Source
r/books•
Irrell

Do you participate in reading challenges and/or marathons? If so, which ones and why?

I'm just curious about what people's reading habits are. I personally love reading challenges, I find that my reading becomes more varied as I try to find books that fit a certain category.

I currently am doing the PopSugar reading challenge with a few of my friends, we have one gigantic Excel sheet where we all edit and track - it becomes 'slightly' competitive, but we do share lots of great suggestions.

How about you lovely people? Do you partake in the reading challenges? Do you do the monthly/quarterly/annual variety? Are you currently doing one right now?

Posted Apr 19, 2018, 11:48 AM UTC

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Bz3rk•

Just the Goodreads one that I set for myself. I have a goal of 100 books this year.

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CrazyCatLady10856•

are you keeping on track with that goal?

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Bz3rk•

36 books so far this year so a little ahead of schedule.

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CrazyCatLady10856•

good job! 100 feels daunting, but you make me feel like it is more than possible. :)

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Bz3rk•

Last year I set it for 50 and read close to 80 so I decided to up it this year.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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Bz3rk•

Yeah if I get close to hitting it I'll probably rotate in a longer read that I'm holding off on such as Anna Karenina.

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JeeJeeBaby•

One every 3 and a half days is just immense. I have travel with that even while listening to half my books during my work day.

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Bz3rk•

I'm counting audio books too, which it a bit of hot topic on this board and some don't agree with counting that towards reading. But my system is that I always have an audio book which I listen to on the way to work and on the way home, and I can listen and comprehend much faster than I can read for some odd reason so I'm always on 2x speed.

I have an hour break at lunch that I'm reading. I always have an ebook that I'm working on on my PC/phone so waiting in line to check out at the store, etc. On a long weekend vacation I'll read most of the time and knock out 3 or so books.

And then I always have a third book I'm working on, usually an actual paper book, that I read for a couple hours to wind down before bed. So at any given time I'm working on 3 different books, and I like have all 3 be different genres to keep them clearer in my head (one fiction, one memoir, one essay collection, etc.)

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JeeJeeBaby•

You're quite dedicated. Well done. I think it's totally fine to count audio books. Interesting that you can even listen at 2x speed. Is it pitch protected?

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Bz3rk•

Yes, I've used the Audible app, the Overdrive app, and the VLC app (for old MP3 audioboos) to play back audio books and all work fine at any speed.

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rain1708•

Man that's a lot haha but nothing impossible. I set mine 30 books this year.

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randyranderson13•

I do the Goodreads challenge as well but typically only 50/60 a year. I went for 100 the first year but couldn’t get there

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iamaprilanne78•

I do. I have Goodreads account, and they have yearly reading challenges that you can participate in.

I love to read, so I'd like to keep track of the books that I've read and the ones I'd like to read in the future, or what's my next book will be.

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20above•

No. Any time I put any kind of goal or pressure on myself I self sabotage. I want to try a readathon but I don't think I could spend the whole day reading. Not sure about challenges. Maybe if I had friends to do it with it'd be easier.

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TheMelIsBack•

You could try a weeklong readathon. A lot of them have very simple challenges so you can tailor it to your schedule.

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OliviaPresteignThe Best We Could Do - Thi Bui•

I do reading challenges for the same reason you do: I discover great books I never would’ve picked up otherwise. I’m also doing the Popsugar challenge.

I belong to a group on Goodreads that has monthly, quarterly, and other yearly challenges (like Popsugar), so I’ll do a few of those as well.

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meaghanlodon•

What group is this? I'd definitely be interested!

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TheMelIsBack•

I do popsugar and Book Riot with some smaller ones here and there. I don't force myself to finish them but I like to check up every couple of months to see the progress I made. Every year there are a couple of difficult prompts for which I have to read something outside of my comfort zone. I end up picking up books I would never have thought about reading otherwise.

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ruthannr944•

I set a goal of 52 books this year (which I'm currently far far ahead of, so it's not even feeling much like a challenge right now).

I also sometimes challenge myself by checking out too many books from the library...

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IrrellOP2•

Haha, I do that as well! It ends up feeling like a race though and I compulsively end up making a mini-spreadsheet to track how many 'pages per day' i should read if i want to finish them all before their due date

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ruthannr944•

lmao I haven't quite devolved (?evolved?) to that level, tho I have started "prioritizing" which ones I care about getting thru the most.

I most recently made an agregious mistake where American Gods came in a lot earlier than expected and was a lot larger than expected and that's really stretching my limits a lot.

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okiegirl2263•

I don’t like “read a certain number of book” challenges, but occasionally I like to do different types of challenges just for fun. One year I read non-fiction only, another year I spent no money on books or reading, for example.

This year is the first time I’m doing one that I haven’t come up with myself- the Read Harder Challenge. It looked fun and had quite a few categories I would not normally seek out. I’ve had mixed results so far- found some great books and some mediocre ones as well!

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TheMelIsBack•

Wow, a year long goal sounds tough! I do similar things but in she short term. In February I took two weeks to read some classic French plays and this summer I want to read some math nonfiction and finally get to a couple of the big books I've been putting off.

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turbjones•

I do a Horror book marathon on October to get into the Halloween spirit. Last year I read Salem's Lot, Pet Samatary, Thinner, and Coraline

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Archprimus_•

I don't participate in reading challenges, bingo or marathon because to me reading is a past time and I do it for fun. To me, reading is not a chore.

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TheMelIsBack•

For me the challenges are part of the fun so i'm interested in the other side. Why do challenges feel like a chore to you and do you use challenges in any of your other hobbies?

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fabrar•

Nope. I used to do the Goodreads yearly book challenge but I stopped because it turned reading into a chore and something to complete as opposed to an activity you just do in your leisure time for its own sake.

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inkedlj•

Something similar: my brother and I use Trello cards to set yearly goals ( you can use labels for book type as well and filter at the end to see different metrics). Obviously comes with a healthy dose of sibling rivalry too.

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pastaenthusiast1•

I do a goodreads yearly reading challenge and although there are some times when I find it’s annoying I have read more in the last few years than ever before. Just having that accountability helps a lot. I don’t stress out much if I do fall behind the goal, though, as I tend to be able to catch up on better reading months.

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gallon-of-pcp•

I'm doing the Goodreads challenge this year but set the goal where it should be reasonably easy for me to reach based off past habits (50 books) so reading doesn't start to feel like a chore. I'm also doing r/fantasy's bingo, which I like more because it has me branching out and reading things I might not normally, and it's been a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for how I might fill my card.

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IrrellOP2•

Oh that's interesting, I never knew there was a bingo challenge over there. Thanks for sharing that!

Edit: You can find the bingo challenge directly here

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gallon-of-pcp•

Thanks for posting the link so others can find it, I should have thought of that!

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sprachkundigeWe Have Always Lived in the Castle•

Another website I read has an individualized reading challenge -- you just set a goal for yourself and there's a spreadsheet and people can discuss or not discuss, whatever. It is very casual. I always make a parallel goal on goodreads, since I find it easier to keep track there.

My goal this year is 30 books, with at least 10 of those being books by women. So far I'm at 13 read total, with 5* by women.

*or 6, or 7, if you want to count (1) Elena Ferrante, but popular speculation seems to support the conclusion that that is a pen name for a man, and (2) Margaret Armour's translation of The Nibelungenlied, which has multiple manuscripts and unknown authorship. The 5 are inarguably by women, though, so I'm going with that number.

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litDe•

Nope. I love book suggestions etc. but without reading challenges I have a sense of freedom and I start new books all the time. No stress leads to more etc.

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songbirdz12•

I started trying to do some challenges, but wound up forgetting and just reading whatever. The ones I am actively doing is Goodreads reading challenge (43/100 atm) and an A-Z one that caught my eye. That one is more of a challenge, since I have to plan ahead a bit, but so far so good.

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uglybutterfly025•

I'm active in the r/52books sub but I just discovered that near the end of march so I haven't set a book goal for myself. Also this is the first year that I've really been dedicated to reading since high school so I'm unsure just how many books I could finish in a year. I'm more tracking what I do read than looking ahead to how much I could read

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Mahnogard•

I do, but I generally avoid challenges that are too specific. I'm a mood reader, so I need to retain enough freedom to read what I feel like reading. I generally end up reading a variety regardless, but being too boxed-in just leads to me having an unfinished challenge at year's end.

I'm in a Goodreads group with several friends, we've been supporting each other in both solo and group challenges for over 7 years now. We're not competitive at all. We each do what we feel we can and cheer each other on. This year's group challenge is a Bingo challenge with an amazing spreadsheet designed by one of our members. Having the awesome spreadsheet to play with provides its own motivation. :D

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krnm63•

Last year I attempted a category challenge similar to PopSugar but posted here on r/books. I did okay, got through 40 of the 52 categories and read some things I normally wouldn't. This year I just set some broad goals, and a given book can satisfy any or all of these:

  • Read about 36 books. (I'm at 15 so far)
  • Read at least 24 books from my current stock. I'm applying the rules of the Mount TBR Challenge but I don't blog or do any of the other social stuff. (I'm up to 10 so far).
  • Read at least 6 books set in or otherwise about the arctic and subarctic.* (Two down.)
  • Read at least 6 books in a language other than English. Originals or translations are fine. (Started one, didn't finish.)

* "Subarctic" isn't uniformly defined, so as a general rule I'm counting Alaska, Canada, the Nordics, and Russia. There's also a squishy qualitative criterion though. I'd rather be inclusive, so I'd probably count Newfoundland (~48°N) since it's isolated, even though it doesn't have the cold and dark of Moscow (55°N) or Hedestad (~60°N). Toronto feels like a bridge too far though. It's urban, it's connected, and it's further south than Paris.

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bos-o•

I gave up on quantitative reading challenges. I caught myself trying to read quickly and trying to reach goals which took away a lot of enjoyment and reflection from reading. I think it's better to set something like "read every day for 30 minutes."

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