2022 Reading Challenge

sarcasticfairyprincess

sarcasticfairyprincess

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Hey everyone!

I wanted to create a reading challenge for all of us book lovers. I know so many of us set out to read a certain number of books at the start of each new year, be it one book a week, one a month, one a year, and anything in between. I thought this would be a good space to set goals for ourselves, and as the year progresses, use this thread for accountability and also share what we've recently read. I would love to have mini book reviews from you guys; this seems like a wonderful way to discover new books/authors.

My personal goal is to read AT LEAST one book for fun each month. I'm an dual English and French major, so I spent a LOT of time reading for school. I don't have nearly as much time to pleasure read as I used to, but this is something I really want to do for myself. I've read 4 books while on winter break and it reminded me how much I love to read things for fun. Reading only for academics dilutes the love and the fun.

Here's to a well-read new year!
 
wmeugene said:
Awesome, this is part of my New Year's goals as well. I'm very hit or miss on reading, so having a goal would help. I'll say 2 a month, or 24 books for the year is my goal. I'll be happy to post pictures and mini reviews!
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In 2016 the local newspaper did a #Read26 challenge. One book every two weeks.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’m a reader. How hard can it be?”

2016: 21 books
2017: 17 books
2018: 29 books (my only success)
2019: 18 books
2020: 13 books
2021: finished book 14 last night

I know some of you on here can chug through a book a week, if not more, and I don’t know how you’re doing that AND keeping a job AND listening to music AND keeping up with TV/movies/video games AND doomscrolling AND maybe parenting.

Anyway all that is to say after a 1 out of 6 success rate, 26 books feels like an appropriately ambitious goal for me, and I’ll give it a shot again in 2022.
 
I don't plan on making a target as such past just keeping up the streak I've been on since late last year. I finally finished Don Quixote* after spending like a year on it ,and wanting to keep it up immediately moved on to The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings, was about halfway through the latter at the start of the year. Since then, while I've not kept a tally of what I'd read, I certainly impressed myself with just how much I've managed to get through. Thinking about trying to remember everything I did read and get down impressions of them while they're still fresh enough, but not going to bother with that this second.

Right now I'm rereading Wuthering Heights, since I felt like I couldn't remember everything that happened in it, and yeah it's right up my alley. I don't really know how to talk about it without gushing and it's not going to be for everyone - in fact some sections are kind of hard to read. One could think about it being about the cycle of abuse. Perceptive in it's own right but it also just appeals as someone with a gothic streak. I'm the kind of nutter who likes The Scarlet Letter anyway, but the prose is less of a slog than that.

Also reading Beyond Weird by Philip Ball, nominally about quantum mechanics, and while there are well-chosen descriptions of experiments and their outcomes, they mostly serve as guide posts as the real purpose of the book it to give a history of all the ways the theory's been thought about over the years to try and cut through all the mysticism and hand-waving that tends to get associated with the topic. I do recommend it, in fact I imagine it'd be fairly instructive for someone who doesn't know a lot about it and there are even a couple of book recommendations within it that I'd like to follow up on, but I'm kind of going through it too fast because I've binged too much PBS Space Time lately so a lot of it's kinda like “yes yes I've already thought about this.”

Currently reading on the latter on my brother's Kindle just to try it out and I think I'll have my own before long. As for where to go next, I want to do Dicken's Bleak House, because if it's not apparent already I like old long fiction. Don't know what else though, I have kept a short list of things I've heard about just so I'm never at a loss of what to read I guess.

* pls read it it's long AF and it's garbage but also it's not to be improved upon and i will go on about it if you let me. I read and would recommend the Ormsby translation but skimmed the Grossman and that one might be preferable.
 
I've been pondering my number for a couple of days now and have come to a conclusion. Including graphic novels I have read between 50-100 books a year for the past half dozen years - other than 2018 which was probably the absolute worst year of my life. That said, I have maybe finished 1 book since early to mid-September so my pacing is way off now! As much as I wanted to set a goal of 50, I'm going to try and better set myself up for success and aim for three books per month, so 36. If I find my groove again and smash that out of the park, great! But with baby and work and everything else I reckon I'd better not get too lofty in my ideals.
 
This is a great idea. Jump back a few years ago and I basically didn't read for fun at all. I was just finishing up with my final degree and just didn't have the time to read for fun so my 'count' was essentially 0 per year. Since then I have really got into reading again, initially reading to and from work on the train and now reading in my spare time at home. I keep a yearly list of completed films, tv shows, books, music, and gigs.

2021 was my biggest year yet with 44 books read (some chunky, others thinner). I doubt I will match this pace this year as I have a lot booked in already, but think I will manage 24. I started The Godfather by Mario Puzo (for the first time) on Monday and have just about finished it.
 
Book 1 out of my goal of 12:

This Time Next Year - Sophie Cousens
Rating: 4.2 out of 5

So, I technically started reading this last year. I started it on the 12/31/2021, and finished it today, 1/1/2022. After spending a semester reading nothing but medieval literature in one class, and reading a mix of new and old LITERATURE literature in another class and writing about the things I've read, I've been wanting to read some lighter things while I've been on winter break. After pleasure reading two other books during winter break (one being an anthology by a writer I discovered in my lit writing class, the other being a story about a woman wanting a divorce in 1650s Massachusetts), I grabbed this off of my overflow pile of books that no longer fit on my bookshelf. I picked this up at a small, used bookstore in Claymont, DE back in the spring. I wasn't consciously saving it for the new year, but it worked out because guess what? It's about various new years. It's a silly, fluffy, fun love story. I have a secret soft spot for romance novels (but, like, good ones) and happy endings. I would never own up to that in person, but it's a fundamental thing I can't change about myself. I tore through this book in two days. It's the kind of book that filled me with joy - it was lighthearted, fun, and it had the happy ending I was needing and craving. It's not the most well-written thing ever, but the fun factor makes up for it. It's just what I needed before starting a new semester of heavy reading and LITERATURE literature.
 
I deleted my Goodreads last year, I was doing about 100 books (including audiobooks) a year, and decided not to keep tracking or sharing all that, which hasn't slowed down my reading at all, but I think it has been a bit more enjoyable!

That said, I'll share when I've read something extra good that I recommend.
 
Kris said:
Book 1 - Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Science Fiction is my favorite and this one's been on the end table for a while so I'm picking it up first.
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That's one I really need to give another go. I picked it up many years ago after reading Cryptonomicon and was enjoying it quite a bit until my Dad's best friend's van ate my copy - like, disappeared completely into some vortex inside the van! The saddest part was I'd recently been given a picture of my Dad at Christmas a few months after he and my Mom split with a stubby beer bottle between his legs and a joint in his mouth that I'd been using as a bookmark. The bittersweet part of this memory being sparked right now is that my Dad's friend whose van ate the book and photo actually passed away yesterday.

Overall, though, a great memory and a great reminder that I should revisit this book. Thanks @Kris!

[edit: typo]
 
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After a couple of decades of barely reading at all and a few years of intermittent but forced reading, 2021 was the year when reading became my hobby again. I started the year hoping to get through 10 books (I'd read 8 in both '19 and '20 so was hoping to beat that tally). I ended up finishing 70 books spending around 2-4 hours a day reading (I'm blessed with a job that has quiet moments).
Out of the 70 I was happy not to have had any real stinkers (well, maybe 1 or 2), although there were some I wouldn't recommend due to just being OK. Here's what I read:

books1.jpgbooks2.jpgbooks3.jpgbooks4.jpgbooks5.jpgbooks6.jpg

Real standouts that I'll remember fondest were:

Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings (I'll tout the greatness of this novel to anyone who'll listen)!
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song
Jonathan Franzen - Freedom
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep
Martin Amis - London Fields
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall
Richard Russo - Empire Falls

Most challenging reads were Infinite Jest, London Fields and Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. The last one is a 200 page book that took me about as long as it does to read a 600 page novel. I found it extremely rewarding but quite the struggle at times and frequently had to revisit 3 or 4 pages previous to really understand the writing.

Wolf Hall was the big surprise as historical fiction in literature and TV/cinema has rarely done anything for me but this was absolutely superb and the sequels will definitely feature in this years reading.

Biggest disappointments were Delillo's The Silence, Vlautin's The Motel Life and Updike's Rabbit Run, all of which I found OK but fell way short of what I'd hoped for and expected.

I haven't set myself a number challenge for this year although I have moved about 40 titles into my downloaded folder but I'm sure this will fluctuate as new titles are released throughout the year.

I've started '22 with Patricia Highsmith's Ripley Under Ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the first instalment and look forward to eventually completing the whole series and it's proving to be a nice easy read to while away a few hungover hours with.
 
Mr Moore said:
After a couple of decades of barely reading at all and a few years of intermittent but forced reading, 2021 was the year when reading became my hobby again. I started the year hoping to get through 10 books (I'd read 8 in both '19 and '20 so was hoping to beat that tally). I ended up finishing 70 books spending around 2-4 hours a day reading (I'm blessed with a job that has quiet moments).
Out of the 70 I was happy not to have had any real stinkers (well, maybe 1 or 2), although there were some I wouldn't recommend due to just being OK. Here's what I read:

View attachment 123396View attachment 123397View attachment 123398View attachment 123399View attachment 123400View attachment 123401

Real standouts that I'll remember fondest were:

Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings (I'll tout the greatness of this novel to anyone who'll listen)!
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Norman Mailer - The Executioner's Song
Jonathan Franzen - Freedom
Curtis Sittenfeld - Prep
Martin Amis - London Fields
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Anne Rice - Interview with the Vampire
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall
Richard Russo - Empire Falls

Most challenging reads were Infinite Jest, London Fields and Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. The last one is a 200 page book that took me about as long as it does to read a 600 page novel. I found it extremely rewarding but quite the struggle at times and frequently had to revisit 3 or 4 pages previous to really understand the writing.

Wolf Hall was the big surprise as historical fiction in literature and TV/cinema has rarely done anything for me but this was absolutely superb and the sequels will definitely feature in this years reading.

Biggest disappointments were Delillo's The Silence, Vlautin's The Motel Life and Updike's Rabbit Run, all of which I found OK but fell way short of what I'd hoped for and expected.

I haven't set myself a number challenge for this year although I have moved about 40 titles into my downloaded folder but I'm sure this will fluctuate as new titles are released throughout the year.

I've started '22 with Patricia Highsmith's Ripley Under Ground. I thoroughly enjoyed the first instalment and look forward to eventually completing the whole series and it's proving to be a nice easy read to while away a few hungover hours with.
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Hope you’re well, Mick. Happy New Year!
 
Thackeraye said:
Hope you’re well, Mick. Happy New Year!
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You too Grae, hope Down Under's everything you'd hoped it would be. We had a family trip up your old neck of the woods for October half term. Started in Edinburgh then up to Loch Ness and then up further to Helmsdale on the east coast of the NC 500. I'm sure I don't need to tell you but it's a beautiful country you have up there. We're looking to do a more west side trip sometime in the future. Keep well, brother.
 
Mr Moore said:
You too Grae, hope Down Under's everything you'd hoped it would be. We had a family trip up your old neck of the woods for October half term. Started in Edinburgh then up to Loch Ness and then up further to Helmsdale on the east coast of the NC 500. I'm sure I don't need to tell you but it's a beautiful country you have up there. We're looking to do a more west side trip sometime in the future. Keep well, brother.
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Melbourne kicks ass. Loving it.

Only done bits of the NC500, but it’s lovely. I’d recommend a trip to Skye if you’re doing the west coast, lots of other options!
 
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