Challenges Archives - Page 4 of 10

What?

The Short Short Books Reading Challenge is a month-long challenge (hence the first short) to read short books! For the purposes of this challenge, I am defining ‘short books’ as 250 pages or less, but feel free to set your own limit. You can also set your own goals. If you haven’t been reading regularly for a while, I suggest you aim to read one book. As I read quite quickly, my goal is to read four short books.

When?

The inaugural Short Short Books Reading Challenge will run from 1st-30th September 2017.

Why?

I gathered my short books together one day to take an Instagram photo and realised that I had quite a lot of them. This gave me the idea to run a short books themed reading challenge. I thought for a while about the best time to run it and settled on September, as that’s always a busy month for me. I work at a university and in the run up to the start of term I often have to work longer hours, plus this year I’m starting a new job, so I won’t have so much time for reading. Sticking to short books will make it easier for me to read complete stories in the limited time I have available.

As you may have gathered from the video above, I’m also on the verge of getting behind on my Goodreads challenge. Is this cheating? No, it’s just good planning!

I wanted to make this a challenge rather than just do it by myself because as I’ve become more and more busy co-running the London YA Social Events (@MeetUKYA) social group I feel like I’ve neglected the online book community a bit. I want to seize the opportunity to read more blogs and watch more booktube videos.

Where?

I’m hosting the challenge here on my blog and on my YouTube channel – if I get more than four signups I’ll run at least one giveaway. But you don’t need a blog or a YouTube channel to take part – you can share your progress on any social media you like, just click the button below and leave a link to where I can follow you!

Last year I read 45 books. I didn’t meet my overall target (60), but I was a long way from my all time low of 21 books (2011).

To be fair to myself, I was very busy. I have been writing short stories like they’re going out of fashion (or maybe like they’re coming into fashion – I certainly hope so!). I published an online course. Reading often fell by the wayside as I scribbled down bullet points and edited videos.

So how did I do on the individual challenges?

Classics Challenge

I planned to make a proper go at this challenge, after I only managed three books in 2015. I had all the best intentions – I was going to post a video every month on my YouTube channel about the challenge. I would still really like to do videos about each of these books, but the research involved is quite time consuming so I’m going to shelve this project for a later date. This challenge was hosted by Stacey at Pretty Books.

I did not complete this challenge, though I did do better than last year. I read:

1. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, by Nancy Mitford
2. Claudine at School, by Colette
3. Fifteen, by Beverley Clearly
4. What Katy Did, by Susan Coolidge

British Books Challenge

In 2015 I read 24 books for this challenge, which was double the amount required. I didn’t do so well on this challenge this year, but it was still quite easy to complete and even exceed the target – you can read any kind of book, as long as it’s British. It was hosted by Kirsty at The Overflowing Library.

I read:

1. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, by Nancy Mitford

2. My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend, by Eleanor Wood

3. Love Song, by Sophia Bennett

4. London Belongs To Us, by Sarra Manning
5. Girl Out of Water, by Nat Luurtsema
6. Hacker, by Malorie Blackman
7. Rebel of the Sands, by Alwyn Hamilton
8. The Next Together, by Lauren James
9. All of the Above, by Juno Dawson
10. Blood Will Stream, by Nick Bryan
11. After the Last Dance, by Sarra Manning
12. The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey
13. The Graces, by Laure Eve
14. Gilded Cage, by Vic James
15. The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

Retelling Challenge

This was hosted by The Daily Prophesy. Despite a lingering sense of guilt for forgetting this challenge, and despite the fact that I acquired ever more fairytale retellings in 2016, I only managed to read one book, Poison, by Sarah Pinborough. It did remind me how much I love reading (and not just collecting) fairytale retellings, but it was too late to make much difference as I read it over Christmas!

TBR Pile Reading Challenge

I was aiming for 31-40, Sweet Summer Fling, but I only managed to read 13. This is a reflection of my low overall total, though I did read more TBR pile books (those acquired before January 1st) in the first few months of the year than later on, which is probably because I was doing the TBR Triple Dog Dare as well.

1. The Dark Days Club, by Alison Goodman
2. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, by Nancy Mitford
3. Misguided Angel, by Melissa de la Cruz
4. Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, by Ally Carter
5. Only Ever Yours, by Louise O’Neill
6. Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, by Ally Carter
7. This Song Will Save Your Life, by Leila Sales
8. My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend, by Eleanor Wood
9. Claudine at School, by Colette
10. Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
11. The Next Together, by Lauren James
12. Poison, by Sarah Pinborough
13. Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book One, by Bill Willingham

Bardathon Challenge

I didn’t do anything for this challenge. It was in the back of my mind but to get around to all the steps involved more planning than I was ultimately willing to do for a reading challenge!

Challenge Challenge

Yes, someone made a meta challenge. I signed up for five other challenges, as above, so I was going for ‘Cinco de Challenge-o’. I only completed one, so I also failed this challenge!

TBR Triple Dog Dare

I had done this every year since it first ran and this was the final dare so of course I had to take part! I only allowed myself a few exceptions and otherwise only read books on my TBR that I owned before 1 January 2016 until 1 April 2016. This challenge was hosted by James Reads Books.

In Conclusion…

I only completed the British Books Challenge and the TBR Triple Dog Dare, but honestly I don’t mind. I used to worry a lot about not completing challenges, but as I’ve said before, if it’s easy, it’s not a challenge. There wouldn’t be much point in signing up for challenges that I could complete without really thinking about it!

I’m looking forward to choosing a new selection of challenges for 2017 and getting going!

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