The Reading Challenge Group discussion
Personal Challenges - 2014
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Bouchra's 2014 Reading Challenge
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To kill a mocking bird, Animal farm, and Brave new world are in my favorite-books list :)I hope you enjoy them.
Good luck Bouchra. It's very nice to have you here :)
Mod
I haven't read the Harry Potter books, not sure if I ever will. I've only seen the first two movies but have all those on DVD. Hitchhikers I've read all of them a few times and have several editions of most of them for various fiddlybit reasons. The Brown "Robert Langdon" series I've read all but "Inferno" haven't gotten that one yet.
Hey definitely read Little Women. I read it for the first time this year and enjoyed it. Good luck on the Harry Potter series as well. Great list of books! ^_^
Emad wrote: "To kill a mocking bird, Animal farm, and Brave new world are in my favorite-books list :)I hope you enjoy them.
Good luck Bouchra. It's very nice to have you here :)"
Thanks Emad! Good luck with your goals for 2014 too!
Holly wrote: "I agree with Emad on those books. And the Hitchhikers series is truly hilarious!"Can't wait to have the time to read it! Good luck with your goals, Holly!
CaptKirk42 Classic Whovian wrote: "I haven't read the Harry Potter books, not sure if I ever will. I've only seen the first two movies but have all those on DVD. Hitchhikers I've read all of them a few times and have several edition..."I never got around to reading them for some reason, and when I really wanted to read them last year, I found out that they were really expensive here, and at that time I didn't access to the Kindle Store. In the end, I ended up watching all the movies, and now I really want to read the books.
Ever since I heard of the sub-genre that involves religious conspiracies, I've wanted to read The Da Vinci Code. Recently, I found out that it was part of a series, so I decided that I had to read them all. I don't normally like reading or watching series from the middle, or as standalones.
Good luck with your goals, Kirk!
Amber wrote: "Hey definitely read Little Women. I read it for the first time this year and enjoyed it. Good luck on the Harry Potter series as well. Great list of books! ^_^"Thanks for the suggestion, Amber! Will try to keep it in mind as I plan the rest of the books for the year.
Good luck to you too on your 2014 goals!
Mod
Bouchra wrote: "Goal: 150 - 200 booksBooks that everyone seems to have read but me:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
[book:Harry Potter and the De..."
Great list there! You'll love the HP books and you have some of my favorite classics in your list!! Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird and Jane Eyre!!
And I agree with Amber - you should definitely read the Little Women series!! And the Dan Brown books are great!!
Best of luck with your list:)
Great list! Best of luck with your list. The Harry Potter series is still one of my favourites; I hope you enjoy it as well.
I am also aiming for 150 books, so I will be following your challenge as a relative benchmark. You assembled a great list and I wish you success on your 2014 reading goal.
Faye wrote: "Ohhhh, Hitchhiker's! Jane Eyre! Count of Monte Cristo! You will have a wonderful reading year, haha!"Thanks, Faye! I already managed to finish the Hitchhiker's about two weeks ago, so I'm going to have to replace that with something else :D
Good luck with your goals!
Ruchi wrote: "Bouchra wrote: "Goal: 150 - 200 booksBooks that everyone seems to have read but me:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
[book:Harry P..."
Thanks, Ruchi! I managed to finish the Dan Brown books about 10 days ago, so I'm going to have to replace that with something else now :D
I'll look into the Little Women series, but I'm not making any promises :P
Good luck with your goals!
Kassandra wrote: "Great list! Best of luck with your list. The Harry Potter series is still one of my favourites; I hope you enjoy it as well."Thanks, Kassandra! Good luck with your goals!
Rob wrote: "I am also aiming for 150 books, so I will be following your challenge as a relative benchmark. You assembled a great list and I wish you success on your 2014 reading goal."Sounds good, Rob! I'll try to follow yours too. Good luck with your goals!
So ... I know I disappeared for quite a long time since I first started this thread, but I've been having a few personal issues (mainly angsting over stuff and trying to ignore reality by indulging in TV and film), and I got distracted.Anyway, I managed to finish the Hitchhiker's Guide series and Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series a few days ago, so I'm going to take them off the list above. I'm currently planning out what to read in January, hopefully around 10 - 15 books, depending on how much I can cut down my TV/film time. (Which I really need to do.)
So I'm planning to join in on the Group Reads for The Book Thief and Catch-22, because I haven't read either of them, and they're either on my GR or my brain's to-read lists. Rebecca I won't be reading, because I've done that already, a couple of years ago, and I don't really want to repeat it - not that it was bad, I just want to focus on reading new books, not re-reading old ones.
From my currently-reading shelf I'm planning to finish The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights and The 4-Hour Workweek, the latter will also count as the month's non-fiction book if I don't manage to get another one in ...
From my first category I'm planning on reading the entire Harry Potter series, and I'm planning on asking around and adding more books to the list ... any suggestions?
From the second category I'm going to read Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird, because they're the only two that I have access to physical versions of (let's hope I can persuade my sis into allowing me to read them), and I really want to read a couple of physical books. I've been away from them for so long I can't even remember the last time. :(
.... so, that's it, for January's planning, I guess. Today I'm hoping to read a bit of Arabian Nights, as I'm about 1/3 the way through the book ..
Good luck everybody with your challenges, and thanks to all those who stopped by :)
Mod
Sorry to hear you've been having personal issues. Welcome back!
So you need suggestions for books that it seems everyone has read?
Faye wrote: "Bouchra wrote: "So ... I know I disappeared for quite a long time since I first started this thread, but I've been having a few personal issues (mainly angsting over stuff and trying to ignore real..."Thanks, Faye!
Yup, exactly. The HP series is on my list, because I know lots of people (who aren't in one group, so they're definitely not some kind of fan club) who have read them. There was also The Da Vinci Code and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, both of which I managed to finish in December.
According to this criteria, the Twilight series also should be on my list, but I have quite an aversion to vampires and other supernatural creatures, so I won't be reading it.
Mod
You've got some really amazing challenges there, and some very interesting concepts. The Dewey Decimal one I really love. I guess basically living and volunteering in libraries all my teenage life holds a special something to me!
Mod
I read that one in middle school Faye and I liked that one so much that I read Tex too then later on I read Hawkes Harbor by that author which was pretty good too.
Holly, thanks! I hadn't heard of the Dewey Decimal method before, and am quite excited about it. I love books and libraries, but unfortunately we don't have a public library around here. :'(Faye, thanks for the recommendation, I'll make sure to check it out sometime.
Amber, thanks for your recs too!
UPDATE: I just finished the Harry Potter series a couple of days ago, and I'm still plodding through Arabian Nights. I also started on Big Bang, and it's looking good so far.:)
No problem bouchra! Good luck with your books too. :-)
The string theory challenge sounds interesting. Good luck!
Amber and Tanvi, thanks for your well wishes.UPDATE: Just finished Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe a couple of hours ago. Still plodding through The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights, but I'm closer to the finish now.
I plan to read Crime and Punishment, The Lovely Bones, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Deception Point, and start on An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't within the next week.
Mod
Mod
Holly, thanks for your wishes. I hope I'll enjoy them tooNarin, I'll make sure to do that. With regards to the Da Vinci Code and the rest of the Robert Langdon books, I recommend that you read them in the order they were published: Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, and Inferno. I know they can be read separately and out of order, but reading it in the chronological order gives a better understanding of the main character and the events that unfold around him.
Also, I read Digital Fortress last year, and I enjoyed it a lot.
UPDATE: Started reading Catch-22, I hope I'll finish it by end of the day today so I can get back to the list I posted above for next week.
I haven't updated in a while, I had so much going on that I completely forgot ...Anyway, I finished reading the following books:
Catch-22 - 00:30, 1/22/14
The Book Thief - 05:45, 1/23/14
The Ghost War - 05:55, 1/24/14
The Silent Man - 08:50, 1/25/14
The Midnight House - 17:45, 1/25/14
Pride and Prejudice - 17:10, 1/27/14
The Last September - 02:30, 2/4/14
The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights - 03:30, 2/7/14
Insomnia - 21:30, 2/8/14
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - 21:45, 2/9/14
I also started on An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't, and I'm on chapter 4 today - I plan to read one chapter per day so the info sets in. :D
I'll be updating the first post and making it a bit more prettier over the next few days. Stay tuned :)
The Reading Challenge Group
Books mentioned in this topic
The Midnight House (other topics)The Ghost War (other topics)
The Silent Man (other topics)
An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned But Probably Didn't (other topics)
Catch-22 (other topics)
More...
Books that everyone seems to have read but me:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone- 15:30 1/3/14Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- 00:05 1/4/14Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- 23:25 1/4/14Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire- 05:30 1/6/14Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix- 16:30 1/7/14Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince- 04:00 1/8/14Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- 17:20 1/8/14(I finished both the Hitchhiker's Guide series and Dan Brown's Robert Langdon books in December 2013, so I took 'em off this list.)
Books from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list:
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Persuasion
Mansfield Park
Jane Eyre
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird
Animal Farm- 04:00 1/4/14Brave New World
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Randomizer Challenge: I borrowed this idea from another group, basically I insert the number of books on my to-read shelf into a random integer generator, and read the books that correspond to the numbers displayed. I'm going to read 10 books in this challenge.
The String Theory Challenge: also a stolen idea, basically I choose a book, then read another one that is related to something that interested me in the first book, and so on and so forth. I plan to read 10 books towards this challenge too.
The book I chose to start from is: Angels & Demons, which I read recently. An interesting event in this book was the recreation of the Big Bang in the laboratory. I read Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe, in an effort to expand my knowledge of the Big Bang theory. I finished it at 18:15 on 1/18/14. An interesting concept in this book was the density of the universe and the role of dark matter and dark energy. As Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe only touched lightly on these topics, I plan to read The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality to learn more about them.
The Dewey Decimal Challenge: another borrowed idea, basically the Dewey Decimal method (or whatever it's called) is something that is used in libraries to organize non-fiction books, according to a certain set of categories ... anyway, so basically I'm going to read 10 books from these categories.
000 - 099: I chose the Encyclopedias category, and my book will be An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't
100 - 199: I chose the Psychology category, and my book will be The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
200 - 299: I chose the Religion category, and my book will be My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir
300 - 399: I chose the Economics category, and my book will be Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
400 - 499: I chose the Language category, and my book will be Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
500 - 599: I chose the Life Sciences category, and my book will be The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics
600 - 699: I chose the Medical Sciences category, and my book will be Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters
700 - 799: I chose the Art category, and my book will be How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
800 - 899: I chose the Literature category, and my book will be How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
900 - 999: I chose the History category, and my book will be The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History
I'll be adding more categories and books over the next few days. Stay tuned for updates!