in January as I've slowed down considerably in the last week or so, having several days with no reading at all.

Between too-long work days, taking care of an elderly post-surgery cat and the Olympics (which I didn't actually plan to watch but I've been too tired to read), there's just not been enough time or enough umph for reading.

I hope to get back on the right track in another week or two, though...

[CWatkinsNash]

Other than skimming the last half (finally) of a book I started in December, I wasn't reading at all this year until recently. Weekend before last I was too sick to do much of anything, so I grabbed my Nook and started reading the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. I'm about 1/3 through book #4 now.

[Tarana]

For some reason, I'm on a Shannara re-read streak.

I tried to do that. I ended up returning the 35th Anniversary audiobook of Sword of Shannara. The annotation was SO annoying and didn't add anything to the tale. So, I returned that to Audible and will get the regular audio version. I don't think I ever read/listened to the High Druid series. Can't remember why. I've read the original trilogy, the Heritage of Shannara and the Genesis trilogy. Read and did not like the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy (mostly the final book I didn't like). I have the audiobooks for Dark Legacy, but haven't gotten around to listening to them. Well, I'll get back to it after I finish Dresden.

BTW, I once named a kitty Crispin because I thought it was so unfair that such a valiant elf was killed off in 3 chapters.

Anyway, currently listening to Blood Rites, Dresden Files book 6 and The Day of the Jackal on the ereader (mystery club selection). Then I have to spend some time with my SF and mystery magazines.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I'm glad I was ahead on all reading counts in January as I've slowed down considerably in the last week or so, having several days with no reading at all.

[snip] too-long work days [snip]

I hope to get back on the right track in another week or two, though...

This^ Very Much This^!!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I have the audiobooks for Dark Legacy...

I have the e-books, but I won't read them yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Brooks#Bibliography

I decided follow that reading order, with the difference that I'm reading The Word and The Void after High Druid of Shannara.

The reason is that I didn't have those books in paperback, and I wanted to finish a re-read all of those as ebooks first. In Voyage and High Druid, Brooks starts to refer to "The Word" frequently, without explaining it. (I think he also mentioned it in earlier books, but much less often.)

I assume it was a teaser, meant to suggest that the "The Word and The Void" series, released just before, were actually the very beginning of Shannara, which later was confirmed by Genesis and Legends.

While I know this already, I haven't read those works yet. I've read the original trilogy, First King, Heritage, the short stories, Voyage and High Druid, in that order.

After High Druid, I'll read something else for a time, and then I'll continue with The Word & Void, Genesis, Legends, and Dark Legacy.