2011 Reading Challenge

[Alex C]

I reached my goal of this year of 50 a few weeks ago and now my motivation to read has gone down because I want to count them for next year now. I think maybe I'll just raise it by 10 to 60 for next year.

[Soo]

=) I didn't even know about the reading challenge until a few months after I joined Goodreads. I joined in February 2011. Once I found it, I signed up for 100 books. I figured that would be an easily achieved goal. I read rather fast and I wanted to leave wiggle room for other parts of my life. I've upped the challenge two more times and left it at 150. I'll probably reach over 200 before the year is out. I'm currently in a YA book spree and it's been interesting! Next year, I think I'll set the challenge to 150 and up it to 200. I read for entertainment & curiosity for the most part. I love holding a book in my hands but I have to say that it's been really convenient to read ebooks on my Droid. I'm definitely one of those readers that always have a book in hand whenever I have a moment to read: eating a meal alone, waiting in line, out for a walk or while cooking. The reading challenge makes me think of the first one I was a part of in 5th grade. I always liked reading but that's when I learned that I really love reading.

Yay for great books & sharing the fun of reading them!

[Anne]

I don't think the reading challenge really changes how I choose books. It's something I have done for the past five years or so and I have only used the Goodreads feature for the last two.

I don't really choose shorter books just to make the goal, since it's mostly a tracking and motivational tool for me.

I usually did well with the goal of 52, some years coming in a few books short or having read a couple more, so it seemed like an achievable, but still challenging goal.

This year I read a lot more due to a variety of reasons, so when I reached in fall or so (don't remember exactly when) I just upped the goal to 75 which seemed like a good goal given the time left.

Basically I'm not here to compete. If others can do 100 or more books a year, I'm impressed, but I don't feel like I have to do the same. I'm pretty comfortable with my reading speed and time spent with books, leaving me enough time for other stuff.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I always aim for around 100, because that's about a book every four days, and that seems reasonable. This year I set a goal of 150, but surpassed it for a number of reasons - I've had to read a few books in a day to be ready for a podcast, books I wouldn't necessarily normally read. I also read some award lists with a sense of urgency. This was my first year in six years not to do NaNoWriMo, which usually eats up all my reading time in November.

At the end of the day, when I compare year to year, I look at pages read, not books. Some years I read more poetry which would add false positives to the book count, but the 42 pages in a volume would quickly even out when focusing on pages. GoodReads will tell you that part too, which I love.

At the end of the day, I don't set challenges to compete with other people, but with myself. If other people feel like I've beat them, I can't really help that. I'm just a fast reader. I like to look back and feel like I've accomplished something, and to be able to quantify and qualify it. The numbers help to quantify and the reviews help to qualify. Win/win!

[Walter]

I said 15 (which for me is fairly ambitious what with work and school) and should hit 18 by the end of the month.

[Amy]

I set mine for 100, but will probably end up around 140 by the end of the year. I didn't raise it when I hit my goal in September because I wanted to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment and not feel even more overloaded come NaNoWriMo.

I tried to vary the length of the books as much as possible, only delving into a string of shorter works when my to be read pile got crazy and I just needed to knock the list down under 20 again. ^^

I didn't count the novellettes or shorter works for my Hugo or casual reading, but did include anthologies that I read completely and graphic novels. I also excluded rereads.

[Nevan]

I think I read twenty-ish books this year. I'm more of a tv and film kinda dude (93 movies this year!). Also, I've slowed my reading significantly so that I can better analyze the author's style, word choice, and what-have-you.

For those of you with incredible numbers, would you say that reading is your main pastime?

[Amy]

Nevan wrote: "For those of you with incredible numbers, would you say that reading is your main pastime?
"

I'd certainly say that. I usually read 1-2 hours on a work day and 3-4 on a non-work day. Since a 300-400 page book probably takes me only 4-5 hours to read altogether, that means I get through most books in 2 or 3 days, with more on the weekend.

[Soo]

Nevan wrote: "I think I read twenty-ish books this year. I'm more of a tv and film kinda dude (93 movies this year!). Also, I've slowed my reading significantly so that I can better analyze the author's style, w..."

I multitask a lot! It's amazing what else you can do as you read... one day, that may get me in trouble! ;)

I focused on writing earlier this year and turned my attention to reading for the latter half. I go in phases in different activities. I can read 250 pages in a few hours. It really depends on the writing style. Some books I can breeze through and others I take longer because there's more to absorb. Even when my life is full of other loves, I still read about 50 books a year. Thus far, I haven't counted short stories or manga/comics I read online. It would be a little mind boggling if I did that.

[Brad Theado]

Reading is one of my all consuming past times. I mostly read in snippits though which is why i love ebooks. I might read for 5-10 minutes while getting my oil changed, while waiting for people to show up for meetings at work, at lunch time, waiting for my wife to come home from work, during commercials, right before i go to sleep, in the bathtub, during extremely slow periods at work (my job is frantic for an hour or two with down times frequently), etc etc

[Jlawrence, S&L Moderator]

I set my challenge at 60 books for 2011, and am only at 37 currently. Besides real-life distractions, the main culprits of this failure were the slogging pace with which I read the lengthy Wise Man's Fear, Dance with Dragons, and Reamde (see, it's S&L's fault! ;) ) - plus NaNoWriMo, during which I barely read at all.

I do have a train-ride commute everyday to work, plus sometimes time on a city bus, and that's when I get the most of my reading done. I'm doing a run of shorter non-fiction titles now (Joan Didion currently) to recover from the doorstop milestones of the year. ;)

[Anne]

Jlawrence wrote: "I set my challenge at 60 books for 2011, and am only at 37 currently. Besides real-life distractions, the main culprits of this failure were the slogging pace with which I read the lengthy Wise Ma..."

I've had those years. I think it was last year or the one before where I had so many distractions that I didn't get past 30 books. Now this year I have read more than ever before, so I guess it just varies depending on what else is going on in your life.

[Will]

My goal was 15 and I think I'm at 17 right now. I'm a slow reader and I watch way too much TV. You all make me feel bad. Next year I'm going for 20 or 25.

[Soo]

Will wrote: "My goal was 15 and I think I'm at 17 right now. I'm a slow reader and I watch way too much TV. You all make me feel bad. Next year I'm going for 20 or 25."

I don't think it matters how many books you read in a year. I think it's more important to enjoy what you read. Reading is mostly a solitary pleasure unless you're reading out loud. Sharing your thoughts and responses to a book/story with others is another great aspect to reading.

Right now, I'm torn between continuing to read books on a short list I compiled for December or to go hog wild and finish up a series that I've unwittingly started from my list. Book one was on the list and I have the rest of the books... so... well. Dang choices!

[Levi]

The reading challenge did change my habit of rereading great books immediately after finishing them. I wanted to reread Dance and Heroes both right away, but chose to wait until after the new year so they'd count.

[Dave]

I set my target at 50 - basically a book a week or thereabouts and hit that yesterday.

[Jonathan Cate]

Okay, I finished 67 books this year and beat my revised # by two. The interesting thing is the # of pages read: 34,102. O knew alot of the books I read this year were long, but wow. What are some of your page counts according to the stats link? I'm interested to see where my count stacks up.

[Graeme]

I joined late in the year, so I only figured 12 books. I managed 28 for 14452 pages.

[AndrewP]

Jonathan wrote: "Okay, I finished 67 books this year and beat my revised # by two. The interesting thing is the # of pages read: 34,102. O knew alot of the books I read this year were long, but wow. What are some of your page counts according to the stats link? I'm interested to see where my count stacks up. "

This year I finished 42 books. The page total is 13,374, but then a dozen of those were audio books which count as zero pages. Several of them were in the 25 hours + range (Sword of Truth Series) so I would probably be close to 20,000 if I entered the book version into GR.

[Kate]

Final numbers are in, 138 things that goodreads counts as a book have been read, probably 135 things I'd count. 34,151 pages according to goodreads, but some of the ebooks I read don't have page counts recorded so aren't adding to my total.

I'm stats mining at the moment.

My top three most read authors were
Josh Lanyon, Elizabeth Bear, and Hal Duncan

12% non-fiction, which I'd like to improve on next year.
38% of the books I read were by women, which is okay.
About 2% were written by non-white authors, which is pretty terrible.

[terpkristin]

Interesting to see how the stats break down.

I finished 44 books in 2011 for a total of 21,188 pages. Some titles were audio and ebooks, so the page count probably isn't quite right, but it's good enough.

52 books is my goal for 2012.

[Kevin]

terpkristin wrote: "Interesting to see how the stats break down.

I finished 44 books in 2011 for a total of 21,188 pages. Some titles were audio and ebooks, so the page count probably isn't quite right, but it's goo..."

Nice, a book a week.

[AndrewP]

Kevin wrote: "Nice, a book a week. "

I had my 2011 reading goal as 26 books, one a fortnight. As I actually read 44 last year I am going to aim for 36 this time around, or one every 10 days.

[Anne]

73 books read (didn't make it quite to 75, I blame Edinburgh for that) with 28,571 pages, so I guess I can be proud.