2016 reading challenges

If you’ve been following me for even a short time, you probably know I’m a sucker for a reading challenge. Many of the ones in which I participate are seasonal or only run for a short time. However, I usually sign up for a couple of year-long challenges, just to keep things interesting.

2015 challenge wrap-ups

Regardless of any other challenges I sign up for, I always have a personal reading goal. For 2015 it was 80 books. I never mentioned that here because I was worried it was too far out of my reach, especially considering I only read 56 books in 2014. Well, I needn’t have worried. As indicated by my stats post earlier this week, I managed 92 books, easily surpassing my personal goal.

For the annual Goodreads challenge, I committed to 52 books and logged 89.

Last but not least, was the 2015 Australian Women Writers reading challenge. It was the first year I participated, so I signed up for the Miles level. This required me to read 6 books written by Australian women and to review 4 of them. I ended up reading 26 and reviewed 17. Here are my reviews.

2016 challenges

I was a bit conservative with my challenges for 2015. I was still getting used to reviewing ARCs and was looking to reestablish a baseline of what I could do, rather than to really challenge myself. However, now that I have some numbers to work with, I can afford to stretch.

With this in mind, my personal reading goal is 100 books. I’ve accomplished this twice since I started recording my reading stats in 2005, so I know it is possible.

For the annual Goodreads challenge, I’m aiming for 90 books. You’ll notice this is a little less than my personal reading goal; I like to leave a bit of wiggle room for books not registered on Goodreads. 

I have signed up for the Australian Women Writers reading challenge again in 2016. My aim this year is to see whether last year’s numbers are repeatable, so I’ll be aiming to read 25 books and review 15.

Lastly, I’m going to have a go at the #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks challenge hosted by Andi at Estella’s Revenge. The title makes the aim of the challenge pretty clear and Andi has left it up to participants to define for themselves the exact goal and rules. Last year, a little under 50% of the books I read came from purchases (some new, some an existing part of Mt TBR), with the other 50% being pretty evenly split between review books and books I had borrowed (both from the library and from friends). I’d like to make the split between purchased books and books from other sources 60/40 in 2016. My hope is this will go some way towards shrinking Mt TBR. Since I haven’t had much luck with strict Mt TBR rules in the past, I’ll be keeping my approach pretty flexible. The one drawback is that this approach doesn’t necessarily prevent me from acquiring new books, so I guess I shall see how effective it ends up being.

Between these and the seasonal challenges, I should be kept pretty busy!

What about you? What reading goals and challenges are you participating in this year?

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.