2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

Just keeping track of my various book challenges.

✓ 50+ Books a Year
70/50








✓ 10+ Classics a Year
13/10



✓ 5+ Translated Fiction a Year
12/5


Korean, Swedish, Russian, French(Algerian), Polish, Hungarian, Chinese(Taiwan), Russian (Ukraine), Hebrew(Iraq), Spanish(Argentine-Canadian), Swedish (Finland), French

10+ Nonfiction Books a Year
5/10


✓ 10+ #readwomen (Fiction)
18/10



#readwomen (Non-Fiction)
2


Comic Books
8



Around the World in 80 Books Ongoing Challenge (Fiction only, 2012-?)
27 Countries Visited

--------------------------------2012-------------------------------
1. England: Kraken by China Miéville
2. *India: Kim by Rudyard Kipling (British, raised in India)
3. USA: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. Denmark: We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
5. *Wales: The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart (English)
6. *Italy: The Undrowned Child by Michelle Lovric (British, living in Italy)
7. Czech Republic: War With the Newts by Karel Čapek (Czech - pre division of Czechoslovakia)
8. Scotland: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
9. France: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo read 2013
10. Russia: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
11. Greece: Seven Lives and One Great Love, Memories of a Cat by Lena Divani read 2014
--------------------------------2013-------------------------------
12. China: Death Of A Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
13. *Germany: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Australian)
14. Sweden: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
--------------------------------2014-------------------------------
15. *Iceland: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Australian)
16. Faroe Islands: The Old Man and His Sons by Heðin Brú
--------------------------------2015-------------------------------
17. South Korea: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang
18. New Zealand: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
19. Nigeria: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (Nigerian American)
20. Algeria: The Plague by Albert Camus
21. Poland: Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall
22. Taiwan: The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi
23. Australia: The Hunter by Julia Leigh
24. Ukraine: A Matter Of Death And Life by Andrey Kurkov
25. Iraq: The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
26. *Spain: All Men Are Liars by Alberto Manguel (Argentine-Canadian)
27. Finland: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
28. *Holland:The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas (French)

* Author does not come from said country. May later be replaced by author who does.

Read around the world. What an interesting challenge! I may have to borrow that one and try to do the same.

Where did you find your map?

It's a challenge I picked up from one of my other goodreads groups. And one of my favourites, though I read so much fantasy or multiple books set in the same country that it's slow going. Has really highlighted to me that I'm not such an 'all round' reader as I thought. Def need to read more African fiction (and South american - though I read a fair bit of that as a teen).

The map should be a link that you can click through to create your own.



Boring stats for my own ref

(view spoiler)[
New-to-me Authors in 2015 (Fiction)
1. E.M. Forster
2. Sun-mi Hwang #readwomen
3. Eleanor Catton #readwomen
4. Fredrik Backman
5. Mikhail Bulgakov
6. Mette Jakobsen #readwomen
7. Nnedi Okorafor #readwomen
8. Emma Healey #readwomen
9. Albert Camus
10. Hanna Krall #readwomen
11. Antal Szerb
12. Wu Ming-Yi
13. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (artist)
14. Paul Kingsnorth
15. Erin Morgenstern #readwomen
16. Noelle Stevenson #readwomen
17. George Mann
18. Ali Smith #readwomen
19. Virginia Woolf #readwomen
20. William Makepeace Thackeray
21. Octavia E. Butler #readwomen
22. Joanne M. Harris #readwomen
23. Sinan Antoon
24. N.K. Jemisin #readwomen
25. Emily Carroll #readwomen
26. Alberto Manguel
27. Karen Russell #readwomen
28. Tove Jansson #readwomen
29. Toni Morrison #readwomen
30. Anthony Doerr
31. Julia Leigh #readwomen

New-to-me Authors in 2015 (Non-Fiction)
1. Adrienne Mayor #readwomen
2. Steven A. Grasse
3. Jenny Broom and Katie Scott(illustrator) #readwomen
4. Richard Fortey
5. Tom Reiss
6. John Wright


Ratio 'New Books':Rereads 54:9

Ratio Female:Male Authors* (Fiction): 23:24
Ratio Female:Male Authors* (Non-Fiction) 2:3
*authors only count once, excludes anthologies and joke/novelty books

Ratio Female:Male authored books* (fiction): 25:38
*authors count once for each book read, excludes anthologies

Ratio 'New-To-Me':Previously-Read authors (Fiction): 31:15*
*(Naomi Novik, Jasper Fforde, Terry Pratchett, Daphne du Maurier, Bill Willingham, Joe Abercrombie, Rick Riordan, Rod Duncan, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, P.G. Wodehouse, Andrey Kurkov, Brian K. Vaughan, China Miéville, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Gaskell, Alexandre Dumas)

Ratio 'New' authors Female:Male (Fiction) 18:13

Ratio Standalone:Series books (Fiction): 36:27
(Temeraire, Thursday Next, Discworld, The Wicked + The Divine, Fables, First Law World, Heroes of Olympus, The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, Newbury & Hobbes, Jeeves & Wooster, Inheritance, Saga, Bas-Lag, MaddAddam)


Series Finished: 2
Heroes of Olympus
Fables
New Series Sarted: 3
The Wicked + The Divine (not continuing)
Newbury & Hobbes (not continuing)
Inheritance (possibly continuing)
MaddAddam


Bookshelf Challenge (books purchased/gifted/borrowed prior to 2015): 15

Most read authors 2015
Terry Pratchett (8)
Bill Willingham (4)
Rick Riordan (3)
Daphne du Maurier (2)
Rod Duncan (2)
Jasper Fforde (2)
Naomi Novik (2)


(hide spoiler)]

My current reading challenge has shown me that I'm not a very well rounded reader either. That maybe one reason that your around the world one appealed to me so much.

Thank you for the info on how to make my own map. It gave me inspiration to also do one around the US.

Good luck with that! I'm doing that with my other group as well but I seem to read books set in the States so rarely that it's very slow going. I think I'm only about 4 or 5 states in since starting in 2012.

Another country added to the world map though! And a very good read it was too. New Zealand: The Luminaries.

Another country 'visited' (and another #readwomen), Nigeria: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. Unfortunately I didn't think it lived up to how interesting it should have been, so not sure it's an author I'll be reading any more of.

Is it authors from different contries or books set in different countries? Want to do that challenge, but can't make out how to post the map to me and how to update it. Not great with computer language.

I do it as books set in different countries (though I like to make a note on where the author is from too).

The map if you click on it should take you to a site where you can checkbox the countries you want to colour in. It also gives you a code for posting it on other websites like goodreads so just copy/paste it into your post. To update click on your map and it'll take you back to the checkbox page where you can add/remove places. But you'll have to copy/paste the code again as the goodreads version won't update automatically.

Thanks!!

What about the books with more than one country like travelling ?

The group I got the challenge from says to count the country that is used 'most' but I think you can interpret/count those however you like really.

Good luck with the challenge! Always find it interesting to see how different people approach this one and what sort of books get chosen. Am half tempted to start a second round the world challenge for non-fiction, but that really would take me forever.

Thanks :) one more question though, do you count every non-fantasy book you read?

I count the first one set in each country (with priority given to. Authors from that country - so may well replace The Book Thief with a book by a German author later), whether it's fantasy or not.

So even though I've read numerous books set in France, UK, US, and China since I've started, the books recorded are just the first ones I read by a 'native author'. Most everyone else I know doing the challenge just records their first read from each country, and some people put down the 'best' book they've read set in the country (wheras my 'first' list has some real stinkers like The Time Traveler's Wife on). It's really entirely up to you how you count it. I limit myself to fiction, others have combined fiction/non-fiction lists, do it however you feel works for you.

I will do just fiction, that I know. I always have trouble setting the margins, but will figure it out as I go I guess :)

What is the name of the group? Maybe I can get some ideas from it ^^

Ah. I'm just the opposite with reading: if a challenge has too many rules and caveats set for me I feel too restricted and it feels like I'm no longer reading for fun but just to tick boxes. I need to tailor it with my own tweaks and restrictions.

The group I got it from is the UK Book Club - they also have read around the US states and the UK counties challenges. But I think they borrowed it from somewhere else and I'm pretty sure there's a whole book group on goodreads devoted to 'around the world in 80 books' too that has a ton of suggested reads and such.

I will try to find it.

Well,that's what I love about this site. It's room for the most rigid, slightly OCD reading person and the one who needs the most slack or own rules, that's so good because everyone feels welcome and have fun :)

Country number 20 visited! Algeria: The Plague. Africa's finally beginning to look a little less empty on my map. And it was a wonderful read too.

Another country to the map! Poland and Chasing the King of Hearts. Also brings my #readwomen count up and means I've already reached my (in retrospect very unambitious) target of 5 pieces of translated fiction this year.

And completed my #readwomen challenge of reading 10 female authors I'd never read before. Woot woot!

Will still continue to pick up new books by unfamiliar female authors though. I do really like making new discoveries.

And reached my target of 10 classics. Will probably exceed it later on but moving onto some slightly more recent books for a bit now, I think.

50 books done! And with plenty of time to go too.

Also another country down (Ukraine).