I’ve learned over the past few years that reading challenges, in general, just aren’t my thing. Like many readers, I tend to forget about them a few months into the year, and so I’ve mostly given up on them. EXCEPT for two. The first is, of course, Goodreads. Say what you will about being stressed out by trying to read a certain number of books each year, but I still love to see my challenge bar grow as the year progresses. This year I started out VERY conservative, because in 2014 I didn’t make my goal. I started the year with a goal of 75 books, and when I met that goal sometime around October, I increased it to 90 (which I just finished!). Now I know to some of you those are really low numbers, but I have such a full life and I’m so busy with things that don’t involve reading, that I just can’t read more than that these days. (and believe me, I’m not happy about it!) Here’s what my year in books looks like, according to Goodreads (click on the image below to see more detail):
Overall I had a very good reading year, with most books falling in the 4-5 star range. A couple of other stats:
Shortest book: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor – 96 pages
Longest book: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher – 630 pages
Number of books by female authors: 42
Number of books by male authors: 46
Number of books by male/female duos: 2
The other reading challenge I discovered this past year, thanks to a couple of fellow bloggers, was the Worlds Without End Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge. The goal is to read 12 or 24 books by new-to-you women authors in the Worlds Without End database (which is harder than you think!) Since the website is dedicated to SFF award nominees and winners, not every woman-authored book I read qualified for the challenge. However, I did manage to finish 21 books, and I can’t wait to join this challenge next year! Here are the books I read:
As for 2016, I plan on doing both of these challenges again, and I’m open to joining a new one if I find something interesting. I’d love to hear about the challenges you’ve done this year! And if you have any good suggestions for 2016, I’d love to hear about those too:-)
Finally, as this is the last day of 2015, I want to wish all my visitors a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and may 2016 be your best year ever! Thank you to everyone who has ever stopped by this blog, read one of my reviews, entered a giveaway, left a comment or even tweeted a blog post! A blog without readers is like a year without books:-) I hope you’ll stick around, because I feel like 2016 is going to be an awesome year for speculative fiction, and I plan on being there to celebrate as much of it as I can!
90 books is NOT a low number! As much as I love reading and books I could not even come close…
Which does not mean that challenging oneself to “more and better” would be bad! 🙂
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…Review: LUNA, NEW MOON – Ian McDonald
You’re right, 90 is pretty good! I just always end up with a huge pile of books that I can’t get to over the year, and it makes me sad that I can’t read more:-)
I think however many books you read, it always seems like it’s not enough. But, 90 books is very impressive! Have a fun New Year!
Thanks Ardis, you too!
Happy New Year! And you should be proud of your 90 books, that’s not a low number by any means! (And don’t compare to me, I’m a freak of nature.) I’m also glad you’re doing the Women of Genre Fiction challenge again in 2016, that’s the one I’ve resolved to do every year. Thanks to that challenge, I’ve discovered dozens of women authors I’ve never read 😀
Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum recently posted…Looking Ahead to the New Year: “Can’t Wait” Books of Early 2016
Ha ha, I definitely try not to compare myself to you, it’s more of a “there are so many great books I can’t get to!” thing than a numbers thing. Which reminds me I need to go to WWE and sign up for 2016!
I know some people consider 90 to be a low number but I certainly don’t think so – this year I barely managed to squeak through to my goal of 100! The Women of Genre Fiction challenge is very intriguing…I may need to check that one out. Generally I read way more books by women than men as it is, but I love discovering new to me women in genre fic! 🙂
Danya @ Fine Print recently posted…Best of 2015: A Year in Reading and Reviewing
I just set my 2016 GR goal for 90 books as well, although it sure is tempting to set it at an even 100! But so stressful for that bar to tell you when you are BEHIND, right? Good luck with your goals this year!
Congratulations on meeting your goal! I’m the same, I love seeing that little “You’re on track!” on Goodreads. It gives me life, even though it probably shouldn’t. lol This past year I didn’t participate in too many Reading Challenges because my two jobs kept getting in the way of my fun. I’m always doing Bookish Bingo, I’ve got my Classic Curiosity challenge (which I completely failed at), and that’s about it. I’m planning on sticking with those two, hopefully my CC challenge works out better, and I’m signed up for a backlist book challenge because I’d really love to get around to all these books I’ve already bought!
Bonnie @ For the Love of Words recently posted…2015 End of Year Book Survey
I would love to get to more backlist books as well, in fact that is one of my reading goals this year. We’ll see how that goes! And I’ve been following all your Bingo posts, and I think I might jump in on the next one. It seems like it would be a fun way to figure out how to read books you already need to read for review, and match them to the bingo squares:-)
It is a TON of fun. Although I fell super behind and this is the first bingo card I won’t be completing. Kinda said about that but been making tons of progress on my backlist challenge already. 🙂
Bonnie @ For the Love of Words recently posted…Waiting on Wednesday – Every Anxious Wave by Mo Daviau
Looks like you had a good reading year! I love the sound of “Worlds Without End Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge”! Good luck with that one again. I’ve signed-up for 4 challenges and am thinking about joining one more. The challenge I chose all kind of mingle toward my overall goal for the year, which is cut down on my TBR pile.
I hope you have a great new year!
Samantha recently posted…Film Friday: The Gay Divorcee
Good luck with your challenges, Samantha! I’m looking around for one more that won’t be too stressful, so we’ll see…
Great year!! You set your goal higher than mine for 2015 (I set mine at 60). I thought about increasing it, but figured I didn’t want to stress if I didn’t stay ahead of the curve. So I left it and finished with 95, just a few more than you, but some of mine where graphic novels, and one comic. A couple of novellas as well. I forgot to update my WWE challenges, so while I actually managed to finish, they closed them out before I could see the nice ‘completed’ state on them 🙁
Lisa @TenaciousReader recently posted…2015 in Review and Challenge Updates