2020 GoodReads Reading Challenge

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

As of today, I am 37/85 or 44 percent. Yay, almost halfway there. I am also now eight books ahead, a nice cushion to have.

How’s everyone else doing? Have you been reading more during pandemic lockdowns? Have shuttered libraries or anxiety hampered your reading?

I hope everyone is well, and at least getting out for the occasional walk if you are able.

[Julesy]

Great progress, Heather!

I've been doing a lot of reading during the lockdown, including a lot of audiobooks while working on jigsaw puzzles. I read 14 books in April, double my usual monthly count. I am now at 38/80, 11 books ahead of schedule. I never change my annual book goal once I set it at the beginning of the year, so it will stay at 80. At the end of the year, I will be very happy if I surpass it. 😊

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and enjoying their reading time.

[Linda]

55/120 or 14 books ahead! I usually have 2 books going at a time and when we were staggering our schedule at work and I only had to go in 2 or 3 days a week I was able to get through e-books quicker but otherwise reading has stayed about the same. The tricky part is when I want a book from the library for a challenge or author of the month and being limited to only e-books. Hopefully the library will be able to open back up soon. Stay safe everyone!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Wow, you guys are a bit further along than I am—way to go!

Linda, I hope your library will be open again soon or, like ours, at least be able to offer curbside pickup.

Julesy, I wish I could listen to audiobooks, but mind wanders too much, and I miss half of what is said. It was rough the tear the Ultimate Challenge included an audiobook. I managed to find a small collection of Poe on YouTube, all but one of which I had read previously, so I knew I wouldn’t miss much.

[Linda]

Heather L wrote: "Wow, you guys are a bit further along than I am—way to go!

Linda, I hope your library will be open again soon or, like ours, at least be able to offer curbside pickup.

Julesy, I wish I could lis..."

As much as I'd love to check stuff out again, I'd just be happy to return the pile that has accumulated that I've read/watched. So many piles of things to take places once they open back up.

[Gianna]

Good morning everyone! My library is also closed indefinitely as well.. My friend and I have been doing “book exchanges” where we leave books on each other’s front doorsteps. I’ve discovered some new authors and she is loving the Cleo Coyle coffee house mysteries. I’ve been cleaning out tons of papers, working out, reading and doing see a word puzzles when not working. And of course binge watching tv shows, stay safe everyone! Gianna

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Gianna— So glad you are able to share books with someone!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Can you believe it’s June already? I am now ten books ahead in my challenge, having now completed 45/85 books (53%). As before, I hope people have been able to keep up with their challenge(s), though many libraries and bookstores are either still closed or reducing capacity.

[Linda]

I'm at 70/120 - 20 books ahead! My library has started opening up some branches and I was finally able to place some new holds this week! I've been lucky though and most books I wanted to read while they were shut down I was able to get in an e-book format.

[Julesy]

I'm currently at 50/80, 17 books ahead of schedule. However, I expect that my reading will slow down as we are now allowed to go out a little bit.

My libraries are now doing curbside pickup for holds. Which makes me wonder, everyone's holds must be coming is, so the libraries must be awfully busy!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

The libraries here are also doing curbside pickup, but they aren’t accepting any returns until August. Which sucks for anyone on a waiting list for a specific book.

[Sandy]

Mine are doing pickups and returns but staging the books for 3 days before making them available again. I love the curbside pickup. We can also only request only what the library has in it's own building - no library to library transfers. This makes sense to me.

[Gianna]

Good morning! I’m 11 books ahead of schedule and during my cleanout sessions in the house, I’ve found a bunch of books I haven’t read. My library is still closed and media due dates were extended to June 30th. The collection boxes remain locked so they will be extremely busy when they do open. Have a great weekend, everyone!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

I think the libraries are going to be overwhelmed when they start accepting returns again, especially if instituting a 3-day airing period as many propose. I would think the sooner they start taking returns the better!

[Linda]

My library started accepting returns and new holds this week. They are doing the 3 day quarantining of returned materials. Also not all of our branches are opened just ones with drive thrus and some others are opened for curbside pick up. I just saw that some of my holds came in so I'm planning to pick up tomorrow and drop off my stack that's ready to return.

[SANDYE]

I set my goal at 100 this year!

Books Read: 81 / 100 ~~ 24 books ahead of schedule

Looks like I may get to increase my reading goal again this year! Last year I read over 120 books! Read lots of shorter books, great for variety!

[PamG]

My goal for the year is 175. I'm currently at 91 completed so I am slightly ahead for the year.

[Andra]

My goal is 90 and I have currently finished book #42. So hopefully I can keep up this pace and stay on schedule :)

[˜”*°•.˜”*°• Sheri •°*”˜.•°*”˜]

I didn't set a challenge so GR set it for me. 23 books. Not sure why that number was picked but I'm 1 away from completing it so I guess I need to go fix that.

I haven't read more during the last few months. I think I've actually read less and been on social media more. I need to fix that too.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Sheri— How odd. I’ve never heard of GR doing that. Had you entered in previous years? Maybe they set a number based on that?

[Jackie]

Sheri wrote: "I didn't set a challenge so GR set it for me. 23 books. Not sure why that number was picked but I'm 1 away from completing it so I guess I need to go fix that.

I haven't read more during the last ..."

I think the pandemic has made it harder to read. For me it's been hard to relax. It's definitely been a strange year.

[Jackie]

Andra wrote: "My goal is 90 and I have currently finished book #42. So hopefully I can keep up this pace and stay on schedule :)"
Very impressive, Andra! I hope you make your goal!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

At the end of six months I have read 55 of 85 books, which puts me at 12 books ahead. I don’t think I’ve ever had this great a cushion at the midway point. I’m going to wait until end of summer before deciding to increase my goal or not. Anything can happen over the next couple months, plus I have a couple more challenging non-cozies I want to attempt.

Here’s wishing everyone great summer (or winter, if you’re down under) reads!

[Linda]

I'm at 84/120 or 23 books ahead. Not sure how I'm this far ahead but I'll take it!

[Julesy]

I think folks are either 1) taking advantage of the shelter-in-place to catch up on reading or 2) are too depressed about sheltering-in-place to read.

At first in March I was in category 2 but shortly thereafter I switched to category 1. I am now at 61/80, 21 books ahead of schedule. I don't normally change my goal, but this year I made it a low goal of 80 books (usually 100) so I may put it back to 100. We'll see what happens in the next couple of months. 😛

[Janet]

This year I went out on a limb and really challenged myself to read 100 books. I've usually set the bar low so I knew it was achievable (yes, I'm one of those people--and very hard on myself when I don't live up to expectations). So far, I'm halfway there with 50 books, mainly thanks to audio books I can listen to while I get ready for work. I almost feel like that's cheating but there you have it.

[Julesy]

Janet wrote: "So far, I'm halfway there with 50 books, mainly thanks to audio books I can listen to while I get ready for work. I almost feel like that's cheating but there you have it."

I've never felt like listening to audiobooks was cheating. It's just a different format, just like listening to news on the radio vs. watching the news on TV. If it was cheating I would be big time cheater since over half of my reading are audiobooks! 😂

[readswithcoffee]

I am at 56% point

[Jane]

Julesy wrote: "Janet wrote: "So far, I'm halfway there with 50 books, mainly thanks to audio books I can listen to while I get ready for work. I almost feel like that's cheating but there you have it."

I've neve..."

I agree with Julesy!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

How’s everyone doing? Are you reading more or less this summer?

Still keeping up the pace set in March here. Have now read 64/85, which puts me at 75 percent done, and fifteen books ahead of my goal. It’s looking very likely that I will increase my goal come September.

In other challenges, I have completed 34/50 criteria in the Popsugar Ultimate Challenge, so have surpassed my goal of checking off at least half. Last year I finished 42/50, and am on target to hit around that mark this year. And in a classics challenge I have met a goal to read at least twelve (and still counting).

[Julesy]

Good going, Heather!

I'm currently at 72/80, 26 books ahead of schedule. I am not going to change my goal just yet. Starting this month, I've picked up another temporary part-time job so it may cut into my reading time. I'll see how my reading progresses in the next month or two and decide what to do with my goal at that time.

[Deborah]

Definitely reading more as I won't go back to work till next week. I have already met my 110 book goal for this year.

[Linda]

I'm doing pretty good with my goal this year - 97/120 or 81%. I actually set my goal about 10 books higher than normal since I was easily meeting my other goal and looks like I should meet this one pretty easy.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

September already. Is it just me, or do the days seem to be speeding by? Aside from the lovely autumnal weather our area has seen the last couple days, pumpkin and apple everything is back. There are geese overhead and a flock of wild turkeys roaming a nearby street—three hens and 18-20 chicks between them. I like to walk up that way every couple days to see them. In the opposite direction, along the bike path yesterday afternoon, there were five tom turkeys feeding together. Gotta love this time of year!

Okay, books. I have now completed 75/85 books for my challenge. If I keep up the present pace, I will meet my goal by October, so I am still thinking of increasing it to 100. As I am 18 books ahead in this challenge, I figure I’d still have a nice cushion if I increased my goal. We’ll see how the next couple weeks go. Not like there’s much else to do these days besides walk and read...right. 😀

[Linda]

I just caught sight of my challenge today and I’m 32 books ahead!! I was shocked to see that and decided it was due to several e-book novellas that I’ve read recently.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

That’s awesome, Linda. Novellas do make it a bit easier to get ahead. Nothing wrong with that! 🙂

[Christine]

As others have said, I had a hard time focusing in the Spring. Now I'm a little ahead of schedule with 93 out of my 120 book goal completed. (There are a couple novellas in there.)

[Julesy]

So I exceeded my goal of 80 books. I am currently at 85. I do plan to up my goal, something I have never, ever done before because my goal was my goal. This year is different, in so many ways! I will change my goal eventually (probably in October) because right now I like seeing that I met 106% of my goal! 😂

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Julesy— ROFL! Completely understand as I hate to see that “18 books ahead” reduced to half that. 🤣

[Meg]

Julesy wrote: "So I exceeded my goal of 80 books. I am currently at 85. I do plan to up my goal, something I have never, ever done before because my goal was my goal. This year is different, in so many ways! I wi..."

106% ==> 😎 😎😎 It definitely looks nice!

[Karen M]

Well, I'm finally back and my goal is 100 and I am at 88/100.

I've been reading but I haven't been on this website except to keep track of my read books. I realized finally that I need to get back into my old routine and ignore everything else.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Welcome back, Karen!

[Cynthia L]

I'd love to know your favorite authors. I love this genre too, but I'm new to the loop.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Hi Cynthia,

This discussion is for the Goodreads annual challenge. There is a discussion on favorite authors in the “cozy authors” section of our group:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Marked off book number eighty tonight. That put me at 94% complete and twenty books ahead of my goal of 85. With three and a half months left in the year, I decided to up my goal to 100, which I haven’t hit in a couple years. It hurt a bit to see that cushion of 20 drop to only 9, but twenty books in fourteen weeks should be quite doable. I expect to mark another story collection as “done” tomorrow (Thursday).

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Well that 20 — er, pardon me, 19 — books is looking a lot more doable as of this morning. I was checking the local weather when the volume on my TV went out. Argh! If it’s not one thing in 2020, it’s another! Not being able to watch the occasional movie means more reading. Although I should probably start making my Christmas cards, too. 😐

[Jackie]

Heather L wrote: "Well that 20 — er, pardon me, 19 — books is looking a lot more doable as of this morning. I was checking the local weather when the volume on my TV went out. Argh! If it’s not one thing in 2020, it..."

I didn't make my 2019 goal, but I already met 2020's goal. Maybe I should start my Christmas cards too, Heather!

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Way to go, Jackie!

[Linda]

Just hit my goal yesterday! I think I'll enjoy having a completed challenge for a couple of weeks and then raise it a little since there are still 3 months to the year left.

[Heather L , Cozy Mysteries Moderator]

Good job, Linda!

I’m a book and a half from meeting my original goal of 85, which is why I already increased it. I figure another fifteen in three months is completely doable.

A reading friend yelled at me yesterday for reading a book in one day over the weekend. Said I was making her look bad, lol. 🤣