2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

I plan to read 56 books this year which will be one for each week plus an additional book for each quarter. That is about half of what I read in 2014, but I am focusing on reading classics in 2015 which will include some longer books. Will post my books here as well as my challenges. (Updated to 75 books)

YEARLY CHALLENGES
A-Z Title Challenge COMPLETED
Listopia Challenge COMPLETED
Let's turn the page challenge COMPLETED
#readwomen2015 challenge COMPLETED
Debut Challenge COMPLETED
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge COMPLETED


January 1, 2015 - December 31, 2015

Books read: 98/75

1.The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
3.Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
4.Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5.Xingu by Edith Wharton
6.Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
7.Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
8. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
9. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
10. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
11. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
12. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
13. The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by Chuck Dixon
14. The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
15. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
16. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
17. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
18. A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
19. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
20. Crazy, VA by Shannon Hill
21.The Southern Foodie's Guide to the Pig: A Culinary Tour of Fifty of the South's Best Restaurants and the Recipes That Made Them Famous by Chris Chamberlain
22. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
23. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
24. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
25. Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
26. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
27. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
28. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
29. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
30. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
31. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
32. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
33. The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
34. The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
35. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
36. Ballistics by Billy Collins
37. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
38. The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
39. Middlemarch by George Eliot
40. Bruno, Chief Of Police by Martin Walker
41. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories byFlannery O'Connor
42. Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
44. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
45. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
46. Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
47. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
48. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
49. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
50. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
51. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
52. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
53. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
54. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
55. Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin
56. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
57. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
58. The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
59. The Round House by Louise Erdrich
60. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
61. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
62. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
63. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
64. The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom by Blaine Harden
65. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
66. Dusk by F. Sionil José
67. The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
68. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
69. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
70. Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph T. Hallinan
71. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
72. The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux
73. Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
74. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
75. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
76. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
77. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
78. Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham
79. The Valley of Heaven and Hell - Cycling in the Shadow of Marie-Antoinette by Susie Kelly
80. July's People by Nadine Gordimer
81. An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
82. The Stand by Stephen King
83. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
84. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
85. Euphoria by Lily King
86. This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace
87. Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness by George Saunders
88. The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
89. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
90. The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
91. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
92. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
93. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
94. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
95. Racing the Rain by John L. Parker Jr.
96. African Tales: Folklore of the Central African Republic by Rodney Wimer
97. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
98. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

A-Z Title Challenge
26/26

A The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
B The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
C Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
D Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
E Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
F Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin
G Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
H The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by Chuck Dixon
I I, Claudius by Robert Graves
J July's People by Nadine Gordimer
K The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
L Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
M Middlemarch by George Eliot
N Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
O One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
P Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Q The Quiet American by Graham Greene
R A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
S Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
T Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
U Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham
V The Valley of Heaven and Hell - Cycling in the Shadow of Marie-Antoinette by Susie Kelly
W War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
X Xingu by Edith Wharton
Y The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
Z Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

Listopia Challenge
5 books from Big Fat Books Worth the Effort

5/5

1. War and Peace ✔
2. Great Expectations ✔
3. Middlemarch ✔
4. Gone with the Wind ✔
5. Doctor Zhivago ✔

Let's turn the page challenge

32,496/32,000 pages

#readwomen2015 challenge

25/25

1. Annie Proulx
2. Elizabeth Gaskell
3. Maya Angelou
4. Mary Roach
5. Emily St. John Mandel
6. Lisa See
7. Drew Gilpin Faust
8. Shannon Hill
9. Emma Hooper
10. Diane Ackerman
11. Flannery O'Connor
12. Elizabeth Peters
13. Margaret Mitchell
14. Hilary Mantel
15. Arundhati Roy
16. Emma Larkin
17. Donna Tartt
18. Louise Erdrich
19. Connie Willis
20. Carson McCullers
21. Alexis M. Smith
22. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
23. Nadine Gordimer
24. Lily King
25. Kate Chopin

Debut Challenge

5/5

1. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin ✔ 2/10/15
2. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ✔ 8/28/15
3. The Secret History by Donna Tartt ✔ 7/5/15
4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe ✔ 2/4/15
5. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien ✔ 1/21/15

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge

24/24

A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
A collection of short stories (either by one person or an anthology by many people) A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
A book published by an indie press Crazy, VA by Shannon Hill
A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
A book by a person whose gender is different from your own Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A book that takes place in Asia Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
A book by an author from Africa Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
A book that is by or about someone from an indigenous culture (Native Americans, Aboriginals, etc.) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
A microhistory Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
A YA novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
A sci-fi novel The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
A romance novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A National Book Award, Man Booker Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner from the last decade The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss (Pulitzer 2013)
A book that is a retelling of a classic story (fairytale, Shakespearian play, classic novel, etc.) The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
An audiobook Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
A collection of poetry Ballistics by Billy Collins
A book that someone else has recommended to you The Round House by Louise Erdrich
A book that was originally published in another language War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
A graphic novel, a graphic memoir or a collection of comics of any kind The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by Chuck Dixon
A book that you would consider a guilty pleasure (Read, and then realize that good entertainment is nothing to feel guilty over) Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
A book published before 1850 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
A book published this year (2014) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
A self-improvement book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman

This month I read 8 novels, one short story (that I am counting by itself for the A-Z challenge) and one novella. Not too bad so I should easily be able to exceed my 56 book goal.

My challenges are going okay, but the Listopia challenge seems daunting at this point since they are big books. I am 675 pages into War and Peace which is about 44%. It's pretty good but I will be glad to finish it.

1.The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
3.Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
4.Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5.Xingu by Edith Wharton
6.Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
7.Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
8. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
9. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
10. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

Great job, Laurie!

In February I again read 8 novels and one short story and but a couple more novellas than in Janauary. Since I will far exceed my 56 book goal I'll probably revise the goal at the end of March.

I'm almost finished with War and Peace (yea!!!) and will begin another long book for the Listopia challenge, Middlemarch.

11. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
12. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
13. The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by Chuck Dixon
14. The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
15. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
16. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
17. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
18. A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
19. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
20. Crazy, VA by Shannon Hill
21.The Southern Foodie's Guide to the Pig: A Culinary Tour of Fifty of the South's Best Restaurants and the Recipes That Made Them Famous by Chris Chamberlain
22. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Hurrah!!! I am so happy to finally finish War and Peace. It was interesting but just so long. The war sections drag a little but overall I enjoyed it.

I am raising my personal reading challenge to 75 books. In March I read 9 books so my total this year is currently 31 books. It is possible I'll need to raise my goal again, but I have some long books coming up so I will go with this new goal for now.

23. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
24. The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
25. Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
26. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
27. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
28. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
29. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
30. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
31. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

In April I read 9 novels and 1 play. So my total is now 41 books. I completed Middlemarch which was a long book, and I just started Gone with the Wind which is even longer, so I haven't gotten away from the chunky ones yet.

Since the May challenges are focusing on classics I have several I will try to read. We'll see how it goes since GWTW will take up much of my reading time.

32. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
33. The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
34. The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
35. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
36. Ballistics by Billy Collins
37. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
38. The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
39. Middlemarch by George Eliot
40. Bruno, Chief Of Police by Martin Walker
41. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories byFlannery O'Connor

I read 7 novels in May which is a few less than other months, but my page count was actually higher due to a some lengthy books. My challenges are going well, but I hope to add a few to my A-Z title challenge since I seem to keep reading books with the same letters.

42. Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
44. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
45. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
46. Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
47. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
48. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I read 8 novels in June. I've reached 56 total which was my original year long goal.

49. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
50. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
51. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
52. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
53. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
54. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
55. Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin
56. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

I read 7 books in July. There were a few short books, but I was happy to get one very long classic off my TBR. I have read 84% of my updated goal of 75 books for the year.

57. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
58. The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
59. The Round House by Louise Erdrich
60. Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
61. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
62. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
63. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

In August I read 6 books, so a somewhat slow month for me. I will need to increase my goal for the year sometime during September.

I completed my Debut challenge and only need one more book to finish the Book Riot Read Harder challenge and the Listopia challenge, so my challenges are going great.

64.The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom by Blaine Harden
65. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
66. Dusk by F. Sionil José
67. The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
68. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
69. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I have reached my goal of 75 books for the year. I don't think I will set a new goal but will just see how many more I read.

During September I read 6 novels and 1 novella. I reached my goal of 75 and will see how far I exceed it. My Listopia challenge is now complete. The best book I read this month was definitely Purple Hibiscus, which was my first book by Adiche. I will certainly read more of her novels.

70. Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph T. Hallinan
71. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
72. The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux
73. Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
74. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
75. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
76. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

Not a bad month for me for total books read. I read 7 and one of them was over 1,300 pages, so I'm pleased with my total this month. I didn't read any non-fiction though, and I wanted to read more this year than last year, and I don't think that is going to happen.

77. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
78. Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham
79. The Valley of Heaven and Hell - Cycling in the Shadow of Marie-Antoinette by Susie Kelly
80. July's People by Nadine Gordimer
81. An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
82. The Stand by Stephen King
83. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara

Read 7 books in November. About average for me. I loved Euphoria and The Girl With All the Gifts was good too. This is Water by David Foster Wallace was very thought-provoking, at least for me. Overall a pretty good month.

84. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
85. Euphoria by Lily King
86. This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace
87. Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness by George Saunders
88. The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
89. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
90. The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Look at you go, Laurie! You've finished almost all of your challenges and you went way above your books goal. What do you think helped you read more than you thought you would?

Cassandra wrote: "Look at you go, Laurie! You've finished almost all of your challenges and you went way above your books goal. What do you think helped you read more than you thought you would?"

My rather competitive nature which makes me see a challenge as something I absolutely must complete. My 75 book goal was only a little below my normal book count for a typical year. But all the challenges I did this year made me feel like I've been in a reading race all year long. I have enjoyed my challenges this year, but I won't do so many next year so that I don't feel like I am competing with myself.

That makes sense. It's hard to remember that you don't have to finish everything. I struggle with that too.

December books - 8 books read
91. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
92. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
93. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
94. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
95. Racing the Rain by John L. Parker Jr.
96. African Tales: Folklore of the Central African Republic by Rodney Wimer
97. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
98. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Final tally for the year - 98 books. My original goal was 56 and then raised to 75, so a very successful year in that regard. I wanted to read a lot of classics this year, and I read 46 by my definition of classic so almost half of my total. I consider that a success too. I completed all of my challenges so that's good but it also made me kind of crazy feeling like I had to complete them. I plan to try challenges next year but allow myself to not complete them.

Lots of 4 star books and only one 1 star. My favorites were probably Gone With the Wind, Purple Hibiscus and Wolf Hall. So goodbye 2015, it was a good reading year.