The 2022 Reading Challenge
“Reading Challenge” My son Caleb, who has a love of reading as deep as I do, said to me, “Hey Dad, let’s do a reading challenge on GoodReads. Let’s see if both of us can read 115 books this year. First one to 115 wins.” I joined GoodReads and took him up on his challenge. The race was on. Caleb reached the coveted 115 book mark in early June just a few books ahead of me. I congratulated him on his victory and then we were like, “Let’s see who finishes with the most books by the end of the year!” And the competition continued.
I am a competitive person. I love to win and losing the 115 book challenge to Caleb stung me. Excuses were numerous. Caleb is a new dad and even the children’s books he reads to my grandson counts. Caleb heads up the audiobook division of Canon Press. He gets to read books for a living. All those books for his job also count. Quit thinking of excuses Michael and start to read like you have never read before!
So I did. I began to listen to audio books while I drove in my car. When I walked through the grocery store. (“Who is that strange man with the black things sticking out of his ears?”) When I took my dog for walks. When I was out in the canoe fishing. While I was folding laundry. Etc., Etc.
The calendar turned into October and Caleb was still ahead of me by a few books. But I knew that I was going to be taking almost all of my vacation time in these last three months of 2022 and that meant even more time to read!
My goal was to finish with 300 books read for the year. I figured that might be enough to beat my son in the challenge. But I also had a back-up plan. I was reading books but not entering them into the GoodReads challenge yet. I was saving them for the last few days of the year. In my mind, I saw how this whole contest was going to end. Caleb had the last week of the year off and was planning on doing a lot of reading. On December 31st, he was going to see that he was in the lead by about 20 books and he was going to sit back from his computer, sigh and think that victory was his. He would go to sleep tonight with a smile on his face.
But clever were my plans. I was going to wait until just before midnight and then add in those 30 books that I had read in October but had not logged into the contest page yet. Caleb was going to wake up on New Year’s Day with plans to call me and enjoy his victory.
“Dad, you were a worthy opponent. You pushed me all year long and I would not be the reader I am today without your constant competition. I may have read a lot of children’s book to Finn. I may get paid to read books for my job, but a book is a book and I am proud of the body of my reading work.”
“Thanks Caleb! I appreciate that. I couldn’t have won the contest without your worthy competition all year long!”
“Uh Dad, You didn’t win the competition. I was 20 books ahead of you when I went to bed last night.”
“FAKE NEWS Caleb! You better check that again. You WERE ahead of me when you put that incredible brain of yours to rest last night.”
Caleb checks the final results of the Reading Challenge….
Long dramatic pause….
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! How did this happen?”
"Caleb, do you remember the 2020 elections when one president went to bed that night and thought he had won? But when everyone woke up the next morning there had been a data dump of hundreds of thousands of votes overnight? Well, I pulled a “Biden” on you!!
When you were snug in your bed, I was frantically entering in the info of 30 more books that I had secretly read without your knowledge. Remember the 23 children’s books written by Beatrix Potter on the Tales of Peter Rabbit? You know the ones you read to Finn, so you could get a head of me? Well I read all of them!! Muhahahaha!!”
“Did you read them to Ezra?” (My second grandchild)
“I did not! I listened to them as audio books when I drove back and forth from coaching at my basketball practices! Oh what a delicious victory this is my son!!"
Then I was going to go into my acceptance speech, thank everyone I could think of who made this moment possible and gloat for a few weeks.
That is how I dreamed it was going to happen. I couldn’t wait to spring my diabolical plan into action.
But that's when I got a message from Caleb on December 23 that said:
“Alright, Dad... you win. There's no way I'm going to read three hundred books this year to beat you in sheer volume. I thought about reading a bazillion short stories over Christmas but... I concede victory to you.”
And just like that the contest was over… I had won. But I didn’t get to carry out my cool plan! Victory was mine, but I was still amped up from the competition and I had 8 days left in the year. I had secretly upped my reading goal to 400 books, I was up north, in a cabin and had plenty of time to read. So I continued reading.
As of yesterday I reached my goal of 400 books for the year. I read the normal genres I love, like Christianity, the outdoors, epic fantasy, sports, etc. But I also read a ton of books on U.S. history that I really enjoyed. I will never reach that number of books again in a year, but I am already looking forward to the books I am going to read in 2023!
If you want to join me on GoodReads you can find me at this link:
https://www.goodreads.com/michaeltpowers
I would love to connect with all of you there and see what books you are reading!
Happy New Year and start reading more!
From my family to yours,
Author Michael T. Powers
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." -C.S. Lewis
I am a competitive person. I love to win and losing the 115 book challenge to Caleb stung me. Excuses were numerous. Caleb is a new dad and even the children’s books he reads to my grandson counts. Caleb heads up the audiobook division of Canon Press. He gets to read books for a living. All those books for his job also count. Quit thinking of excuses Michael and start to read like you have never read before!
So I did. I began to listen to audio books while I drove in my car. When I walked through the grocery store. (“Who is that strange man with the black things sticking out of his ears?”) When I took my dog for walks. When I was out in the canoe fishing. While I was folding laundry. Etc., Etc.
The calendar turned into October and Caleb was still ahead of me by a few books. But I knew that I was going to be taking almost all of my vacation time in these last three months of 2022 and that meant even more time to read!
My goal was to finish with 300 books read for the year. I figured that might be enough to beat my son in the challenge. But I also had a back-up plan. I was reading books but not entering them into the GoodReads challenge yet. I was saving them for the last few days of the year. In my mind, I saw how this whole contest was going to end. Caleb had the last week of the year off and was planning on doing a lot of reading. On December 31st, he was going to see that he was in the lead by about 20 books and he was going to sit back from his computer, sigh and think that victory was his. He would go to sleep tonight with a smile on his face.
But clever were my plans. I was going to wait until just before midnight and then add in those 30 books that I had read in October but had not logged into the contest page yet. Caleb was going to wake up on New Year’s Day with plans to call me and enjoy his victory.
“Dad, you were a worthy opponent. You pushed me all year long and I would not be the reader I am today without your constant competition. I may have read a lot of children’s book to Finn. I may get paid to read books for my job, but a book is a book and I am proud of the body of my reading work.”
“Thanks Caleb! I appreciate that. I couldn’t have won the contest without your worthy competition all year long!”
“Uh Dad, You didn’t win the competition. I was 20 books ahead of you when I went to bed last night.”
“FAKE NEWS Caleb! You better check that again. You WERE ahead of me when you put that incredible brain of yours to rest last night.”
Caleb checks the final results of the Reading Challenge….
Long dramatic pause….
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! How did this happen?”
"Caleb, do you remember the 2020 elections when one president went to bed that night and thought he had won? But when everyone woke up the next morning there had been a data dump of hundreds of thousands of votes overnight? Well, I pulled a “Biden” on you!!
When you were snug in your bed, I was frantically entering in the info of 30 more books that I had secretly read without your knowledge. Remember the 23 children’s books written by Beatrix Potter on the Tales of Peter Rabbit? You know the ones you read to Finn, so you could get a head of me? Well I read all of them!! Muhahahaha!!”
“Did you read them to Ezra?” (My second grandchild)
“I did not! I listened to them as audio books when I drove back and forth from coaching at my basketball practices! Oh what a delicious victory this is my son!!"
Then I was going to go into my acceptance speech, thank everyone I could think of who made this moment possible and gloat for a few weeks.
That is how I dreamed it was going to happen. I couldn’t wait to spring my diabolical plan into action.
But that's when I got a message from Caleb on December 23 that said:
“Alright, Dad... you win. There's no way I'm going to read three hundred books this year to beat you in sheer volume. I thought about reading a bazillion short stories over Christmas but... I concede victory to you.”
And just like that the contest was over… I had won. But I didn’t get to carry out my cool plan! Victory was mine, but I was still amped up from the competition and I had 8 days left in the year. I had secretly upped my reading goal to 400 books, I was up north, in a cabin and had plenty of time to read. So I continued reading.
As of yesterday I reached my goal of 400 books for the year. I read the normal genres I love, like Christianity, the outdoors, epic fantasy, sports, etc. But I also read a ton of books on U.S. history that I really enjoyed. I will never reach that number of books again in a year, but I am already looking forward to the books I am going to read in 2023!
If you want to join me on GoodReads you can find me at this link:
https://www.goodreads.com/michaeltpowers
I would love to connect with all of you there and see what books you are reading!
Happy New Year and start reading more!
From my family to yours,
Author Michael T. Powers
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." -C.S. Lewis
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