Reading Challenges 2013

After my less than stellar performance in my 2011 reading challenges, I decided to cut back in 2012 and only chose three. I did create my own ‘Magazine Reading Challenge‘ that I pretty much ignored, but I plan to try it again this year, and will update the post shortly.

But the three I signed up for? I completed all of them easily. When setting myself the reading challenges last year, I think I lost sight of the operative word.

Challenge.

It strikes me that maybe it wasn’t so bad that I tried and failed three challenges in 2011. I completed 2012’s challenges almost effortlessly – they weren’t really challenges at all.

With this in mind, I am signing up for a few more challenges this year. I’m not going overboard – I’ve decided to focus on getting my TBR pile down above all else – but I want to have more fun with my reading.

As usual, I found all the challenges through the A Novel Challenge directory.

I’m signing up for Mt. Vancouver – and aiming to read 36 books. That’s three more books than I read in total this year! Will I make this goal? WHO KNOWS. But I’m going to try.

And to that end, I’m also signing up for…

I’m giving myself one exception – long-awaited review copies – but otherwise, this is it. I’m only allowed to read books that I owned before January 1st 2013, until April Fool’s Day. GULP.

I have quite a few non-fiction books on my TBR that I was really excited about getting when I bought them or got them from the library, but have yet to get around to reading. I’m aiming for the lowest level, ‘Geek’, as I can’t see myself managing more than four non-fiction books! Even two would be more than I’ve managed for the last few years!

This year I only read 33 books. Which is an improvement on last year. But still. I want to read more. Many more. I’m going for the top level – I’m on fire! – which means that I need to read at least 49 books.

This is my third go at the New Author Challenge. It’s a pretty low-pressure challenge, there’s only one link-up for the whole year. I’m only going to pick 15 new authors as my basic goal, though I might change it later on. This is because I want to read lots of sequels this year! Which brings me to…

I’m aiming to read ten sequels. This is definitely going to be a challenge! I hardly ever seem to get around to reading them, though I did manage five last year.

And apart from the Magazine Reading Challenge, that’s it! It seems like a lot, but I’m hopeful. Have you signed up for any reading challenges this year? How do you feel about them in general?