2025 Reading Challenge discussion

After reaching book counts in the mid to high thirties in 2018 and 2019, I've decided to use the new year as a prompt and challenge myself to my highest (but achievable) reading goal yet: 40 books in 2020!

I'll track my other challenges in my Member's Corner: L.O.D.'s First Ever Member's Corner.

Edit: I've just uploaded my 2019 Reading Stats Graphs.

Goodreads Personal Reading Challenge

[53/50]

1. ★★★☆☆ The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
2. ★★★☆☆ The Secret Vineyard by Loretta Hill
3. ★★★☆☆ The Devil’s Highway by Gregory Norminton
4. ★★★☆☆ The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
5. ★★★★☆ The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 🎧
6. ★★★☆☆ The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Anna Summers
7. ★★★★☆ Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
8. ★★☆☆☆ Pet Sematary by Stephen King 🎧
9. ★★★★☆ Flames by Robbie Arnott
10. ★★★☆☆ Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter
11. ★★★☆☆ Dark Matter by Blake Crouch 🎧
12. ★★★★★ Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 🎧
13. ★★★☆☆ Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman 🎧
14. ★★★★☆ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
15. ★★★☆☆ 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari 🎧
16. ★★★☆☆ Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
17. ★★★☆☆ Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan 💭
18. ★★★★☆ Educated by Tara Westover
19. ★★★★☆ Nimona by Noelle Stevenson 💭
20. ★★★☆☆ The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
21. ★★☆☆☆ Lanny by Max Porter
22. ★★★★★ The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
23. ★★★☆☆ The Wide, Wide Sea by Patrick Ness
24. ★★★★☆ Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid 🎧
25. ★★★☆☆ Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright
26. ★★★☆☆ Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan 💭
27. ★★★☆☆ Paper Girls, Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan 💭
28. ★★☆☆☆ West by Carys Davies
29. ★★★☆☆ The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
30. ★★★☆☆ The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
❌ The Dry by Jane Harper 🎧
❌ The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
31. ★★★★☆ The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
32. ★★★★☆ The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
33. ★★★☆☆ All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
34. ★★★☆☆ Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor 🎧
35. ★★★☆☆ The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
36. ★★★★★ Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
37. ★★★☆☆ This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
38. ★★★☆☆ Burn by Patrick Ness
39. ★★★★★ Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
40. ★★★☆☆ Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum
41. ★★★☆☆ Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
42. ★★★☆☆ The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen
43. ★★★☆☆ Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) by Victor Hugo
44. ★★★★★ Miroir de nos peines by Pierre Lemaitre 🎧
45. ★★★☆☆ His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet
46. ★★★★☆ The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
47. ★★★☆☆ L'Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier
48. ★★★☆☆ The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
49. ★★★★☆ Beach Read by Emily Henry
50. ★★★☆☆ Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
51. ★★★☆☆ Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker 🎧
52. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler
53. ★★☆☆☆ This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰
📑 Currently Reading
🎧 Audiobook
💭 Graphic Novel
❌ DNF
★☆☆☆☆ Not used.
★★☆☆☆ I didn't enjoy it.
★★★☆☆ It was fine.
★★★★☆ I really liked it.
★★★★★ I loved it.

I love your little grading system I might barrow it =)

This is my favorite quote of all time! I hope it brings you luck with your reading in 2020!

Blagica wrote: "I love your little grading system I might barrow it =)"

Thanks! It's simple but accurate :)

Congratulations on reaching your goals in previous years. Hopefully, 2020 will be as fruitful. Best of luck :)

Lisa wrote: "Congratulations on reaching your goals in previous years. Hopefully, 2020 will be as fruitful. Best of luck :)"

Thanks Lisa :)

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden ★★★★

An atmospheric fantasy novel which takes place in medieval Russia and follows young Vasya, who can communicate with the magical world, as she grows up amongst a traditional society. This makes for a great wintertime escapist novel for us southern-hemisphere dwellers, with lots of lush renditions of the Russian weather and snowy landscapes. While Vasya appears as your typical badass fantasy heroine, she’s got heart, she’s got flaws, and the book feels fresh through the layering of modern themes such as feminism, mass manipulation, fear-mongering, and how to stay true to oneself despite being different. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will read the rest of the trilogy.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce ★★★★

Don’t let the cute and quirky premise fool you (a retired salesman receives a letter from an old colleague and decides on a whim to walk across England, with no equipment or training, to meet them) – this is a moving portrayal of a man and his wife and how they come to terms in their own way with what their marriage has become. It’s also a celebration of finding friendships in unlikely places and the kindness of strangers. This physical and introspective journey is peppered with deadpan English humour and the swift flashbacks lift it off the page. Through Rachel Joyce’s careful, unadorned writing, this story will make you sob but will also leave you with hope and love in your heart.

The Dry, by Jane Harper [DNF]

This one was the free book of the month for Audible members a little while back. I listened to about a good third of it. I don’t read many mysteries so I’m hardly an authority on the subject but I found the pacing quite slow and the main character bland. The constant back-and-forth in timeline events didn’t work well on audio. At the end of the day, I just didn’t care much about any of the characters or the intrigue, which didn’t leave much to go on with! I did enjoy the polished writing though.

All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy ★★★

I really wanted to love this one. I appreciate what Cormac McCarthy does with language – I thought it actually served the narrative well here by only letting the reader glimpse what they can of the scenes unfolding in front of them, as if they’d stumbled upon them – yet as a fluent but non-native speaker of English, at times I felt lost as to what or even who the author was talking about. While I enjoyed the natural landscape lyricism and strong sense of place, in the end I just found the themes explored a little too simplistic and the secondary characters lacking in substance.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy ★★★

This one was a bit of a disappointment also. I was really drawn by the artwork and I appreciate the intent but to me the book failed to deliver a much-needed “story” to back up the “wisdoms” that it delivers, leaving them falling flat or feeling forced. Disconnected from any narrative context, it read more like an assorted collection of vignettes rather than a book in its own rights.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand ★★★★★

Just a really great book, the perfect balance between immersive personal accounts of a WW2 POW’s ordeal and illuminating, sobering facts about the Pacific front. It’s also so much more than that and explores universal themes that could find resonance with any reader, including the notion of dignity as vital to a man’s survival. I thought it drew an interesting parallel to another book I read earlier this year that also explores dignity, The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, but instead asking whether you can place too much importance on it at the expense of self-expression.

This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger ★★★

I just finished “This Tender Land”, and while it was a mostly enjoyable read, I have several reservations about it that jolted me out of the reading experience. I found the way that allusions to child sexual abuse were handled quite jarring in what is otherwise a gently written novel. The story’s timeline and the characters’ references to time passing were off in multiple places. Some dialogues, foreshadowing elements, and Odie’s inner thoughts had a heavy-handedness to them that left some passages feeling unpolished. The multiple reveals concentrated into a few pages at the end broke the pace a little for me. I still enjoyed reading it though, I found the characters endearing, the historical setting interesting and I liked its overall tone of hope and forgiveness.

Updated 31st December 2020