Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Happy Thursday everyone! And for those in the US Happy Thanksgiving!

I decided to open this week's thread because I might have forgotten to turn my alarm off for this morning so I'm wide awake with nothing to do but read (a wonderful problem to have) which naturally made me think of you all!

It has been so much fun reading through all the suggestions everyone is making for next year's prompts! It's a good reminder of just how many amazing books are out there! It has also lowered my productivity a bit at work in the last week :)

I have no progress to report. I have been switching between a couple of books this week but things have been rather busy with holiday prep.

I am currently reading the following:
Meet Me at the Cupcake Café - love Jenny Colgan's books.
11/22/63 - I have this one on the list for next year, but I had already checked it out so I am slowly working my way through. It is due in a few weeks so I may just mark my place and check it out again after new years.
Washington: A Life - listening to this on audio, but I'm only at 9 hours out of 43 and it is due in two days. Going back on the list to check it out again :)

Question of the week: As many of us learned this year, some prompts should really be tackled early in the year. Which prompt(s) do you plan to check off first thing in 2017?

For me, I will probably knock out my 800 page book early with either Washington: A Life or Alexander. The other prompt I am targeting early is the book that's been on my TBR the longest. My dad has been recommending The Crystal Cave (part of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy) since I was in high school. This is the year I am finally going to dive in!

Happy reading friends!

It's my favorite Thursday of the year! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I spend this holiday with my family, which lives 2 hours/145 miles away in metro Detroit. And the "when are we going to Grandma's house" questions started as soon as my kids got out of bed.

I too have no progress to report. *sigh* I have abandoned (for now) my satire-that-is-not-a-satire so I can concentrate of completing prompts. I have three remaining for Popsugar and 5 remaining for my other two challenges. Not sure I can double up on any giving the remaining ones.

I am now reading Anne of Green Gables for 20th Century Classic. (Everyone I know is shocked that I've never read it.) I am still at 37/40.

Question of the week:
I am planning to read A Lion Called Christian: The True Story of the Remarkable Bond Between Two Friends and a Lion for "cat on the cover" because I think it will be a fun read for the new year. But ... if I'm trying to get the hard ones out of the way, it would be #GIRLBOSS for "career advice" or The Shining for "set in a hotel." I own all three (thank you Kindle Daily Deals) so I should be able to tear into them right away.

Bonjour from snowy Québec,

Today, I made a snowman with my youngest son.

Nothing to report as well. I am not very surprise because I don't like that last prompt.

Juanita, I also read Anne of Green Gables for the first time this year. And I am a Canadian. I likes it very much. I hope you'll do too.

Happy thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating. I'll be thinking of you when I'll go to work tomorrow. :)

I can't answer the question of the week. I look briefly to the prompt but didn't plan anything yet. I guess I'm a pleasure delayer. :)

Happy Thanksgiving my fellow Americans! And happy 4 day weekend for those of us that get one. Just got back from breakfast at my mom's, back watching football for a bit, then off to my grandma's for dinner!

I'm planning on finishing Career of Evil tonight. I believe the last bit takes place in June/July so I think I'm going to count it for my book that takes place during summer. I'm stretching a bit, but oh well!

QotW: I made the mistake this year of planning too many books I *should* read. Which resulted in me reading more of what I wanted and less prompts. I'm going to even it out in 2017.

I'm going to start with Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person for a book with a subtitle. Simply because I think it would be a good book to read for a fresh year. I'll definitely plan on starting the Century Trilogy early enough. I have Fall of Giants and Winter of the World both slated for prompts. Also House of Leaves will probably be a good one to not leave til the end.

Also, I wanted to mention how much I love the format of our weekly check-ins! I love being able to update everyone/chat about what we've been reading whether it applies to a prompt or not.

(Or sometimes...no progress at all) ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I finished Three Sisters, Three Queens for my book published in 2016. I love Philippa Gregory but this wasn't my favorite of hers. Still good though. I only have one book left and I've been looking forward to it all year. I'm hoping it will be a kindle deal on cyber Monday though.

QOTW: I plan to read three to four of the Outlander books this next year so I'm starting Voyager in December to get a head start. They're all over 800 pages.

Some progress for me, kinda. I did finish Born a Crime. I know I couldn't finish everything I had planned by the end of the year. Retail is exhausting, and movie awards season is here and I will be watching movies like it's my damned job. If I can even manage to stay awake. zzzzzz

So, I am falling back on my old reliable back-up plan. When crunched for time, switch to picture books. I never grew out of enjoying them anyway. I switched my under 150-page book to one I read back in January, Silent Movie. I also know I won't make it to Gulliver's Travels so I changed my satire to Movies R Fun!: A Collection of Cinematic Classics for the Pre-(Film) School Cinephile.

This puts me at 37/41.

I had started reading Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography early this month, but then everything has felt too ominous to pick it back up again. I need to find a way to do that. I have started listening to Middlesex for my Oprah book.

QOTW: Last year I kept the list in mind as I just read what I wanted in the beginning. Once I found this group as the best way to keep organized I was more focused. What did work in my favor was I read a many books that could fit multiple prompts early. That gave me a lot of freedom to shuffle things around when I found a new and exciting book that really only fit one prompt later in the year. I may try something like this, but I will probably just tackle the one I want to read most!

I finished the Popsugar challenge already; I have two books left for the Bustle Reads challenge (which I don't think I'm going to do next year. Two challenges --this and Book Riot -- was enough!)

So I finished only one book this week: Mrs. Dalloway. I started White Teeth, and I've kind of put The Nest to the side for now.

I was aiming to finish 90 books this year; to do that, I basically have to finish a book every four days, and I'm running out of steam!

QOTW: Like Poshpenny, I read a lot of books early on that could fit in a few places, so I could shuffle my list as I needed to. But I try to alternate books I really really want to read with things I'm less excited about, and, as often as I can, I fill prompts with things from my TBR.

Also, I don't worry about abandoning something if I don't like it (I'm looking at YOU, The Girl with All the Gifts!)

Happy Thanksgiving! And welcome as our new second admin, Sara! I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I'm with my family in NJ and hoping all the snow will be gone when I go back home to central NY tomorrow. We got 26" of snow on Monday.

This week I finished one book, The Lake House, which filled the "GR Choice nominee for 2015" category for Around the Year. It took me 3 weeks to read and it felt like twice that. I'm glad it's behind me now.

I'm finished w Popsugar, have just a few chapters left in BookRiot's challenge, and I still can't decide if I'm going to try to finish AtY or not. I was so excited by all the Challenges last year, I took on too many. I won't do that next year.

QOTW I'm not really sure yet how I'm going to tackle things, but I will definitely get the difficult books out of the way first, that strategy worked well for me this year. Since I'm not home, I don't have my list in front of me, but I think my first books will be some combination of 800 pages, book with subtitle, career advice, and spans a lifetime. Also, book that makes me smile, because I'm planning to read a Christmas picture book for that, and I'm hoping I'll still be in the mood for Christmas on Jan 1. My older daughter will be gone for the week before, for a marching band trip, so I think that will extend the seasonal feel a little bit for me, since she'll be coming back home Jan 1.

I finished two books for other challenges, but none for this one! Winter Garden was wonderful! We reminded me of Anthem.

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, food...and shopping ;)

I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain which was really good. Everyone who has that penciled in for non-human character won't regret it.

With the 2017 list out its hard to concentrate on finishing 2016. I am half way through my book that is 100 years older than me (I choose A Christmas Carol). And then I only have one more - book recommended by someone you just met. I have a couple more books that I want to get to before the year closes and then its time to tackle the new challenge!

I agree with Nadine - I signed up for too many challenges this year. And next year in the beginning of the year I'll be busier with putting the finishing touches on the wedding so I need to just concentrate on one challenge.

This leads me to the QOTW My plan is to knock that 800 pager out of the way first thing. I have a lot of great choices for the other categories - most of them I was able to find a bunch of ideas giving me a little bit of flexibility. I love working together with all of you with your ideas! I have to remember it is okay to go outside of that comfort zone.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving book friends!

I finished one book this week, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, for a book guaranteed to bring you joy. I actually read it for my real-time book club. I felt joy about some parts, but left the book with feeling melancholy mostly.

Still at 38/41.

QOTW:
I plan to start America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray, for a book with a family member term in the title. I'm also doubling up next year with the Around the Year in 52 Books challenge and this is my Goodreads Choice Award nominee.

I don't have many books left for this challenge, so I've been mostly focused on other challenges recently. However, I've been working on The Program as my dystopian.

For the QOTW, I definitely would knock out some of the longer books or categories that would be more difficult for me earlier in the year. Definitely the 800 page book, and probably the book that spans a lifetime or the career advice. Possibly also the book set in the wilderness or a book about food, since those don't really interest me much. In general, I try to spread prompts that I'm not really excited for over the course of the year so I don't leave them all for the end but also don't read too many of them in a row.

Nadine wrote: "Happy Thanksgiving! And welcome as our new second admin, Sara!"

Thanks Nadine! Enjoy the snow ;)

I'm at 37/41 after finishing Cruel Crown for my prequel to Red Queen.

Working on My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry for book 38. Almost there!

I've been working on Cold Mountain but i seem to have misplaced it so I started on A New Canada to fill my last two prompts until I find it.

QOTW:
I've been eyeing my 800-page book on my shelf for awhile now so I'll probably start that one first

Working on Tana French's The Trespasser, not for any prompt- I only have 1 left- written by a comedian. I picked up Someday You'll Grow Out of it today to finish out my year. I've got the first 8 books for 2017 picked out!

Feeling defeated. I found my copy of Cold Mountain (under my daughter's school backpack). Did hours of reading on it today and was feeling great. Until I typed in the page number to Goodreads to find I'd only read 130 pages and I'm 57% of the way through. I'm a fast reader (average around 100 pages an hour) so to only get 130 in around 3 hours of reading is very disheartening.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through A Clockwork Orange for my Set in Europe book.

After that, all I need is Published in 2016 (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two) and I will be DONE!

QOTW: My strategy seems to be different than most, but it worked for me this year so I'm doing it again.

1) Start the long book (800 pages, in this case) as soon as I can the year before and time it to finish as early into January as possible.

2) Get some quick and easy ones out of the way (last year being Finish In a Day, Graphic Novel, Less Than 100 Pages). This gives me the confidence that I can finish the challenge (no small task for a slow reader like me). It's wonderful to see your yearly challenge progress on Goodreads say things like "10 books ahead of schedule".

3) Do the tougher ones over the summer when I would be having trouble finding time to read anyway.

4) Finish strong!

Adjust accordingly based on what the monthly group reads are. Hopefully we will have those identified soon.

Never thought I could read 41 books in a year, but it looks like it's going to happen.

Mike wrote: "Adjust accordingly based on what the monthly group reads are. Hopefully we will have those identified soon."

Just the nudge I needed. Nomination thread is up everyone. Thanks, Mike!