The 2020 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

Finished my 20th book. Hurray for me.

Yay!!!!

[DrNefario]

I finished the last of my sub-challenges yesterday. I'm pleased with that, although there are two more unofficial annual traditions I'm still working on (read a Nevil Shute book from my late father's collection, and read a piece of Proper Literature™ (a classic or lit-fic award-winner)). I should probably make them official next year.

It looks like I'm going to fail my main challenge (read twice what I buy), even if I count that big storybundle as 1 purchase. I guess I'll feed that into next year's goals.

[jbcohen]

What will your 2021 goals be? I will push out my goals by approximately forty books from 95 books up to 130 books. I will most likely add a number of series read. This is when I read the entire series starting at one going through the last.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

What will your 2021 goals be? I will push out my goals by approximately forty books from 95 books up to 130 books. I will most likely add a number of series read. This is when I read the entire series starting at one going through the last.

Probably the same thing as this year. 20 books.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

What will your 2021 goals be? I will push out my goals by approximately forty books from 95 books up to 130 books. I will most likely add a number of series read. This is when I read the entire series starting at one going through the last.

I'm likely to aim for 130 as well. I'm at 126 for this year, 104 of which I've read since September, so it should be a manageable goal spread more evenly throughout next year

[Tarana]

Not changing mine as I seem to have difficulty meeting my reduction goals. This year I will finally meet the novellas/short stories goal. I had considered making a goal to listen/read to a very long book already in library every month, but not convinced I can actually meet that next year.

[astrangerhere]

Length Goals:

• Total Books: 75 (stretch goal of 100) (up from 50/75 last year)
• Total Pages: 25,000
• E-TBR Reduction: 25
• Print-TBR 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 books across all my collections that are my wife's or that she wants me to read.

[pdurrant]

The 2021 List thread is now up. (Thanks to Luffy for the reminder.)

Go now and reserve your spot!

[pdurrant]

Time to review. How did you do? Do you enjoy your reading in 2020?

For the first time, I did splendidly. 117 books removed from my TBR pile!

So I start 2021 with just 901 books on my TBR pile!

[astrangerhere]

I reduced my electronic TBR by 47. I abandoned any Pbook TBR reductions because my wife and I have bought 1-2 books a week from our local indie bookstore since April to help keep it afloat while it was closed during the pandemic.

I am starting the year with exactly:

• 700 Ebooks unread
• 90 Audiobooks (mostly free) unlistened to
• 580 Pbooks unread (though many of those I would count as my wife's books. I keep it all in my total as it keeps me honest about the volume of material I have at my disposal)

[Byrdie]

2020 Reading Challenge Report Card:

Total Books Pledged To Read: 52

Actual Books read: 56. Pass. I even finished 5 weeks ahead of schedule, then binged on fan fiction, mostly Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Harry Potter and The Mandalorian from Ao3.

Sub-challenges: Finish the 7 Miss Marple books in my TBR list. Grade: Fail. I only managed 1 before I got distracted and chased after Poirot instead. Half-marks maybe, since I read 3 Agatha Christie's in all this year.

Read 3 non-fiction books. Grade: Fail. I only managed 2. And added maybe half a dozen more to my TBR pile.

Read more borrowed books in 2020. Grade: Pass. Many of this year's list reads were library and Kindle Unlimited loans. That said, I did splurge at a few book sales, especially Smashwords back in March. Oops?

Read at least 3 books considered to be classic literature. Grade: Pass. Actually doubled it if we're counting "The Mysterious Affair At Styles" and "The Poisoned Bride And Other Judge Dee Mysteries".

Icing on the cake: Exceeded my expectations by 4 books, and read 2 comic books, something I hadn't done in ages because it's very difficult for me now that I can't see to read those in paper format and they don't always display right on my screen. Sucked that I had to read the online instead of downloading to my Kobo because of whatever DRM the publisher or whomever insisted the library use for these particular titles so I couldn't take as much time as I'd like with them. On the other hand, reading in the Overdrive browser meant I did not lose out on the color, which is really necessary for most comics and finishing them in a day meant other people on the wait list got them a lot sooner. Which I suppose counts as a win.

Conclusion: I did better than I thought in some areas, not as good as I'd hoped in others. The pandemic and resulting lockdown gave me more time to spend with my books but I actually got less reading done because I had a whole bunch of non-Covid related health issues, my own and other family member's, to deal with. Hopefully 2021 will see improvement all around. Now if only I can decide what to read next year ...

[Tarana]

December and End of Year Wrap Up

3,000 pages per month : Met this every month. WIN!
Ebooks - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: +172
Complete fail although half the number of purchases as last year.
Audiobooks - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: -1
Complete Fail. I was -13 until the final Member Sale at Audible, so progress as all but one purchase was part of series already reading.
Magazines - TBR Reduced by 10; Current: -2
Fail, but will make a special effort next year. I cancelled all subscriptions so at least it is not going up.

Standalone Short stories and Novellas: 101 read! Goal is 100. WIN!!!

Completed 7 series which varied between 3 and 55 books.
Diskworld - Terry Pratchett
87th Precinct - Ed McBain
Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Shannara world - Terry Brooks
Myrtle Clover series - Elizabeth Spann Craig (up to what I owned-book 12 I think)
Fables of Tonight - Mike Resnick (RIP Mike!)
Chronicles of St Mary's - Jodi Taylor

So, overall, good reading progress but too many purchases. Need to get that TBR down! Goal next year is to continue to try to limit purchases to authors/series I already have that require fill-in and only when on a dirt cheap sale. I will continue another year of avoiding borrowed books to focus on books that I own.

[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

Cumulative 2020 Totals:

111 books - 222% of my goal (148% of stretch) - GOAL EXCEEDED / STRETCH GOAL EXCEEDED
52 short stories - 100% of my goal - GOAL MET
34537 pages - 138% of my goal - GOAL EXCEEDED
63% female/nonbinary authors / 37% male authors - GOAL EXCEEDED
31% US authors / 68% non-US authors - [B]GOAL EXCEEDED
ETBR Reduction: Reduced by 38 - 122% of my goal - GOAL EXCEEDED
PTBR Reduction: Reduced by stopped counting (-48) - ABANDONED - my wife has been buying a few books a week from our local independent bookstore to support them while they are closed due to Covid-19. She plans to keep this up until they are able to re-open, so my print TBR goal may just be shot for the year. Still, worthy cause.

Overall TBR Reduction 48 - reduction of Ebook TBR and Audiobook TBR. I have removed paper books from the calculation for the reasons above.

[Paperbackstash]

I got behind in tracking monthly the past 2 months and behind in general with spreadsheet.

Total Read: 230
Goodreads Yearly Goal of 200 Met
Re-Reads: 35

Rental Services
Kindle Unlimited Read: 51
Scribd: 30

Format
E-Book 62%
Mass Market Paperback 15.3%
Hardcover 2.3%
Audio 18.1%
Trade Paperback 1.9%


Author Gender Ratio:
56.3% Female
40.5% Male

Time Period Main Setting
Contemporary 79.4%
Historical 7.7%
Retro 10.5%
Future 1.9%

Original Acquisition Source
Amazon 54.2%
ARC Mailed 1.4%
Mob 4.6%
Audible 4.6%
Library Sale 2.3%
Used Bookstore 15.7%
Scribd 13.9%

Genre Breakdown:
Horror, 55, 25.6%
Romance, 51, 23.7%
Mystery, 51, 23.7%
Urban Fantasy, 28, 13%
Drama, 8, 3.7%
Nonfiction 6, 2.8%
Gothic 6, 2.8%
Science Fiction 1.9%
Western, 2, 0.9%
Fairy Tales, 1, 0.5%
High Fantasy 2, 0.9%


Diversity
None - 63.4%
Race 4.3%
Combo 10.8%
LGBTQIA 11.8%
Disability 2.2%
Mental Illness 7.5%

Romance Breakdown (Genre Specific)
LGBT - 25.8%
Reverse Harem - 7.6%
Straight - 66.7%

Rating Breakdown
1 - 3
1.5 - 0
2 - 11
2.5 1
3 - 48
3.5 - 3
4 - 58
4.5 - 5
5 - 9


YEARLY GOALS
Gothics 2/5 - Fail
Used Bookstore Trip - Success
Re-Read 5 Barbara Michaels - Complete Fail
Catch up on Alex Delaware series - 5/10 , Half Success
Hercule Poirot Catchup - Fail
Cozy Mystery Backlog - Not full goal but success
Noir and Hardboiled- Success
Perry Mason Audio Marathon - Success
Romance Harlequin Backlog physical copies - Fail
Historical romance backlog physical copies - Fail
Theme: Water themed, 2/5, fail
Sci-Fi horror genre mix - 2/3 - success
Halloween related anthologies - Success
Anthologies - Partial Success
Nonfiction - Partial Success
High Fantasy and Sci-Fi (Non-Horror) - Fail
Christian Theology - Fail
Classics - Fail
Graphic Novel/Comic Starters - Fail
ARC Backlog from Silver Shamrock - Partial Success
Netgalley Backlog - Fail

[DrNefario]

Is it time the 2020 threads were unstickied?