How many of our Club Books have you read? Showing 1,351-1,400 of 1,698

[Marc]

47.

[Feliciana]

44

[Deborah]

90

[Jen]

I just reached 200 !!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

CONGRATS! A huge achievement

[Hank]

Congrats Jen! 200 is big. As opposed to the usual question I ask, what was the worst, or more politically correct, the least favorite one you read? :)

[Gabi]

Jen wrote: "I just reached 200 !!"

Woohooo! That's terrific, Jen!

[Jen]

My three least favorites according to star ratings and my memory:

The Accidental Time Machine
The Library of the Unwritten
A Canticle for Leibowitz

[DivaDiane]

Wow! Congratulations, Jen! That’s amazing!

[YouKneeK]

Congrats Jen!

[Meredith]

Congrats Jen, that's great!

[Ellen]

Jen wrote: "I just reached 200 !!"

That's wonderful!

[Christopher]

I'm at 138.

I'd wanted to try to get to 150 by 2022 although that is looking difficult with only two months left!

One strategy would be to try to finish a bunch of ones I had stopped reading partway through, although not sure that's a very exciting prospect? Or I could target the shortest books on the list (here's looking at you The Tombs of Atuan). Or I could just give up and try again next year?

Let's look at what I could do for strategy #1 and see where I left off with the ones I didn't finish:

1) Steerswoman - page 13 of 279
2) Master of Djinn - page 27 of 396
3) We are Satellites - page 160 of 378
4) Gideon the 9th - page 206 of 448
5) City We Became - page 200 of 437
6) The Vanished Birds - page 250 of 391
7) The Mere Wife - page 100 of 308
8) The Way of KIngs - page 300 of 1008
9) A Memory Called Empire - page 100 of 462
10) Song of Achilles - page 200 of 352
11) Rosewater - page 150 of 432
12) The Power - page 100 of 341
13) Artemis - page 50 of 312
14) Too Like the Lightning - page 200 of 432
15) Grass - page 100 of 544
16) The Last Unicorn - page 100 of 294
17) The Golem & the Djinn - page 100 of 486
18) Alif the Unseen - page 100 of 433
19) The Black Company - page 150 of 319
20) Day of the Triffids - page 125 of 228
21) Red Mars - page 200 of 572
22) Consider Phlebas - page 200 of 471
23) Doomsday Book - page 100 of 578
24) Preludes & Nocturnes (I own the entire series, but unread)
25) The Windup Girl - page 50 of 351
26) Nine Princes of Amber - page 100 of 175

Sandman is just 8 issues so I can finish that no problem. So 11 left.

I generally read at a pace of about 40 pages an hour and have about 30 minutes a day of reading time on average. So with 52 days could expect to read 1040 pages without dramatically changing my reading habits. Divided by 11 gets me to about 95 pages per book. Even taking the shortest books on the shelf and the books I have the least left of I don't think I'll get there.

Oh well! Maybe can just try for 175 by end of 2023.

[YouKneeK]

138 is a perfectly respectable number! The digits add up to 12, which is the # of months in the year, so I’m sure that’s appropriate and somehow deeply symbolic of something. Of course, you'll probably read more than that by the end of the year, which will completely destroy all the symbolism.

[Hank]

Or because life is too short...
If you really dont plan to finish many/all of those I personally count anything above 50% as read and rate-able.
I haven't done that with many but the whole goal of book club reads is for me to get exposed to different writers, different stories, etc. Half a book counts in my head as a qualified effort.

So, I think you have at least 5 more that you can count. Plus, what YouKneeK said, every number is good. 138 sounds great to me.

If the goal becomes a chore, you will end up with some other hobby like cricket or something else you could actually do in NYC

[Christopher]

Thanks for the perspective on things.

I'll focus on the ones that are interesting to me and inevitably the more interested I am the more I end up reading anyway so it's a virtuous cycle. Those round number milestones of finished books are alluring, but I'll get there eventually.

[Deedee]

I've read 121 of the Bookshelf books. Ten of those 121 I've read twice. There are 14 Bookshelf books I've DNF'd, with 4 of those 14 I may try again sometime in the future. That leaves 206 book on the Bookshelf as yet unread.

The ten read-more-than-once books:
Foundation
The Eyre Affair
Dune
A Game of Thrones
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Mort
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Time Machine: An Invention

[Najaf]

39.
the shame.

[Bonnie]

Najaf wrote: "39.
the shame."

That means you have so much great reading in front of you!

[CBRetriever]

Deedee wrote: "There are 14 Bookshelf books I've DNF'd, with 4 of those 14 I may try again sometime in the future. That leaves 206 book on t..."

which are the DNF ones?

[Deedee]

CBRetriever wrote: "Deedee wrote: "There are 14 Bookshelf books I've DNF'd, with 4 of those 14 I may try again sometime in the future. That leaves 206 book on t..."

which are the DNF ones?"

Here are my DNF books:

Midnight Riot
Elysium
The Bone Witch
When Gravity Fails
Preludes & Nocturnes
Warchild
The Rook
All You Need Is Kill
An Unkindness of Ghosts
The Dawnhounds

And these I DNF'd but might try and read sometime in the future:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
The Summer Tree
The City & the City
In the Night Garden

I'd list the ones I've read but there are 121 of them :) And 45 of the 121 I gave 5 * to, so that'll be a long list.
So .....
some of my 5 * reads from the Bookshelf:

Assassin's Apprentice
The Bear and the Nightingale
Station Eleven
City of Stairs
The Last Policeman
The Best of All Possible Worlds
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Flowers for Algernon
Among Others
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
To Say Nothing of the Dog
A Scanner Darkly
Childhood's End
A Fire Upon the Deep
The Left Hand of Darkness

[CBRetriever]

out of your DNF books, the only one I liked was The Rook

[DivaDiane]

I quite liked An Unkindness of Ghosts.

[Ellen]

I just made it to 300!

[Jen]

Wow, awesome Ellen!

[Anna]

Woohoo, 300 is great!

[Hank]

300! Crushing it

[YouKneeK]

That's amazing Ellen, congrats!

[Ellen]

Thank you.

[Meredith]

Congrats, that's great!

[Bonnie]

YouKneeK wrote: "That's amazing Ellen, congrats!"

Congratulations that is a great achievement. I am inching closer to my 2021 challenge amount and also to 200.

YouKneek,
1. You have been beavering away this year at the backlist bookshelf. How do you choose or prioritize, which books to read/ read next? Just curious.

2. It's been a couple weeks but this is still bothering me, that you didn't love A Fire Upon the Deep. How can this be. What went wrong?.

[YouKneeK]

Hi Bonnie! Here are some long answers. :)

1. The main factor is usually whether I already have it on my Kindle or in my Audible library. I’ve always kept an eye out for sales on things on our group shelf so I have a backlog of things I already own from our shelf, especially on my Kindle. Other than choosing from things I already own, it’s mostly random. I try to mix it up so I’m not reading anything too similar (aside from related series books) in a row, and I try to swap between fantasy and science fiction somewhat, and I try to mix in things I think I might not enjoy with things I expect to like. But I don’t read book blurbs and I try not to know anything about a book in advance, so sometimes I don’t quite get what I expect which is part of the fun. :) I also try to fit group reads in if the timing works out and if the book meets my criteria for reading now in either Kindle or Audio.

The Kindle reads are for standalones and completed series, the audio reads are mostly for incomplete series that don’t look likely to be completed anytime soon if ever. I only started listening to audiobooks regularly this year. Before that, my progress through the group shelf was really slow because I like to read a series straight through if I like it enough to continue it, so I’d read book 1 in a series from our group shelf, then I wouldn’t make any further progress for several books while I read the rest of the series. I started making a much bigger dent this year with the audiobooks because I’m treating those as “series sampling” attempts, with the idea that I’ll only listen to the first book but if I like it, or if I think I would have enjoyed it in print, then someday I’ll go back and read the whole thing in print.

2. Haha, I liked it, but no, I didn’t love it. I listened to it in audio and there are a lot of moving pieces to keep track of, which I do better with in print. There were parts I really liked, mostly on the Tines’ world, but other parts didn’t hold my attention consistently and I get really, really annoyed if I feel like I’m missing stuff. Plus I didn’t care for the narrator who seemed to think he was narrating a cartoon. I’m sure I would have liked it more in print, but I’m still not sure I would have loved it! I’m a lot easier to please with fantasy than SF.

[Jamie]

Starting out, I have finished 93 of the books on the group's spreadsheet list.
My favorites so far:
A Canticle for Liebowitz
Wool
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Magician (Feist)
The Name of the Wind
The Eye of the World
Neverending Story
Elantris
The Goblin Emperor
The City of Dreaming Books
The Fellowship of the Ring
I also absolutely love the Discworld books, though my top favorites (Jingo, Night Watch, Men at Arms, Monstrous Regiment, Witches Abroad) are not included on the group list.
Amusingly enough, the above list is mosly also my list of books I REALLY DO NOT need to reread again, along with the Dark is Rising series and the Narnia books. I will reread The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man's Fear when the 3rd book (finally) comes out, but otherwise I reread most of these too much already. :)
Realistically I may reread The Neverending Story in 2022, and possibly A Canticle for Liebowitz, and I am on book #3 of my reread of the Wheel of Time series now. And I use the Discworld audiobooks as bedtime stories almost every night. *sigh*

[Bonnie]

I am procrastinating by coming over to say, that I am on my 200th book. I am excited!

191 She Who Became The Sun
192 A Night in the Lonesome October
193 The Witcher The Last Wish
194 Pump Six and Other Stories
195 A Master of Djinn
196 Those Who Hunt the Night
197 Caliban's War
198 The Dragon's Path
199 Kindred ( think I read that when young but hardly remembered )
200 Wild Seed
!
See I had better go read instead of puttering around online

[YouKneeK]

Awesome Bonnie, that will be a great way to wrap up the year, congrats!

[Stephen]

A quick manual count tells me I’m at 131. Last year’s quick manual count was 123. I reread a few as well.

[DivaDiane]

Congratulations, Bonnie!

[Reed]

0

[YouKneeK]

In 2021 I've read 50 books from the group shelf, having just finished the 50th this evening. That’s definitely a record for me. Most years I end up in the low 30’s and last year I only managed 21.

I doubt I’ll finish another group shelf book this year, so that leaves my year-end count at 227. Reaching 250 should hopefully be in the realm of possibility for 2022.

[Anna]

I'm at 228! :D I need to step up my game to stay ahead of you :P

[YouKneeK]

LOL, I’ll race you to The Coming of the Terraphiles! ;)

[Anna]

Noooo XD

[Yvensong]

At least 40, but the number is actually higher, since I've read several of these books before I joined this group and started rating everything on GR.

[DivaDiane]

You can count those previously read books toward you total total, @Yvensong (love your screen name, BTW!). There is a yearly challenge for reading books off the bookshelf, whether the backlog or current group reads.

[Gabi]

Ah ... now I realise why it was a bad move to have my personal challenge thread deleted out of a depressed mood... I forgot that I was tracking the group shelf books there as well ^^'. You live and learn. I have to set up an excel list when I'm back home to get a new overview.

[Leticia]

I also lost track of my overview and I hope your mood get better soon Gabi.

I clicked the "Get results and compare with friends" button in this link https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3...

and it said I read 44 books but I'm not sure that is working correctly.

[YouKneeK]

The compare on that list isn't accurate. When I click on the “Get Results & Compare” while on page 1, it tells me 69 out of 100. So it seems to only be comparing against 100 out of the group books and there are 345 on the list. You may have read more from the other 245 that it didn't bother to compare against. :)

You should have better luck doing the compare against the SFFBC mod account. From the below link, click the “More” dropdown near the top of the profile, then “Compare books”. I get a more accurate # with that one, about what I would expect when taking into account the books I read before joining GR and don’t have on my shelves.
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1...

[Anna]

Yes, the mod account is the easiest way to see how many group books you've read! Here is the thread with instructions: GR account with group books.

The easiest way to find that thread, and all other threads, is Current Events, linked in the description on the group home page.

Both threads are in the Group Business folder.

[CBRetriever]

Gabi wrote: "Ah ... now I realise why it was a bad move to have my personal challenge thread deleted out of a depressed mood... I forgot that I was tracking the group shelf books there as well ^^'. You live and..."

There is a csv download for the book shelf books if I remember rightly so you can start there

[Anna]

The group book spreadsheet? It’s linked in Current Events 😊