The 2012 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread!

[Nyssa]

According to Good Reads I am 9 books (11%) behind in my overall goal of 85 books this year.

[victauria]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Is everyone at the 1/3 mark of their goals or do you need to spend some quality time with your books this weekend to get there before the end of the month?

According to Goodreads, I'm at 60%...it recommends increasing my goal! But for my first challenge year, I'll stick with my basic outline. I'm doing great by the numbers, but not so great (at all) with the clearing out paper books.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

According to Good Reads I am 9 books (11%) behind in my overall goal of 85 books this year.

Make that 8 books (10%).

[orlok]

I'm 3% (2 books) behind, but I do have 3 on the go simulatneously (1 novel, 1 non-fiction and 1 audiobook), so hope to catch up suddenly . But I'm doing a lot more writing and therefore less reading, so this year's challenge is going to remain just that, a challenge, which I might not make this year.

[Polarpenguin]

I'm 8 books ahead, but that includes 3 shorts. Am slacking on the read more Classics part of the challenge though.

[rpmazur]

Am I the only one doing a page count this year?? I also have some specific series that I want to read. Just wondering.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by rpmazur

Am I the only one doing a page count this year?? I also have some specific series that I want to read. Just wondering.

No, I'm doing a page count as well as specific series. I just didn't feel like calculating the percentage.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by rpmazur

Am I the only one doing a page count this year?? I also have some specific series that I want to read. Just wondering.

I am doing a page count goal too.

[paulsalter]

How do you know how many pages you have read ?

I use goodreads which gives me books read, but the pages read is wrong as many books dont have a figure for number of pages

I read a lot of short stories, so pages read might be better for me than books read

[Dazrin]

I use several ways to get a "good" page count.

• I get most of my books from Amazon and they often will give an "estimate page count" for e-books even if they don't have a print book to go with them.
• Goodreads has a lot of page counts for books, even if it isn't the same version some times. I have chosen to use the mass market paperback counts when available to get a somewhat consistent number.
• If those two don't work, I estimate the length based on the number of locations in the book. I think locations are a Kindle specific item (not sure), but there is probably something similar in other e-books that could be used. I have kept track of the books where the pages are known and use that as an estimate for the weighted average locations/page (between 16 and 19 works for me).
• An alternative way if you use Calibre is the "page count" plugin that estimates the page count. I don't use this one since almost everything I have is straight from Amazon, I don't normally bother downloading everything to Calibre.

/If anyone knows what other formats/readers use instead of locations I would be interested.
//Thanks.

[jbcohen]

Boy you are really scientific about the page counts. I don't think that I could be as accurate as you are Darzin. The major reason that I am not meeting my goal for this year is because I have been reading such door stopper novels. I really like the Empire of Man series however its a real door stopper like the other one that I have picked up, the ring of fire series volume three the Baltic War.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Boy you are really scientific about the page counts. I don't think that I could be as accurate as you are Darzin. The major reason that I am not meeting my goal for this year is because I have been reading such door stopper novels. I really like the Empire of Man series however its a real door stopper like the other one that I have picked up, the ring of fire series volume three the Baltic War.

Well, like I have said, I am an engineer and tend to get a little (lot?) anal about some things.

Estimating the page counts from locations (item 3) is completely automated for me now, so it really isn't much work anymore. Getting there was fun too. It is easy for me to get motivated when something benefits me in multiple areas.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Goodreads says I'm 13 books ahead of schedule, but I am definitely slowing down and looking at an ugly coast to the finish line. I think I started too fast. I've read 9,323 pages this year or about 65% of the 50 books I am aiming for. Of course, what is on that list is always in a bit of a state of flux.

I try to get the correct edition of the book I read from Goodreads and use that as my page count. Like Dazrin, I will use the mass-market paperback when I can't find a correct version or I'm reading the e-book. Then I'll calculate back for books I'm part way through to the current page of for my spreadsheet.

[MrsJoseph]

I'm doing pretty good right now! It says I'm at 12,150 pages but that's not accurate. I have at least one huge DNF in there.

[jbcohen]

How many of us think that we will cross our finish lines by December 31st. I have been trailing where I need to be in order to cross the finish line in time consistently by approximatly three books all year long. I will most likely come up short this year.