2025 Reading Challenge discussion

So, I'm trying to read 101 books next year. I never counted before so I'm not sure, but I think I could do it seeing that it's like 2 books a week.

I'll probably participate in some other challange too - I'm still looking.

Good luck with your challenge Stipe! Feel free to jump in on anything that looks interesting! We will also have monthly and quarterly challenges that helps us toward our goals.

Welcome, Stipe! I love our reading challenges, personally. They really helped me push my goals for 2015 and break my ceiling for most books read. :)

Good luck this year!

Good luck with your challenge!

Thank you Winter, Jackie and Cassandra!

(I decided to separate my reading in 4 different posts, one each for every quarter of 2016)

A mini-goal is to read 25 books every quarter, which would give me 100 books in total, which is 1 below my goal, but I'm sure I'll surpass the goal at least once :)


1st quarter (Winter/Early Spring)

January

1. My Family Right or Wrong by Ephraim Kishon 3* (read Jan 3 - Jan 4) - see message 15 -
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February

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March

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Also in 1st Quarter I took challenge Box sets

My box set:

(Private) Investigators
1. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sherlock Holmes -
2. The Long Goodbye - Philip Marlowe -
3. Kiss Me, Deadly - Mike Hammer -
4. TBD
5. TBD

0/5

2nd quarter (Spring/Early Summer)

April

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May

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June

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3rd quarter (Summer/Early Autumn)

July

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August

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September

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4th quarter (Autumn/Early Winter)

October

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November

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December

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I'll also keep track of my other challanges in this same topic, as I think it would be too much for my lazy persona to update two different topics :)

LET'S TURN PAGES CHALLENGE

840/20,000

THE TBR RANDOMISER CHALLENGE

1/10

1. La vie devant soi by Romain Gary
2. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
3. Drenje by Luka Bekavac
4. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
5. Stroj za maglu by Pavao Pavličić
6. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
7. The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare read January 17, see m. 18
8. A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
9. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
10. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

THE LISTOPIA CHALLENGE

Decided to do 30 books from 10 different lists.

Total: 1/30


0/1 from LIST #1
Best Books of the Decade: 2000s

1. The Kite Runner

0/2 from LIST #2
Best Japanese Books

2. Norwegian Wood
3. Confessions of a Mask

0/3 from LIST #3
Best Existential Fiction

4. The Plague
5. Nausea
6. The Master and Margarita

0/4 from LIST #4
Best Hardboiled PI Noir

7. The Long Goodbye
8. The Postman Always Rings Twice
9. The Killer Inside Me
10. Kiss Me, Deadly

0/5 from LIST #5
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

11. The Hound of the Baskervilles
12. Bonjour tristesse
13. The Tartar Steppe
14. Manhattan Transfer
15. The General of the Dead Army read Jan 17, see m. 18

0/5 from LIST #6
Let's Shake It Up a Bit (a great list that deals with books that transcended boundaries)

16. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
17. Tropic of Cancer
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
19. The Cement Garden
20. Amerika

0/4 from LIST #7
Most Depressing Book of all time

21. The Bell Jar
22. The Hours
23. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
24. Othello

0/3 from LIST #8
Time Magazine's All Time 100 Novels/a>

25. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
26. Herzog
27. Portnoy's Complaint

0/2 from LIST #9
The Great American Novel

28. Ragtime
29. The Naked and the Dead

0/1 from LIST #10
The 800 page Gorillaz

30. 2666

POPSUGAR 2016 READING CHALLENGE

Going for 27/40.

3/27

2. A National Book Award winner
5. A book set in your home state country (changed state to country, because I'm from small country)
6. A book translated to English Croatian (changed to my language)
8. A book set in Europe The General of the Dead Army (Jan 17)
9. A book that's under 150 pagesBeing There (Jan 13)
10. A New York Times bestseller
14. A book you can finish in a day
15. A book written by a celebrity
17. A book at least 100 years older than you
18. A book that's more than 600 pages
20. A science-fiction novel
21. A book recommended by a family member
23. A book that is published in 2016
24. A book with a protagonist that has your occupation
25. A book that takes place during summer
27. A murder mystery
28. A book written by a comedian
29. A dystopian novel
30. A book with a blue cover
31. A book of poetry
33. A classic from the 20th century
34. A book from the library
35. An autobiography
37. A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with
38. A satirical book My Family Right or Wrong (Jan 4)
39. A book that takes place on an island

AROUND THE WORLD IN BOOKS

2/10

1. Israel: My Family Right or Wrong by Ephraim Kishon (read Jan 4)
2. Albania: The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare (read Jan 17)
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The Small Yearly Challenge

1/12

1. A Book Published this Year
2. A Book You Can Finish in One Day
3. A Book You Have Been Meaning to Read
4. A Book Recommended by Your Local Librarian or Bookseller
5. A Book You Should Have Read in School My Family Right or Wrong by Ephraim Kishon (read Jan 4)
6. A Book Chosen For You by Your Spouse, Partner, Sibling, Child, or BFF
7. A Book Published Before You Were Born
8. A Book That Was Banned at Some Point
9. A Book You Previously Abandoned
10. A Book You Own but Have Never Read
11. A Book the Intimidates You
12. A Book You Have Read at Least Once

So many challenges! I tend to over-commit. Do you feel like this is reasonable for you?

Hm, I think it maybe looks too many, but if you look at it closely there is a lot potential overlapping, like my TBR reading list already contains 7 different nations (not all that I'll use in Around the World challenge*), and lot of books from TBR and Listopia challenges are eligible for categories in Popsugar. So I guess I'm gonna use only like 50 books for all the challenges combined.

* I plan to use only countries with whose authors I'm not familiar with - like India, Australia, Albania etc. It's no fun at all if you use countries that dominate the literary world like USA, Russia or France :)

Ahh, yes, perspective. It changes everything. That's a valid point! Perhaps I'll end up adding more challenges myself... :)

Book #1


by Ephraim Kishon
Edition read: Kod kuće je najgore
Original edition: /there is no original Hebrew edition on GR/
English edition: My Family Right or Wrong

Rating: 3*
Genre: Humour/Satire
Type: Short story collection
Lenght: 148 pp
Country: Israel

A somewhat cult book and author here in Croatia (as you can see, most of editions of the book on Goodreads are in Croatian or other South Slavic languages, and top comments are almost all in Croatian or by Croatians), this is among assigned reads in our elementary schools (my teacher never assigned it to us - as i recall she wasn't humourous person at all - she even made us read Hemingway lol) and it was published in many different editions. That's why I was a little bit dissapointed with the book - yes, as in every other collection there are some stories you like and some you don't, but only for a few stories I can say that I laughed hard at them. Most of the times I saw what is supposed to be funny in the story, but it just wasn't funny for me. Maybe if I read this in elementary school I would absoultely love it. Still, it was enjoyable read as I read it while taking break from Philip Roth's masterpiece The Human Stain (which is kind of a book you just need to read in smaller bites) , and I'll try some other Kishon's books in the future - maybe I'll like them more?
I'm gonna put this for challenges: Around the World in Books (Israel), Small Yearly Challenge (A Book You Should Have Read in School ), Popsugar (A Satirical Book), and of course for Let's Turn Pages.

Congrats on finishing your first book in 2016!

You, know, I feel the same way you do when I go back and read books I should have read when I was younger. Middle-grade books in particular just don't hit me the same. My peers who read these books in elementary school certainly wax nostalgic, and seem to love them more.
I totally get you. Don't push yourself to read too much more of Kishon if you don't take to it. :)

Book #2


by Philip Roth
Read from Jan 1 to Jan 9
Edition read: Tragovi na duši
Original edition: The Human Stain
Original year: 2000

Rating: 5*
Genre: Literary fiction
Type: Novel
Lenght: 331 pp
Country: USA
Counted for challenges:only for Let's Turn Pages


Book #3


by Jerzy Kosiński
Read from Jan 12 to Jan 13
Edition read: Prisutnost
Original edition: Being There
Original year: 1970

Rating: 4*
Genre: Humour/Satire
Type: Novel (novella)
Lenght:109
Country: USA (author born in Poland but lived in USA and wrote in English)
Counted for challenges:Let's turn pages, Popsugar 2016 (A book that's under 150 pages),

Book #4


by Ismail Kadare
Read from Jan 9 to Jan 17
Edition read: General mrtve armije
Original edition: Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur
Original year: 1964
English edition: The General of the Dead Army

Rating: 5*
Genre: Literary fiction
Type: Novel
Lenght: 252 pp
Country: Albania
Counted for challenges:Let's turn pages, Around the world in books, Popsugar 2016 (A book set in Europe), TBR Randomiser, The Listopia Challenge




Huh, I haven't updated this for a while. I'm on 4 books this year, and with finals approaching I 'll probably be a few books behind the schedule by March but I hope I'll catch up eventualy :)

Don't fret-- I know you'll catch up, regardless of finals. You got this!