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What's your next challenge?
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That sound fun Kate! I love a challenge but am only just about coping with genres and time-travelling, I'm afraid my other challenges like reading 80 countries. USA states and the UK counties have fallen woefully behind!!!
I'm blaming full-time work, being a Mum (AKA taxi-driver for teenage daughters who can't start driving lessons for another four years!!) and a bit of Netflix habit.
But now you've got me thinking...
. II'm tempted, although I'll probably fail!!
Mod
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Many of our regular challenges are still ongoing and can be joined at anytime:
The Genre Challenge,
The Time Traveller Challenge
Around the World in 80 Books
UK Counties Challenge
The USA in 51 Books
The A-Z Challenge
but who's looking for something new?
I'm toying with the idea of the 'Dusty Bookshelf Challenge'. The idea would be to dig out volumes from the bottom of your to-read list (or the back of your physical bookshelves), those ones that have been languishing for years. We could aim for 5 or 10 for the year? For added spice, they could be posted on the thread and other group members can tell you which to read next.
Let me know what you think. It's just one idea, do let me know if you have any others.
'Dusty Bookshelf Challenge' - I need this so much.
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I've done a tally up of where I'm at with all my challenges and have worked out I need another 27 American States, 22 more English Counties and 12 more A-Z animal names. This could be the challenge that makes me dig out all the books to complete at least one or make a dent in some of these challenges!
Ooh, didn't know some could be joined at anytime, might have a nosy!
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Dusty Bookshelf Challenge! Just rummaged and found 8/10 that have been languishing for decades from my dining room bookcase. Got to find two from my bookcases down in my other lounge!
Reading all the titles looking for my chosen ones I realise that most of the books have been there years and bought back memories of where I got them! Especially my holiday in Hay on Wye!
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Besides trying to participate in the challenges here I've got a few other challenges- finish a few series off
- read the first book in a number of series I have on my bookshelf
- make some progress on a number of other series I've had on the go.
I've also got a monthly challenge, either a genre or an author. For January, I'm trying to read a few Canadian books; maybe one anyway. Starting with Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
The 2020 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge. It will take me through the year until Victober and Non-Fiction November.
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What's Victober? - do you have to read Victorian novels by any chance? I have a couple of friends who've done the Popsugar challenge in previous years. Looks fun. Let us know how you get on.
Looking at the list of books I’ve read so far this year there are a few new authors I’ve never read before so I shall challenge myself to read more new authors this year too.
Mod
There are all these regular challenges on offer which you can jump into at anytime:
The Genre Challenge,
The Time Traveller Challenge
Around the World in 80 Books
UK Counties Challenge
The USA in 51 Books
The A-Z Challenge
The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge
And not forgetting the currently running Lockdown Challenge
I didn't make as much headway with my challenges during 2020 as I'd hoped so I still have to get:
23 American States
20 English Counties
and 10 more A-Z animal names.
I'm trying the Dusty Bookshelf challenge again
Bill wrote: "I'm trying the Dusty Bookshelf challenge again"Yes me too! But looking at all the books on my bookcases they are all dusty! 🤣
Lynne - The Book Squirrel wrote: "Bill wrote: "I'm trying the Dusty Bookshelf challenge again"Yes me too! But looking at all the books on my bookcases they are all dusty! 🤣"
lolol! I know that feeling
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My challenge this year is to resist all challenges!!I have plenty of books to read and no problem chosing which one. I just sign up for challenges and then forget about them until December 31st.
This year will read 'free range'.
Esther wrote: "My challenge this year is to resist all challenges!!I have plenty of books to read and no problem chosing which one. I just sign up for challenges and then forget about them until December 31st.
T..."
Now that’s a brilliant idea!
Mod
I used to join in the GoodReads reading challenge and set myself a target number of books for the year. I stopped doing it a couple of years back, as I found I was avoiding long books in my efforts to make up the numbers.
Removing the number goal has allowed me to relax and enjoy the doorstops and more challenging reads as well.
I don't think I know how to read without challenges anymore! I just reduce the number of books so that I can read doorstops
I find the GR challenge is more of a progress metre giving me a sense of where I am in the year. Also it helps me understand when I am not putting aside enough free time to read. I try to give a realistic total I can achieve depending on how many bricks or short stories I plan to read.
This year I didn't meet the challenge because I used to read on my commute and during the first lockdown I stopped reading because I had no commute.
When I realised I was getting behind on my GR challenge I rearranged my day to fit in some reading time.
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Kate wrote: "I shouldn't admit this but when I realised I was getting behind on my GR challenge I changed the total! lol (only from 52 to 50 though)"One year I had calculated on reading a short story every month and so upped the total appropriately. Then halfway through the year I couldn't understand why I was so behind until I realised I hadn't read any of the short stories.
In the end I decided to reduce my total a bit and read a few short stories.
I've also done that! Although last year I got to increase it 3 times and still ended up over my target
I retired 7 yrs ago from being a night SHCA with Marie Curie, looking after patients at home 1 to 1. To pass the time at night I read....a lot! 200+ a year. Since then I’ve been nowhere near! Go figure! I am averaging 100 now though! With last years total being 115.
Obviously retirement gets in the way of reading. But being in lockdown my reading has crept up, I have barely been out the house & garden for almost a year now, it was far to busy during summer here in Brixham with the tourists around who didn’t give a damn about social distancing.
I have exceeded planned total for last 2 years but this was significantly down on previous totals. Have upped this year as reading has crept upwards again. Just need to get writing up to and not scribbling on Goodreads' threads...
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Are you setting up a target on the Goodreads reading challenge? (mine is normally 50 books)
Have you got UK Bookclub challenges to finish or are you going to start a new one?
You can choose from the Around the World in 80 Books, the UK Counties challenge, The USA States and then there's the ongoing monthly genre challenge and our time traveller challenge has just reached the 1800s. Or maybe you want to tackle some of those long term TBR books with the Dusty Bookshelf challenge.
I'm hoping to finish the counties challenge and the US states challenge this year they've been underway for sometime!
Let us know what your challenges for 2022 are going to be.
At the moment I have 5 challenges planned.- a 12 + 4 challenge where I will start 16 new series for me, 8 that have been on my bookshelf the longest and 8 that will be my most recent purchases
- a Dusty challenge, where I'll pick books from the 1st 1/3rd of my bookshelves (books I've had the longest; will probably use a random number generator)
- a Middle of the Road challenge, where I'll pick books randomly from the middle third of my bookshelf (at the moment it's sort of around 400 - 800ish purchases)
- my Newby bookshelf to Infinity, where I'll pick from my most recent purchases
- a Monthly Challenge where I'll focus on specific genres. January will be Biography and Auto-biography
There will be other challenges but for the most part I'll try to fit the books from my 5 above challenges into these other ones. :-)
Mod
My main challenge this coming year will be just to keep reading!
We are still in the middle of both the genre challenge and the time traveller challenge (feel free to join in if you fancy either), so I'll be continuing with those.
I met the target on the around the world challenge a while back, although I am still finding books to fill in the gaps.
I will set up another list of dusty bookshelf books to tackle in 2022, but I'll start with just 5 this year to reduce the pressure.
What challenges are you aiming for? Anything you want to do as part of the group?
I will continue trying the Time Traveller Challlenge and the genre Challenge. I'll probably do another Dusty Book Challenge as well. Thanks for keeping it going.
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I failed dismally to reach my GR target of 50 books. I had to reduce it to 40 during the last week of the year and still needed to read 2 Mr Men books to reach it! lol
So based on that I'm starting 2023 with a GR goal of 40 books this year.
What reading challenges are you attempting for 2023? Do you have any unfinished challenges or are you taking on new ones?
There are all these regular challenges on offer in the group which you can jump into at anytime:
The Genre Challenge - January is biography/memoir
The Time Traveller Challenge - Jan-March is Books set in the future
Around the World in 80 Books
UK Counties Challenge
The USA in 51 Books
The A-Z Challenge
The Dusty Bookshelf Challenge
Let us know below how you've done over the past year and what you are planning for 2023.
I'm happy overall with my 2022 reading. I read 150 books, although I did give up on about 10 over the course of the year. This year I have 5 individual challenges but will take part in others as well, like those here.My 5 challenges are (along with my first selection) -
a. 12 + 4 - The Decent Inn of Death by Rennie Airth (John Madden #6)
b. Start a Series - Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong (Inspector Chen #1)
c. Next in Series - The Cool Cottontail by John Dudley Ball (Virgil Tibbs #2)
d. Non - Series - Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
e. Decades Challenge (pre - 1900's) - Fanny Hill. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland
In 2022 I planned on reading two long form books and and two short stories a month.I discovered Levar Burton so ended up listening to more short stories (though I often doze off with audio so I had to listen to a couple twice) and completed my challenge with ease.
This year I will do the same.
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I'll be carrying on with the genre challenge and the time traveller challenge (love them both) - please join in if you fancy it, the threads should be easy to find. I have also set up my dusty bookshelf list for the year and, if that's still not enough, I hope to be adding a few more books to my round the world challenge (although this one definitely gets harder as you go on! - I found a recommendation for a book from the Philippines recently: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not), but can I get hold of a copy?...)
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Sounds like a good plan Esther. I haven't really managed to get into audio books. Although I now have a CD of Michael Ball reading his novel The Empire and I believe he does all the voices/accents which I can't wait to hear so maybe that's the one I've been waiting for!
Ohh Liz! Good luck with The Pillars of the Earth. I read that this year and I think that and The Historian are the two reasons why I didn't reach my original target. Both were worth the time and effort though.
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I have reduced my GR goal to 40 books and hopefully they will include the following 38 that I need to finish my ongoing 3 challenges:
A-Z Animal Names - 8 books to go (I,K,Q,S,U,X,Y,Z)
US States - 22 books to go
English Counties - 8 to go
In addition I'll be keeping up with the monthly genre challenge and the Time Traveller challenge.
I'm all for overlapping where possible so I've made a start with Sherlock: The Fire Brigade Dog which is a GR goal book, a biography for the monthly challenge and a animal name for S. Tick, tick, tick!!! Let's hope this continues!
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I have reduced my GR goal to 40 books and hopefully they will include the following 38 that I need to finish my ongoing 3 challenges:
A-Z Animal Na..."
Good luck and happy reading! :)
Kate wrote: "Ok, I have decided on my reading focus for 2023.I have reduced my GR goal to 40 books and hopefully they will include the following 38 that I need to finish my ongoing 3 challenges:
A-Z Animal Na..."
Good luck
I haven’t been to our local library for a several years and popped in today with the intention of getting a book out! I had to get my ticket renewed it had been that long! I am determined to at least read one library book a month this year!
My first one I’m reading is Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind by Alexander McCall Smith
UK Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Pianos and Flowers: Brief Encounters of the Romantic Kind (other topics)Noli Me Tangere (other topics)
Noli Me Tángere (other topics)
The Pillars of the Earth (other topics)
A Suitable Boy (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Alexander McCall Smith (other topics)Rennie Airth (other topics)
Qiu Xiaolong (other topics)
John Dudley Ball (other topics)
Michelle Good (other topics)
More...
I'm thinking about starting a Colour in the title challenge for 2018.
How are you doing with your challenges and what's next? Fancy joining me for colours?
BTW Happy New Year Everyone!