The 2017 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

How far are you along in reaching your goals? At this point to be on track you need to be 1/6th to your goal, I am 1/2 way, in other words I am going along a lot faster than originally thought that I would go.

I'm 2/3s of the way through my main goal of reading a book a month. It was attainable as long as I made an actual point of reading this year.

I have a semi-secondary goal, that I put back on page two of this thread, of completing books that I started and stopped over the years, or simply have had for a while and never cracked them. I haphazardly listed nine. I've finished two, and am close to halfway through a third. The one I'm currently reading, and the one I'll likely start after completing it, should be added to that list.

-HM

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

How far are you along in reaching your goals? At this point to be on track you need to be 1/6th to your goal.

We've got another week until we should be 1/6th of the way to our goal!

But I suppose it's a good idea to see how we're doing. Let me see. My goal is to end up with at least 47 fewer books in my TBR pile than at the start of the year. To be 1/6th of the way along, I should be 8 books down by the end of the week. I'm currently seven books down, and I expect to finish my current book today.

Hmm... I thought I was doing better than that, but I must have been fooling myself. I shall have to resist bargain books even more!

But I'm doing a lot better than this time last year, when my TBR had grown by 17. And that's despite my reading seeming to be a lot slower this year than last (only 25 finished this year, compared to 43 this time last year).

[Ravensknight]

I am right on target. I am waiting for "something" to happen though and throw me for a loop...

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

How far are you along in reaching your goals? At this point to be on track you need to be 1/6th to your goal, I am 1/2 way, in other words I am going along a lot faster than originally thought that I would go.

Since this is the first time for me, I made it pretty easy on myself goal wise. Just recording monthly books read ( average 4 per month ) My goal was to read more Nonfiction & Biographies this year. So far I'm doing well with a few Nonfiction, and one Biography. I also read some historical fiction. I'm just glad I've remembered to add them to the challenge thread so far.

[astrangerhere]

I'm doing better than expected. I'm 16 books in (should be 18 by the end of the month). To reduce my TBR, I just needed 5 books a month. I have a good spread of genres, but I still need to get out of my own country a bit more.

[Rumpelteazer]

I'm doing okay, looking back at my statistics February is hardly ever a good month for me. With various things planned for tomorrow and Monday I don't think I will be able to finish my current book, so I'll come it just under average for this month.

I had several series that were nearly finished on my active list; 3 that only had one book left and one that had two books left. Since I was procrastinating, so I decided to make a mini-challenge out of it. To finish all those books, though I am allowed to read a free choice book after two series books. So far, I've read two of those five books and one free choice and I am working on the third. Hopefully I can finish them in the next two weeks. I still have the second book in the Commonwealth Saga duology to read, however I know that I need to be both in the mood for both a sci-fi and 1200+ page book before I can tackle that one.

[sun surfer]

1/6 through the year is technically on the 2nd of March just before 8 p.m., so we all get a little more time on our first sextant than it first appears.

Originally Posted by jbcohen

How far are you along in reaching your goals? At this point to be on track you need to be 1/6th to your goal, I am 1/2 way, in other words I am going along a lot faster than originally thought that I would go.

I'm doing good almost entirely because of my increased audiobook listening; I've finished two ebooks and five audiobooks, putting me currently one ahead of schedule according to Goodreads.

I've hit a wall though since starting the Dune audiobook to work towards my winter goal of finishing Dune before the end of March. I had been choosing easier audiobooks and thought Dune despite its length would be easy enough too, but oh it is not. I generally prefer not to find out anything else about a book once I know I want to read it, so all I vaguely knew was that this was a sort of fantasy/sci-fi set on a desert planet that I had the impression of being colourful and fun. It may be, but trying to listen to all these weird names and the history and politics and strategies and war goals and schemes pretty much from the first is difficult. I've had to rewind and repeat so much and I'm still somewhere in the beginning. I am finally starting to understand more and go a little faster though, so I still think I'm on track; the book is just more complicated than expected.

Oh, and despite the good voice work, this audiobook only adds to the confusion. It has a main narrator with other actors voicing particular characters. Though it is 'unabridged', I have found by comparing it to online preview text that it actually cuts out tiny segments of the book. For instance, the book might contain something such as (I'm making this up but it's close enough) - "He said, 'Go,' gruffly and then laughed." The audiobook changes it the the actor only saying 'go' in a gruff voice and then laughing so you only hear the word 'go' narrated. I really don't know if other audiobooks do this but I realised it in this one because in the beginning there were long dialogue sections where the people were just talking back and forth to each other with absolutely no other narration but the dialogue and I thought that seemed odd for a book so I compared it to text online and found the truth. While I'm not terribly fussed about this since it is still more or less unabridged, it somehow seems a little disingenuous to me.

Besides that though, the main audio confusion is that the separate voice actors must have originally been hired to narrate for an abridged dramatised recording of the book, because some chapters contain the voice actors while others contain the single narrator voicing all the characters. It is very jarring and at first I was extremely confused. The first narrator-only chapter, I thought it was completely new characters and had to slowly and confusedly realise what was going on. While I like having an unabridged version and I like separate voice actors for different characters for greater immersion, I definitely do not like this frankenstein combo. I'd rather just have the one narrator do the entire book than have to switch back and forth.

Originally Posted by issybird

I see Dune has several narrators. You can really crank it up for Scott Brick, is all I'm going to say.

I'm assuming since he's listed first that he's the main narrator. I've actually slowed down the narration for this to 75% so I have to rewind less, so it's like I'm listening to Dune on Downers.

[CRussel]

On schedule for 150 books this year, if I can keep this up. Should actually be doable. Doing fairly well at not buying books I won't read, but not so well at reducing my TBR.

Weak link? Still slow to enter and track my books. But we're getting better.

[KenFisher]

It looks like I will hit my target in about May this year. I will make secondary goals of completing the Dune trilogy (Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are left) and listening to the first 3 books of Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles (The Skystone, The Singing Sword and The Eagles' Brood).

Ken

[Tarana]

I was ahead. Now I'm on goal. Lost of a lot of listening time in February due to illness. Just couldn't focus on a plot.

[drjd]

Month of February is over, and I have finished 17 books in the last two months against my annual target of 100 books. Exactly as I envisaged for my monthly schedule. I am happy. The TBR has reduced to 953 form 969 in the beginning of the year. Besides, I bought only one book this year and added only 3 freebies! How disciplined am I ... (so far)!

TBR - 953 Ebooks, 20 Pbooks, 41 in Wish list.
Books bought this year - Ebooks 1, Pbooks 0, Freebies 3.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by drjd

Month of February is over, and I have finished 17 books in the last two months against my annual target of 100 books. Exactly as I envisaged for my monthly schedule. I am happy. The TBR has reduced to 953 form 969 in the beginning of the year. Besides, I bought only one book this year and added only 3 freebies! How disciplined am I ... (so far)!

TBR - 953 Ebooks, 20 Pbooks, 41 in Wish list.
Books bought this year - Ebooks 1, Pbooks 0, Freebies 3.

Congrats on being on schedule.

Though, I have to say, 953 books is a helluva TBR.

I have 21 pbooks, 12 short stories, and about 65 ebooks on my TBR. I started the year with 116 on the TBR and am now at 98.

[DrNefario]

I'm tending to read longer books this year, so progress is a bit slower, and my TBR is suffering a bit, but I'm not too concerned yet. My spending hasn't exactly been out of control.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Congrats on being on schedule.

Though, I have to say, 953 books is a helluva TBR.

I have 21 pbooks, 12 short stories, and about 65 ebooks on my TBR. I started the year with 116 on the TBR and am now at 98.

Thanks, astrangerhere, and congrats to you too for keeping your TBR clean!

I am happy that I have controlled my ebook buying habits and I'm keeping my TBR below 1000 in any case. I was worried in the beginning of 2016 when I started participating in the reading challenge thread, when I realized to have a TBR over 1500 books! But seriously keeping the tracks of my reading activities, well over 120 books in 2016, and keeping my hands tied not to buy more books which I may not read immediately, have helped me out. I ruthlessly pruned down my TBR throwing away a lot of freebies and ebooks bought in a spree, and brought it below 1000. Now I have promised myself to keep it down below the four-figure-mark and gradually reduce it by reading 100+ every year. I guess I am still packed for the next 10 years! I can't do any magic because I really want to read the remaining books and it will take time. I have to be patient!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by drjd

The TBR has reduced to 953 form 969 in the beginning of the year.

Congratulations! A definite achievement.

My TBR is on the way down too - currently ten down on the start of the year!