Jump to content

2017 Reading Self-Challenge


Plessiez

Recommended Posts

2016 goal was in the 20+ (probably 22) books, and most importantly 6.300+ pages. Got 6.360 pages and 18 books. Having a 1.100 pages behemoth obviously tends to ruin the books goal even if the pages goal is reached - as already said on 1st page. But then, I've always considered the total amount of pages per year more than the number of books - I have several 150 and 2000 pages books on my shelves, including on my "still-to-read list...

2017 goal will be 6.400 pages, roughly 20 books - it obviously won't go higher with books, considering I'll begin the 900 behemoth Water Margins vol. 2 this weekend (vol. 1 was the 1.100 monster of 2016).

Worth mentioning that I could go a bit higher if I really wanted to, but I tend to drop reading in the very last days of Dec. because I've reached my self-imposed goal, have finished the book I'm reading and choose to have more time to watch movies/series and play a few games - mostly based on the reasoning that my books will still be there in 30 years, but DVDs and current PC systems will be gone, so I'm not in an absolute rush to get rid of my to-read pile of books. Holidays, between Christmas and New Year, are basically a safety valve if I'm behind schedule on my readings. Still, I also bought 5.000+ pages of books last year, so my "yet-to-read" shelf has barely been reduced. Will have to self-discipline more this year and buy less...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm setting 40 this year. I will either have another job or none at all come March so it's really difficult to guage whether I'll have more or less time for book consumption in 2017.

I've noticed my "to listen" list has increased at a greater rate than my "to read" list over the last year. I only bought 3 physical books last year (only one of which I haven't read but that's because I'm awaiting part 2 to be published) which is good for someone trying to save on space.

I also utterly failed in trying to read books by female authors last year despite it being one of my "challenges". I blame this largely on King but will make a better effort this year. Probably via Hobb as I need to read the liveship books this year but there's a good list of others I've had sitting around. I usually seem to have an easier time with non-fiction for female authors. Possibly because in both fiction/non-fiction it's the subject/content I'm most interested in and my non-fiction tastes align better. Or more reassuringly academia is slightly less biased in who gets to write these things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

1/20

Finished Reading 'Life the Universe and Everything', by Douglas Adams. Loved it. 

My sub goals will be :

1- read from the books I currently own first, then any new ones I buy (unless Winds of Winter comes out)

-'Life the Universe and Everything'

2- I want to read 10 books written by women

3- I want to read 5 non fiction books (finish the ones I'm reading first)

4- I want to read 5 anthologies 

5- I want to read at least 5 Children's books (not Picture Story books)

6- I want to read at least 10 novels from any genre

1/10 - 'Life the Universe and Everything' 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished four this month:

1) Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb (re-read)

2) Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare

3) The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb (re-read)

4) The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare (re-read)

I enjoy Hobb, of course, in particular infound the attitudes of the Bingtown Traders and their hostility to change, and to outsiders, interesting in the current ah, situation. 

Measure for Measure, I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first. But the more I've thought about it the better I think it was. It was one of the later plays iirc, and I think it shows. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eight books in January; didn't read exactly what I'd been hoping to but near enough.

1) The Noise Of Time (Julian Barnes)

2) A God In Ruins (Kate Atkinson)

3) The Burning Page (Genevieve Cogman)

4) Dragonfly Falling (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

5) Flaubert's Parrot (Julian Barnes)

6) The Corporation Wars: Insurgence (Ken Macleod)

7) Rusalka (C. J. Cherryh)

8) The Dancers At The End Of Time (Michael Moorcock)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Plessiez said:

 

6) The Corporation Wars: Insurgence (Ken Macleod)

Is this any good? I've read most of Macleod's books, but he's been quite hit-and-miss in recent years and the plot summary for this didn't grab my attention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 02/01/2017 at 9:17 PM, Andorion said:

I have a rather complicated book year planned out:

First of all I have set my Goodreads challenge at 80 books, but frankly I am aiming at 100.

First of all, I have a 24 book Classic challenge to tackle.

Gone With the Wind -Margaret Mitchell
Bleak HouseCharles - Dickens In Progress
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Ivanhoe - Walter Scott
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smity
Emma - Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
How Green was my Valley - Richard Llewellyn
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Unbearable Lighness of Being - Milan Kundera
Razor's Edge - Somerset Maugham
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Aenid - Virgil
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Secondly, I have a few targeted authors

Finish Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow. (This is a big one) In Progress
Finish Bakker In Progress
Read at least another three books of Black Company
Read at least two books of Ursula K Leguin
Read at least two books of GG Kay
Finish Mark Lawrence's second trilogy
Finish Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn In Progress
Finish Alastair Reynolds' Poseidon's Children trilogy
Read at least one book by China Mieville

Thirdly, read 23 books coming out this year which are continuations to existing series I am reading

Fourthly try to trim my TBR

A very satisfactory reading month - read 14 books

1. Dragonbone Chair

2. Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams - this ties into my goal of finishing MS&T

3. Ships of Merior

4. Warhost of Vastmark by Janny Wurts - this ties into my goal of finishing Wars of Light and Shadow

5. The Thousandfold Thought by R Scott Bakker - this ties into my goal of finishing Bakker

6. Harmony Black by Craig Schaefer

7. The Fox by Sherwood Smith

8. One Fell Sweep by Ilona Andrews

9. City of Ice by KM Mckinley

10. Blue Remembered Earth

11. On the Steel Breeze 

12. Poseidon's Children by Alastair Reynolds - this completes my Reynolds goal

13. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

14. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott - Both from the Classics list

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, williamjm said:

Is this any good? I've read most of Macleod's books, but he's been quite hit-and-miss in recent years and the plot summary for this didn't grab my attention.

If the plot summary didn't appeal to you then I'm not sure I'd recommend this series. ('Insurgence' is actually the second of three books; but unlike some of MacLeod's earlier work none of the books stand alone at all -- it's just one continuous story in three volumes).

I've broadly enjoyed the trilogy so far myself and I'll probably read the third instalment when it comes out, but I have found them a little underwhelming.  I wasn't really happy with any of MacLeod's last three or four books either; which I think all suffered from some serious pacing and scope problems. I'm not sure I'd have bothered with the first book of this trilogy, except that it seemed like he was returning to something more like his earlier space opera stuff.  

And that's true, to an extent: like those books these ones feature artificial intelligences, uploaded human minds, virtual realities, flashbacks where young people argue about politics and a slightly ludicrous (but vaguely sketched) future history linking those flashbacks to the main narrative.  But they're lacking the ambition and the concentration of ideas of those earlier books, I think -- once you've read the blurb you more or less know what to expect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been making a more concerted effort to make time for myself and reduce stress since late last year. A major part of that was to focus on reading more. I've always found reading to be one of the most effective ways to relieve stress.  I finished six books in January, and feel great.

 

Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves

The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

Gods of Gotham by Lyndsey Faye

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bit of a latecomer here, but I'm setting the goal of 20 books for this year. Have completed just one so far!

Last year I managed to (just) meet my target of 16, so I've decided to up the ante slightly without setting myself up to fail. I'm certainly not going to reach the dizzying heights of others in this thread!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

My 2017 40 Book Challenge (January Update)

  1. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  2. The Acts of the Apostles by Ellen G. White
  3. Centuries of Changes by Ian Mortimer
  4. Dangerous Women 1 edited George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois
  5. The Great Controversy by Ellen G. White
  6. In Search of the Golden Rainbow by Charles Armistead

Well I might have read as many books in February as in January, however it was a frustrating month because the book I've been reading almost the entire month isn't on this list.  Anyway to the statistics: 6/40 overall and 6/30 first time reads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Completed reads for February:

  1. The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay
  2. Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent
  3. The Call, by Peadar O'Guilin
  4. Troll: A Love Story, by Johanna Sinisalo
  5. Exile, by R.A. Salvatore
  6. Psycho, by Robert Bloch
  7. Sojourn, by R.A. Salvatore

I'm now back on track in terms of total books, but only Lions exceeds 500 pages. I'll need to read longer books in the coming months.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 02/01/2017 at 9:17 PM, Andorion said:

I have a rather complicated book year planned out:

First of all I have set my Goodreads challenge at 80 books, but frankly I am aiming at 100.

First of all, I have a 24 book Classic challenge to tackle.

Gone With the Wind -Margaret Mitchell
Bleak HouseCharles - Dickens

The Idiot - Dostoevsky
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Ivanhoe - Walter Scott
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smity
Emma - Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
How Green was my Valley - Richard Llewellyn
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Unbearable Lighness of Being - Milan Kundera
Razor's Edge - Somerset Maugham
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Aenid - Virgil
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Secondly, I have a few targeted authors

Finish Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow. (This is a big one) 3, maybe 4 left to go
Finish Bakker 4 left to go
Read at least another three books of Black Company
Read at least two books of Ursula K Leguin
Read at least two books of GG Kay
Finish Mark Lawrence's second trilogy
Finish Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn 1 left to go
Finish Alastair Reynolds' Poseidon's Children trilogy
Read at least one book by China Mieville

Thirdly, read 23 books coming out this year which are continuations to existing series I am reading

Fourthly try to trim my TBR

A not-so-good month: Read 9 books, so my total is 23

I read three books by Janny Wurts: 

Fugitive Prince, Grand Conspiracy, Peril's Gate

I read 2 classics: Emma, Bleak House

I read 1 science fiction: Fortress at the End of Time

Inda 3: King's Shield by Sherwood Smith

Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In 2015 I set myself an ambitious goal of reading more challenging literature. Consequently, I read almost nothing, and it took me six months to get through Italo Calvino's 165-page Invisible Cities. Last year I didn't even post in the challenge thread. So this year I am going back to basics and just setting my challenge at 10 of whatever books. I've read five at the end of February, so I am pretty sure I will manage it okay as long as I can figure out what I want to read next!

End of February update:

1. Phil Morse - Rock The Dance Floor - I got into DJing last year, read this to up my game a bit. It's... decent? I don't share the goals of many DJs, so some of it was only so applicable.

2. Scott Hawkins - The Library at Mt. Char - Loved it. Best fantasy novel I've read in a while.

3. Pierce Brown - Red Rising - Solid if predictable dystopian uprising, first in a trilogy.

4. John Christopher - When The Tripods Came - Recommended by a friend. Very dark for YA. Also, not that good.

5. Frank Herbert - Dune - I tried to read this once before and couldn't get into it, but I dug it this time. I have some writing gripes, but this is a seminal work.

Trying to choose between like 8 books for my next read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/4/2017 at 0:57 AM, Lord of Oop North said:

Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves

The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

Gods of Gotham by Lyndsey Faye

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

This month, I read;

Half the World by Joe Abercrombie

Half a War by Joe Abercrombie

The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell (just finished this yesterday, but I'll count it as February)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...