2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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ARCHIVE 2021
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Readathon Team: Dewey Decimators
YOUR TASKS/PROMPTSHere are the tasks your team will be trying to complete, some consisting of a single prompt and some consisting of two-, three-, or four prompts.
Solos (1-book prompts)
Read a book read by a teammate for this readathon
Read a book you read in 2012
Read a book with 20, 12, 2012 or 25 in the title.
Read a book which has been translated into 25+ languages.
Read a book with at least 25 chapters or sections.
Read a book written when the author was under 25 years old.
Read a book with the word ‘silver’ in the title or with a silver cover.
Read a book published in 1996.
Duets (2-book prompts)
Read 2 books with a scene of two or more people reading together.
Read 2 books starting with “L,” (12th letter) and "Y" (25th letter) of the alphabet.
Read 2 books in a series, one with at least 12 books and one with at least 25 books.
Read 2 books either published in 2012 or in the Best Books of 2012 listopia.
Read 2 books with over 25,000 ratings each on Goodreads.
Read 2 books with a title consisting of 25 characters minimum, excluding spaces.
Read the 12th and 25th books on your TBR list.
Trios (3-book prompts)
Read 3 books: one you wish to read at 25 (if you’re under 25), one you read at that age, and one you'd recommend to your 25-year-old self.
Read 3 books by an author who has written for 25 or more years.
Read 3 books by an author who has written 25 or more books.
Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group.
Quartets (4-book prompts)
Read 4 books about making new friends.
Read 4 books that include a party or anniversary celebration.
Read 4 books that feature a bibliophile, bookworm, librarian, or bookshop.
Read 4 books in a series of 4 (25% of a series).
A book about making new friends.
A book with a party or anniversary celebration.
A book featuring a bibliophile, bookworm, librarian, or bookshop.
A book in a 4-book series (25%)
DEWEY DECIMATED!!!Do you like bookshelves? I like bookshelves! This will be our cover shelf of every book we finish during the event, whether it fills a prompt or not.
FAQ AnswersI will put answers to our team's questions from the central thread here for easier reference.
Q: How can we easily find out how many languages a book has been translated into?
A: oshizu suggested this Wikipedia list of literary works by number of translations as an easier starting point than counting individual editions.
Update: If you find your book on World Cat, click on the title, and show all editions, you can get a rough idea of how many translations it has by looking at the languages in the right hand side bar.
Q: Can graphic novels count for anything?
A: For this current readathon, we'd like to stick with standard books & audiobooks. Perhaps in the future?
Q: For the prompt, "Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group," is that for the calendar month you joined or within 30 days after joining?
A: The prompt refers to the calendar month.
Q: For the prompt "Read 4 books in a series of 4," can books from a series that just announced an as yet unpublished fourth book still count for this, or does the quartet have to be complete and published?
A: It would count as a 4-book series even though the the fourth is not out yet. (For reference, this was asked about the Southern Reach series.)
Tracking the Old Fashioned WaySolos (1-book prompts)
🏆1. Read a book read by a teammate for this readathon✔️
The Time Machine
🎉2. Read a book you read in 2012
WILD CARD
🏆3. Read a book with 20, 12, 2012 or 25 in the title.✔️
Twenty-Five Years Ago Today
🏆4. Read a book which has been translated into 25+ languages.✔️
Der kleine Hobbit
🏆5. Read a book with at least 25 chapters or sections.✔️
Catch-22
🏆6. Read a book written when the author was under 25 years old.✔️
Purple Hibiscus
🏆7. Read a book with the word ‘silver’ in the title or with a silver cover.✔️
The Silver Horse, Braised: A New Sherlock Holmes Mystery
🏆8. Read a book published in 1996.✔️
Airframe
Duets (2-book prompts)
🏆9. Read 2 books with a scene of two or more people reading together.✔️✔️
Silver in the Wood
Drowned Country
🏆10. Read 2 books starting with “L,” (12th letter) and "Y" (25th letter) of the alphabet. ✔️✔️
L: The Light We Lost
Y: The Yellow Farce
🏆11. Read 2 books in a series, one with at least 12 books and one with at least 25 books. ✔️✔️
At least 12 book series: Surprise Island
At least 25 book series: Raising Steam
🏆12. Read 2 books either published in 2012 or in the Best Books of 2012 listopia.✔️✔️
The Drowning Girl
Finding Hannah
🎉13. Read 2 books with over 25,000 ratings each on Goodreads.
WILD CARD X 2
🏆14. Read 2 books with a title consisting of 25 characters minimum, excluding spaces.✔️✔️
Across the Green Grass Fields
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
🏆15. Read the 12th and 25th books on your TBR list. ✔️✔️
Twelfth: Mere Christianity
Twenty-fifth: Het wassende water
Trios (3-book prompts)
🎉16. Read 3 books: one you wish to read at 25 (if you’re under 25), one you read at that age, and one you'd recommend to your 25-year-old self.✔️
Lirael
WILD CARD X2
🏆17. Read 3 books by an author who has written for 25 or more years.✔️✔️✔️
The Time Machine
The Road
Of Mice and Men
🏆18. Read 3 books by an author who has written 25 or more books.✔️✔️✔️
Come Tumbling Down
The Terminal Man
Kingdom of Needle and Bone
🎉19. Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group.✔️✔️
The Duke and I
The Stranger Beside You
WILD CARD
Quartets (4-book prompts)
🏆20. Read 4 books about making new friends.✔️✔️✔️✔️
A Man Called Ove
Beneath the Sugar Sky
Auggie & Me: Three Wonder Stories
Final Girls
🎉21. Read 4 books that include a party or anniversary celebration.✔️✔️✔️
Anna Karenina
In an Absent Dream
Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands
WILD CARD
🏆22. Read 4 books that feature a bibliophile, bookworm, librarian, or bookshop.✔️✔️✔️✔️
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Every Heart a Doorway
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
In the Shadow of Spindrift House
🏆23. Read 4 books in a series of 4 (25% of a series).✔️✔️✔️✔️
Deadly Affairs
Feed
Annihilation
Undercover Bromance
Note: Renumbered to remove duplicates. There are 23 prompts on the team list instead of the 25 from the original challenge because a few prompts were combined for the team challenge.
✔️ - One book finished for prompt
🏆 - Prompt completed (no wild card)
🎉 - Prompt completed with wild card(s)
Hello everyone! I am so excited for this event. I can't talk long tonight but I will definitely be on tomorrow to say hello. I'd love to hear from you all what you're looking forward to for this, what books you hope to read (doesn't have to be specific), and anything else you'd care to share. I'm looking forward to the readathon because they help me focus and also the ones I've done (in a different group) always give a great sense of companionship and being part of something while reading. Just lots of fun. I'm not a high pressure reader; I've had a crummy couple of years with reading book books (I've read SO much fanfic though!) and I'm getting back into the swing of things now. I am planning to read a lot of Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant novellas for this, which is something I've been meaning to catch up on for quite a while.
Hi everyone! It's already saturday morning on my side of the planet (The Netherlands), so I have all the time in the world if anyone wants to chat. If people don't mind sharing, I'd love to hear where everyone's from.
This is my first group readathon. I've also had a couple of bad reading years, but I'm really trying to get back to it this year. I'm hoping this readathon will help with that, and it would be great to make some new friends along the way.
Here's the books that I want to read for this challenge. I can realistically only read these 2. If things go well, I might be able to read a 3rd book.
I'm reading The Hobbit in German, to try and improve my fluency in that language. I currently have 177 pages left in it. It could count for these prompts:
- translated in 25+ languages (wouldn't it be beautiful if I could read it for this prompt, since I'm reading it in my 3rd language?)
- over 25k ratings
- book about making friends (this might be a bit of a stretch, but I guess we can discuss it if this turns out to be a difficult prompt)
I've started this book a few years ago, but never finished it, and I am hoping to finally get it done now. It could count for the following prompts:
- over 25k ratings
- 25 character title
- 25+ languages (maybe? I don't really know how to check without digging through all the different editions)
I also really want to finish Crime and Punishment, a book I started reading 1,5 years ago, but I'm not sure I'd be able to finish it in time for this readathon, because it's about 650 pages.
Other options for my third book would include picking a random book from my shelf that would fit a prompt the group is having trouble with, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it, since I'm not sure I'll actually be able to read a third book in such a short time.
The only thing I really cannot do for this challenge, is read a book I don't own yet. My country is currently in lockdown, and although I could order a book online, I'd really prefer to stick with the books I already own.
(I'm really sorry this became such a long message...)
I have a small suggestion for the prompts btw. Would it be possible for them to be numbered? Because instead of writing out the whole prompt every time you talk about it, it would be much easier to be able to say "I'm reading a book that could work for prompts 5, 10 or 12" (for instance).
Hi team! Very excited to start planning the readathon, I love the idea of working on the prompts with a small team. And a wave at fellow Dutchie Willemijn :)I will probably be reading two or three books during the readathon.
✅My definite read will be Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, it’s a chunker that I’ve been working on all month and I will read the last 100/150 pages during the readathon. It would work for prompts: title consisting of 25 characters, 25 languages, 25 chapters, 25000 ratings, bibliophile.
Other than that I have so far thought of these possible reads to choose from, but depending on what we need I could search further:
Reread Neverwhere, prompts: published 1996, 25000 ratings, author who has written for 25 or more years.
✅The Time Machine, prompts: 25 languages, 25000 ratings, author who has written for 25 or more years, author who has written 25 or more books.
✅Lirael, prompts: title with L, 25000 ratings, recommend to 25year old self, shelved in first month
✅Raising Steam, prompts: in a series with at least 12 or 25 books, 25000 ratings, author who has written for 25 or more years, author who has written 25 or more books
Nod, published in 2012
To Cut a Long Story Short, 12th book on TBR, shelved in first month
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, written when author was under 25
Oh by the way, I can’t get the link to our spreadsheet to work...
SarahKat wrote: "Hi all, oshizu will have to fix the link in her post, but here it is for now"Thanks SarahKat! I will enter my definite reads in there tomorrow :)
I let the day get away from me a bit today! I am in the States in Colorado, and I wasn't watching the weather, so I'm running around a bit to get ready for more snow. I have added numbers to the prompts up above. If you all want to look at the spreadsheet, it took a bit for me to wrap my mind around, but by adding each title across the top and checking the possible prompts, we'll be able to see what prompts we have covered. Excited you are all reading such great books. I will work on getting mine added as well; I am still making up my mind about a few things.
I'm checking in on all the team threads now.Sorry about the bad link and thank you to SarahKat for providing the right one.
I've redone your spreadsheet link in your team thread's first post. It should work now. :D
Have fun, folks!
Thanks SarahKat and Oshizu!@ Amy: MORE SNOW? Over here we're getting ready for spring. Yesterday was one of those first really nice days where the sunlight actually feels warm.
Thanks for adding numbers to the prompts btw!
@ Marleen: Yay, another Dutchie! *waves back*
I've filled in my planned reads in the spreadsheet, but I've left the two example columns for now, bc other people might still need those to see how it's supposed to be filled in.Also, the Tracking sheet is super confusing to me. If I add up all of the books in the list above, I come to a total of 66 books, but the spreadsheets says it's 50.
(OH WAIT I've figured it out. The list above has all of the quartet prompts twice! So 50 books is correct.)
Also, there's prompts in the "trios" column of the spreadsheet that shouldn't be there (the one about making friends is in the "quartets", so maybe it was accidentally listed twice? I've coloured the cells red that I don't think should be there, but I don't wanna do anything else rn bc I don't wanna mess it up.
Hi team!I have books for prompts 3 and 7 if no one can find books that fit.
How can we easily find out how many languages a book has been translated into?
Hi team! I pledged to read 3-8 books and I can commit to are Anna Karenina , Mere Christianity, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and The Duke and I. They fit several prompts and I've updated the sheet.I'll try to find one more book that could fit more categories.
I’ve removed the two example columns from our spreadsheet (there’s plenty books now and the examples would throw off the numbers) and added my own. We’ve got a lot of prompts covered already!Yay Iton and Chalmation, welcome aboard!
@Chalmation, I searched the Goodreads editions for a few wellknown books I was considering and counted languages. But that’s probably not the best way I’m sure :)
Willemijn wrote: " @ Amy: MORE SNOW? Over here we're getting ready for spring. Yesterday was one of those first really nice days where the sunlight actually feels warm.Thanks for adding numbers to the prompts btw!"
No problem. We are definitely headed for spring too; swinging wildly between warm weather and snow storms. March is often our snowiest month. We had a bit of a blizzard last week, but fortunately the warnings were a bit overblown for this weekend. This was the view out my window this morning:
And all of that will melt off in the next couple of days and we'll be back to sunshine.
Chalmation wrote: "Hi team!
I have books for prompts 3 and 7 if no one can find books that fit.
How can we easily find out how many languages a book has been translated into?"
Hi! I will ask about languages in the central thread. There must be some better way than counting editions on Goodreads, but Google failed me.
Iton wrote: "Hi team!"
Hi! Great to see people coming by. Your books sound great. I've got Mr. Penumbra on my stack too, and if you read it maybe I can do it too for prompt #1.
Marleen wrote: "I’ve removed the two example columns from our spreadsheet (there’s plenty books now and the examples would throw off the numbers) and added my own. We’ve got a lot of prompts covered already!"
Thanks for doing that, Marleen. We are doing so great!
Oshizu answered our translations question; I've added a FAQ spot at the top of this thread to keep our questions organized. Follow the link to the Wikipedia list suggested.
Hello! Looking forward to the read-a-thon. I'm trying to plan out my books. I want to read The Road. It looks like it will be quick and easy. It has won lots of awards. How can you tell how many languages it was translated into? I'm not sure what other books to read. It seems like some of the others I was thinking of don't really go with the prompts or would take me longer to read. I'm trying to pick some so that I can knock a bunch out. I might also read The Butterfly Garden and maybe The Light We Lost. I'm planning to listen to some audio as well.
Hi Joan, glad to have you here! Finding number of translations is a bit tricky but we already have a few options for that in the spreadsheet fortunately :)I was searching for one of the prompts that are harder to fill: written by an author under 25. I came across this link: https://irisreading.com/10-famous-aut... and I could read Frankenstein: The 1818 Text for this one! Added it to my list of possibilities in my post above.
I’m excited to start on Thursday! Currently working hard on my chunky first read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell so that I’ll hopefully have only 100/150 pages left to read when we start.We haven’t heard yet from Kelly or Lisa right? I hope they join in soon so we can see how their planned reads match up with the prompts :)
Joan wrote: "Hello! Looking forward to the read-a-thon. I'm trying to plan out my books."Hi Joan! Good to see you. World Cat is showing 15 languages in translation for The Road. He's been writing over 25 years though, and may have over 25 books. (I didn't count.) And it's totally alright to read some things off prompt too. I may be doing a bit of that myself since I have some other challenges I need to wrap up for March.
Marleen wrote: "I’m excited to start on Thursday! Currently working hard on my chunky first read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell so that I’ll hopefully have only 100/150 pages left to read when we start..."
I'm excited too. Ready to get this show on the road. Jonathan Strange really is a chunkster! I messaged Kelly and Lisa the thread link. I hope they can drop by.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I messaged Kelly and Lisa the thread link. I hope they can drop by.."I also messaged Kelly two days ago. I'll try catching her somewhere else.
oshizu wrote: "I also messaged Kelly two days ago. I'll try catching her somewhere else."Huge thanks, oshizu.
I'm still waffling over planning, so I'm just going to dump some books out here:Definitely Reading
Beneath the Sugar Sky: Unfortunately can't fill a series prompt. Hoping for some parties or friend making. Otherwise, 13 or 18
The Sense of an Ending: Will probably fit all of the trio prompts.
Silver in the Wood: Obvious for 7 but also fits 20, which we don't have much filled in for yet. Need for a challenge.
Drowned Country: No idea yet and I won't know until I read it; need it for a challenge.
Current Library Haul
Prompts: Title with L, books shelved the month I joined the group, ?
Would like to read
(*firmly reminds self that this only goes two weeks!*)
Done
I’m soooo with you on that reminder Amy... I’m not the fastest reader and usually on average only read a book a week at most but there’s a whole list that I’d like to get through! I’m hoping the readathon will help motivate and speed me up so I’ll read a lot more than normal :)
Sometimes that works! My eyes are always bigger than the time I have to read no matter what I do, though. LOL.
Well I meant to finish Feed before the read-a-thon started but I still have 119 pages left in the book so I guess I'll go ahead and count it for the read-a-thon. I'm hoping to finish it up tomorrow.
That sounds great. I meant to have something almost done, but life did not cooperate. I'll try to get a novella read tomorrow night. I'd be interested to know what you think of Feed when you're finished. I love all her stuff, but I have never been able to deal with zombie stories.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "That sounds great. I meant to have something almost done, but life did not cooperate. I'll try to get a novella read tomorrow night. I'd be interested to know what you think of Feed when you're fin..."I saw that you were planning to read some of her stuff. I really like the book. I heard the next one in the series is even better. I think I'm also going to read Beneath the Sugar Sky for the read-a-thon but I haven't gotten a copy of it yet. I was debating doing the audio. The wayward children series hasn't really grabbed me that much but I figure I might as well continue with it. I like Feed much better. And this is my first zombie book I believe and it's not gory at all so I appreciate that. I'm not a gore person.
It’s Thursday! Go Dewey Decimators! 🥳
Joan wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "The wayward children series hasn't really grabbed me that much but I figure I might as well continue with it. I like Feed much better. And this is my first zombie book I believe and it's not gory at all so I appreciate that. I'm not a gore person."Yeah, gore is a problem. I really enjoyed Rolling in the Deep though, and I have the sequel on my stack for the near future. I might get Beneath the Sugar Sky done tonight or tomorrow, so that would give us an option for the 'book read by a teammate' prompt if you do read it. (No pressure at all.)
I finished my first book! The readathon has already greatly increased my reading, I read a lot more this evening than I normally would on a weeknight :)I read the last 206 pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I mostly enjoyed it (some great side characters and the plot picked up in the second half) but it was quite a long winded ‘historical’ writing style that I wasn’t always in the mood for this month so it took me a loooong time to finish it.
This book would work best for prompts 14 or 22, and we need 4 of 22 so I’ll put it on that one I think. I’ll go update the spreadsheet now! Amy, if I mess it up please let me know!
I’ll decided on my next book in the morning, but I’m leaning towards Raising Steam for prompt 11
For the prompt, "Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group," is that for the calendar month you joined or within 30 days after joining?
Marleen wrote: "I finished my first book! The readathon has already greatly increased my reading, I read a lot more this evening than I normally would on a weeknight :)"Yay! I'll finish my first tomorrow.
Today I listened to 1.25 hours of audio and read 71 pages. I put it on the spreadsheet. Saturday and Sunday I should be able to read a lot.
Great going everyone. I got 169 pages in. I'll update the spreadsheet tomorrow; I don't want to fight with it on mobile. I'll look it all over and also report our numbers in the progress thread in the morning. I think I will put my reread of Every Heart a Doorway on the bibliophile prompt.
Yesterday I read 12 pages and listened to 3.12 hours of audio and updated the spreadsheet. Today's aim is much higher and I'll try to finish an audiobook.
I'm thinking you finished it. Congrats!Here is our progress from yesterday:
Date: 3/25/21
Pages read: 723
Hours listened: 4.37
Prompts filled: 3
Wild Cards earned: 1
Hooray team!
Also great job filling out the spreadsheet all. (I did take the highlighting off the tracking page; you only have to highlight your completions on the planning page.) Everything looks really good.
Chalmation wrote: "For the prompt, "Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group," is that for the calendar month you joined or within 30 days after joining?"From the Central thread: The prompt refers to the calendar month.
Yay great team progress on day 1! Thanks Amy!I’m starting my next book today, Raising Steam. It’s best suited for prompt 11, as it is part of my favorite and dozens-books long series, the Discworld-series by Terry Pratchett. It is the very last book I still have to read from the series, and I have postponed reading it since the author’s death in 2015 because I knew it would be the last new Discworld story I would ever read... But postponing no longer.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Chalmation wrote: "For the prompt, "Read 3 books you shelved during the month you joined this group," is that for the calendar month you joined or within 30 days after joining?"From the Central t..."
OK thanks. That gives me more choices of books if I decide to do that prompt.
I'm not sure reading a book in German was the best idea for this challenge. Although I'm learning a lot, my reading is super slow in this language. I do think the readathon is helping me to make reading more of a priority though, so that helps. I only managed to read 13 pages yesterday, but I'm already on 21 pages today, and I'll read some more after dinner. Hopefully I can add a nicer number of pages to the spreadsheet at the end of the evening.
Marleen wrote: "I’m starting my next book today, Raising Steam. It’s best suited for prompt 11, as it is part of my favorite and dozens-books long ser..."That's so bittersweet. I thought about Discworld for that challenge too and I'm really glad you're reading it. I hope it's a lovely read for you.
Chalmation wrote: "OK thanks. That gives me more choices of books if I decide to do that prompt."
Excellent!
Willemijn wrote: "I'm not sure reading a book in German was the best idea for this challenge. Although I'm learning a lot, my reading is super slow in this language. I do think the readathon is helping me to make re..."
You are doing great! If reading is happening, then I think it's a win. If it feels stressful though feel free to switch it out; there's no pressure here to finish or not. I think the encouragement to read is the main benefit from doing this.
I completed Feed. I'm not sure what category we want to use it for. It is book 1 of a 4 book series. Maybe we should use it for 4 books in a series of 4 since we only have 3 books slotted there.
I agree. Four book series are hard to find. It would be great there.I finished Beneath a Sugar Sky tonight.
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2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Kingdom of Needle and Bone (other topics)Purple Hibiscus (other topics)
Undercover Bromance (other topics)
Undercover Bromance (other topics)
Kingdom of Needle and Bone (other topics)
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25K Celebration Readathon
This thread is for members of the Dewey Decimators team to use however you wish in relation to the readathon. Your teammates are:
Amy (Captain), Kelly (Assistant), Chalmation, Iton, Joan, Lisa, Marleen, and Willemijn
Here is the link to your team’s spreadsheet, where you’ll be tracking your progress as you go.
If you have any questions about the readathon, how to interpret the prompts, how to use the spreadsheet, and so on, ask your Captain or Assistant first. If they don’t know, they can post the question(s) on the Readathon Central thread.
Happy reading! Let’s have a blast during this two-week readathon!