The 2015 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[jbcohen]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I am finally back on track to reach my goal of 200 books by the end of the year. I've completed 113 books so far and I expect to finish one or two more by Sunday morning. (I use a Sunday through Saturday week for my accounting purposes.) I'm 'way ahead in my total pages goal. On track would be 28767 pages as of today, and I'm already at 32,744. (I update the page count when I complete a book.)

I need to put a little bit more focus on my series completion goal when I select my next book to read. I have 8 remaining books in the Elm Creek Quilts series and 10 remaining books in the Brother Cadfael series. With 5 months left in the year, I do need to make sure I prioritize these books over the new releases.

200!! Wow, that puts my goals a little bit in perspective, I am chearing about getting to 100 and here you are 113, Wow.

Will probably get to 100 next month.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

200!! Wow, that puts my goals a little bit in perspective, I am chearing about getting to 100 and here you are 113, Wow.

Will probably get to 100 next month.

The only competition is with yourself. There are so many factors affecting one's reading, including available time and preferred reading, that any comparison with another's rate of progress is absurd. Heyer is not the equivalent to Heidegger.

This thread is great. It serves as a goad, a reality check, a record. It also creates a sense of common effort; we're all in this together. But to use it as a way to feel superior or inferior to another person is a gross misuse and serves no purpose at all.

So good on both of you, proceeding apace to meet or exceed your goals. That's all that matters.

As for me, I'm ahead on my total reading, but that's less important to me than my subgoals, which are languishing a bit. The situation can be redressed, but I need to stay focused. I'm a little too prone to go for the light reading option (hence the inflated total) than the substantive one. Summer just seems to cry out for beach reads, but it's also the time of year when I have more time and energy for serious reading.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Right now myself is beating me senseless. I've completeled seven books since the beginning of May. I had been running at about seven books a month before that.

I might be out next year as I think I'm suffering a bit of burnout. I feel like the five year old that realizes there actually is a limit to the number of cookies one can eat.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Right now myself is beating me senseless. I've completeled seven books since the beginning of May. I had been running at about seven books a month before that.

I might be out next year as I think I'm suffering a bit of burnout. I feel like the five year old that realizes there actually is a limit to the number of cookies one can eat.

I think many if not most of us have a series of spurts and lags. The tricky thing is formulating goals that support but don't chafe, ones that encourage you to reach for the piece of fruit rather than the cookies, at least some of the time.

Just as an aside, I've learned about myself that the second year of a goal, whether I succeeded or failed the first year, never goes well. Boredom, burnout, whatever. But I'm a slow study at that, as I'm already contemplating extending one of my subgoals this year into next....

[Geralt]

This year I've read more in half a year than I have for the entire 2013 and 2014 since I've been tracking my books on GR. Over 13000 pages, compared to around 11500 in 2014 and 12500 in 2013.
The biggest reason for this have been audiobooks. Thanks to buying Sansa Clip Zip I'm able to listen anytime. I had iphone before Sansa, but it was too heavy to carry around doing physical activities.
I've read
5 short stories (I consider a short story anything under 30 pages)
2 novellas (anything above 60-100 pages)
32 books

The longest book I've read is 1200 pages. And my average is 340 pages.

I still maintain I'm not doing any challenge, but I am doing good imo.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

200!! Wow, that puts my goals a little bit in perspective, I am chearing about getting to 100 and here you are 113, Wow.

Will probably get to 100 next month.

Originally Posted by issybird

The only competition is with yourself. There are so many factors affecting one's reading, including available time and preferred reading, that any comparison with another's rate of progress is absurd. Heyer is not the equivalent to Heidegger.

As for me, I'm ahead on my total reading, but that's less important to me than my subgoals, which are languishing a bit. The situation can be redressed, but I need to stay focused. I'm a little too prone to go for the light reading option (hence the inflated total) than the substantive one. Summer just seems to cry out for beach reads, but it's also the time of year when I have more time and energy for serious reading.

I definitely agree with issybird here. 200 books is quite a stretch for me, but I wanted to pick a goal which would challenge me. Since I started keeping records in 2005, the most books I've read in a year is 160. Last year I read 154 books.

Next year I'm going to set a very modest goal for total number of books read, but will have several subgoals like the "Eclectic Reader" challenge that I'm participating in this year. The subgoals click in when it's time to pick the next book to read.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

200!! Wow, that puts my goals a little bit in perspective, I am chearing about getting to 100 and here you are 113, Wow.

Will probably get to 100 next month.

Just compare yourself to those of us whose goal is 50 and you'll feel better.

One year I may make it to 200...a year where I only read 100-page children's books!

[CRussel]

What issybird said. This isn't a competition (thank goodness! I have enough competition in my life.) On total read, I'm doing quite well this year. I was way down in the spring--a combination of work pressures and burnout--but I'm back on track. The sub-goals, however, are proving a bit more challenging. I'm doing _somewhat_ better at recording my purchases and reads, but not as well as I would like. This all too easily leads to inaccuracies when I finally get around to catching up. I need to keep working on that.

As for burnout? We all go through it at times. Personally, I think this is your brain telling you that you need to do something else for a bit. When I hit a patch like this, I up the exercise and switch to "old favourites" to read.

[jbcohen]

Originally Posted by CRussel

What issybird said. This isn't a competition (thank goodness! I have enough competition in my life.) On total read, I'm doing quite well this year. I was way down in the spring--a combination of work pressures and burnout--but I'm back on track. The sub-goals, however, are proving a bit more challenging. I'm doing _somewhat_ better at recording my purchases and reads, but not as well as I would like. This all too easily leads to inaccuracies when I finally get around to catching up. I need to keep working on that.

As for burnout? We all go through it at times. Personally, I think this is your brain telling you that you need to do something else for a bit. When I hit a patch like this, I up the exercise and switch to "old favourites" to read.

The way I avoid the burnout is I keep changing genres all the time. Sometimes I am in terrorism thrillers, sometimes I read thrillers and sometimes I read Sci-Fi. I have been reading everything I can get my hands on since I was in pre-school (taught myself to read)and suffered from burnout once.

[Rumpelteazer]

I'm going well. So far I've read 62 books and will finish another one tomorrow. I'm only a couple of hundred pages behind on last year, but I've read several hundred more than in 2012 and 2013.

I've also read three 700+ page books, so I'm on target of reading 4 of those this year.

I've also added an August challenge. I love horror and ghost novels and usually save them to read during vacations or other special occassions but they've been piling up on my TBR list. So far this year I've read, on average, 9 books a month. In August I want to read at least 5 horror, ghost or scary novels. I'm still dog/house sitting for over a week and a half so I should be able to get a good start.

[pdurrant]

Another month gone. How am I doing?

My goals for 2015:
1.To read my 54 unread ebooks from 2005 and 2006.
2.To spend no more than £25/month on ebooks on average over the year.
3.To reduce my TBR list in calibre to below 700.

1. I've done really well on. Only half a dozen more to go, so I'm probably going to try to get through half of 2007's unread ebooks too.
2. I'm doing OK on this, but I need to watch myself over the next five months, because I've been over budget the last three months (although I am still under budget on average).
3. And here's where I have real problems. I'm going to end this month nine up on the year, at 759 ebooks in my TBR. I still think I might make my 700 target by the end of the year, but I was hoping I'd be a lot closer by now.

Overall: Good!

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

3. And here's where I have real problems. I'm going to end this month nine up on the year, at 759 ebooks in my TBR. I still think I might make my 700 target by the end of the year, but I was hoping I'd be a lot closer by now.

I could fix this problem. I've discovered that you can delete books from Calibre.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

I could fix this problem. I've discovered that you can delete books from Calibre.

Delete? No, I never delete them. But I sometimes have to mark some 'already read', and I occasionally just take some off my TBR if I don't think I'll ever want to read them

But the vast majority of my books I take off the TBR pile by reading them.

[Stephjk]

Originally Posted by Stephjk

Halfway through the year and I'm eight books behind on my goal - really must spend more time reading than looking at t'interweb!

Just had a pretty good month, only five books behind now!

[reise]

My progress so far: It's been a slow month for me. The PKD Anthology is taking longer than expected. At this point, I don't think I will complete my challenge. I'm okay with that. My goal was to get back to reading.