The 2024 Annual Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

[pdurrant]

2024 Reading Challenge Discussion Thread

Welcome to our 15th Annual Reading Challenge!

Maybe you would like to read a certain number of pages this year, finish a certain number of books, concentrate on a specific genre or deplete your ever-growing TBR list. Maybe you're looking for ideas or you just want to see how far you can go…

This is the thread where we can share our personal goals and strategies or ask for suggestions and support. New ideas are encouraged and always welcomed.

The Annual Reading Challenge is not a race, nor an “exclusive club”, anyone can join! This is just a fun activity that some of us have enjoyed doing in the past. Many of us have found reading challenges to be an entertaining way to set goals for ourselves, get ideas for books, and see what others are reading.

You are welcome to keep track of the books you have read (or another goal) in the List Thread, here:

2024 Annual Reading Challenge List Thread

Plus, if you would like to discuss a particular book, please participate in the Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading? thread and share your thoughts about the book with others

[astrangerhere]

These are my provisional 2024 goals:

Length Goals:

• Total Books: 50 (stretch goal of 75)
• Total Pages: 15,000 (stretch of 20,000)
• Read 25 books from my ETBR (stretch of 50)
• Read from Print-TBR: 10

Substantive Goals:

• Read at least 51% non-American authors
• Read more female/nonbinary authors than male authors
• Read at least 52 short stories
• Read at least 52 poems
• Read at least 10 books across all our collections that are selected by my wife. It's a great way to read things I would not ordinarily do, and I almost always end up enjoying them. List of books will be added as soon as my wife selects them.

[issybird]

I've been so satisfied and successful with my challenges this year that I think I'm essentially going to carry them forward with only one major change: swapping out Mitteleuropa for pre-20th century America. Excluding the major wars, although if one sneaks in that's ok.

Minor tweaks: I took an axe to my Goodreads WtR list today and removed 20 titles; I'll come up with a number for further reduction or perhaps do a total purge at next year's end. It's now down to 32 and they don't reflect much of anything; false starts, a friend's recommendation, something else random. One of my pet puzzlements are people who have thousands, sometimes over 10,000, WtR books. What's the point? So I'm hoisting my minimal WtR pennant. The books I axed are still on my TBR; I just don't see myself getting to them soon.

I've never done one before but I may do a buying challenge, as in, not buying anything that isn't going to be read in the very short term. Even if it's wishlist, it can wait for the next sale.

Still refining; talking to myself here.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by issybird

I've been so satisfied and successful with my challenges this year that I think I'm essentially going to carry them forward with only one major change: swapping out Mitteleuropa for pre-20th century America. Excluding the major wars, although if one sneaks in that's ok.

Minor tweaks: I took an axe to my Goodreads WtR list today and removed 20 titles; I'll come up with a number for further reduction or perhaps do a total purge at next year's end. It's now down to 32 and they don't reflect much of anything; false starts, a friend's recommendation, something else random. One of my pet puzzlements are people who have thousands, sometimes over 10,000, WtR books. What's the point? So I'm hoisting my minimal WtR pennant. The books I axed are still on my TBR; I just don't see myself getting to them soon.

I've never done one before but I may do a buying challenge, as in, not buying anything that isn't going to be read in the very short term. Even if it's wishlist, it can wait for the next sale.

Still refining; talking to myself here.

I have a list of exactly 25 books that I want to read next year. I had a list of 24 this year and I read 20 of them. Mind you, I will have read more than 100 total by year end, but still not all from that original list of 24.

I have a spreadsheet of all paper and electronic material in the house and every 6 months so I go through it and flag things as priority. That's my go-to "short list" when I don't know what I want to read. So my list of 25 this year is everything I have marked priority in the last year that I didn't get to.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I have a list of exactly 25 books that I want to read next year. I had a list of 24 this year and I read 20 of them. Mind you, I will have read more than 100 total by year end, but still not all from that original list of 24.

I tend to have categories that are important to me and not specific books. Still, there are a few exceptions; I'll give this some thought, perhaps coming up with a very short list of high priority books. It would fit in with my pre-20th century novel challenge; there are some doorstops that I've been planning to read or reread for years. Not forgetting Clarissa!

And... while I've expressed an intention to carry forward with most of my challenges, that makes them less of a challenge! So, as a challenge that would truly challenge me and reap rewards, I'm contemplating a poem-a-day challenge. But I'm also afraid that I'd be overcommitting; poetry is hard. There's no point to knocking off a poem in the five minutes before I go to bed. Well, maybe there's a point, but it's not the point.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by issybird

Not forgetting Clarissa!

Also looking forward! I've a nice little checklist in the back of my Daybook to keep me on track with the readings.

[bookaho!ic]

Looking forward to this managed 111 this year so far goal was 110

[issybird]

I'm going with fewer challenges this year plus my usual benchmark for total reads. I had too many challenges last year (although it worked out) and there was a frantic element to trying to keep up.

So, three themed challenges of which two (the ancient world and pre-20th century fictiion) are the same as last year; I'm not ready to let either go. The third is pre-20th century American history other than the wars -- although if a war sneaks in, that's ok. Twelve books in each category; there's also my usual benchmark of 120 books read.

I may reassess at the half-year mark, especially if I'm getting tired of a theme. The issue is that I tend to read more junk in July and August and I try to build up a cushion before then, so switching a theme at that point could be difficult. I'd like to remember that December also is problematic when it comes to reading and it would be good to be essentially done by early in the month, especially not to have any long books hanging. Right now, I feel I'm in mopping up mode which keeps me from diving into new challenges.

[BenBanned]

Attempting to read and review 52 western novels this year. Posting the reviews on my YouTube page to keep honest
( https://youtu.be/3vaJmtG-5yo?si=E3K5CFGtChHE5hUi )

Otherwise I'm looking to read as much fiction as possible this year. I'm not a very fast reader but I'm aiming for 75 books more or less.

[pdurrant]

One month down, are people having fun?

I've had some good reads, and I end January with my TBR down by 3.

[Byrdie]

I think I set a record for Most Books Read In One Month this year -- a whopping 14 during January alone! My Total Reads goal for this year is 24 books, and I am on Book 16 as of this morning so I expect to blow right past that number well before the deadline, barring any disasters, of course. Also discovered 4 new authors, 2 of whom I totally love so far and 2 whose works I will probably be revisiting. I don't think I've decreased my TBR pile by any noticeable amount and I have given into the temptation to actually buy some books not in Kindle Unlimited/Kobo Plus/the public library that I wanted, but yes, I am indeed having fun. :-)

[Uncle Robin]

Another January jump start for me - I love getting my goals well underway in month one. Especially happy to be well on target for my 36 nonfiction book goal for the year

[DrNefario]

An unusually slow month for me, with just 3 books finished. I think that ties for my worst month since I started tracking. It wasn't that any of the books were especially long, just that they weren't page-turners.

On the other hand, I also didn't buy anything, so I'm ahead of my goal.

I notice the list thread seems to have significantly fewer participants this year. Has everyone moved to Goodreads or Storygraph or something?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I notice the list thread seems to have significantly fewer participants this year. Has everyone moved to Goodreads or Storygraph or something?

Being the born contrarian that I am, I only started joining the list here AFTER joining Storygraph nearly 3 years ago

[Tarana]

January was pretty good although I didn't read as much as I wanted to due family illness. TBR went up and down. Down 4 in audiobooks (although I have to use 3 credits in Feb) and Up 3 in Ebooks. Otherwise, most goals are on schedule.

60 books: 6
20,000 pages: 1,705
Storygraph Mobile Reads Challenge: 1/12
4 books over 600 pages: 0