2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

I want to read more this year and thought a reading challenge might be a good way to do it. I never really kept track of how many books I read during a year, so I am starting with 50 and see where that takes me.

1. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ****
2. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler ****
3. The Book of Tea - Kakuzō Okakura ***
4. City of Bones - Cassandra Clare ***
5. The Giver - Lois Lowry ****
6. The Circle - Dave Eggers ****
7. Dark Places - Gillian Flynn ***
8. Winter of the World - Ken Follett ****
9. The Martian - Andy Weir *****
10. The Clothes They Stood Up In - Alan Bennett ****
11. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green ***
12. Erbarmen - Jussi Adler-Olsen ****
13. Schändung - Jussi Adler-Olsen ****
14. The Ice House - Minette Walters ****
15. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen ***
16. The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins ****
17. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro *****
18. Pines - Blake Crouch ***
19. Wayward - Blake Crouch ***
20. Yes Please - Amy Poehler *****
21. The Last Town - Blake Crouch ***
22. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton ****
23. The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell *****
24. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier ****
25. The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend - Kody Keplinger ***
26. The Secret History - Donna Tartt *****
27. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard **
28. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway **
29. The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle ***
30. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner ****
31. The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman ****
32. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel ****
33. Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng ****
34. Germany: Memories of a Nation - Neil MacGregor ****
35. The Stand - Stephen King ***
36. Shatter Me - Tahereh Mafi **
37. Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft - Joe Hill *****
38. Locke & Key, Vol. 2: Head Games - Joe Hill *****
39. Locke & Key, Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows - Joe Hill *****
40. Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom - Joe Hill *****
41. The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides ****
42. Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher ***
43. Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas ****
44. Crown of Midnight - Sarah J. Maas *****
45. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story - John Berendt ****
46. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt ***
47. Die Dreigroschenoper - Bertolt Brecht ****
48. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern ****
49. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *****
50. The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater *****
51. Heir of Fire - Sarah J. Maas ***
52. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone : Illustrated Edition - J.K. Rowling ****
53. The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater ****
54. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs ***
55. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - Washington Irving ****
56. Unravel Me - Tahereh Mafi **
57. Ignite Me - Tahereh Mafi ***
58. The Selection - Kiera Cass ***
59. Boy, Snow, Bird - Helen Oyeyemi ***
60. The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories - Marina Keegan ****
61. Hamlet - William Shakespeare ****
62. Blue Lily, Lily Blue - Maggie Stiefvater ****
63. Snow Like Ashes - Sara Raasch ****
64. Jeder stirbt für sich allein - Hans Fallada *****
65. Slade House - David Mitchell *****
66. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America - Erik Larson *****
67. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman ****
68. The Queen of the Tearling - Erika Johansen ****
69. The Shipping News - Annie Proulx ****
70. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky ***
71. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo ****
72. A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J. Maas ****
73. The Diviners - Libba Bray ***

Currently, I am reading The Circle by Dave Eggers. I'm still at the beginning, but it seems promising.

Today I started The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.
I was not a big fan of Gone Girl, but I got this as a gift and will see where it takes me.
And I really liked The Woman in White, so I am excited about the Moonstone

Good luck with your reading challenge, Claudia! You're off to a great start. A lot of those books are ones that I've had on my to-read list for a long time.

Cassandra wrote: "Good luck with your reading challenge, Claudia! You're off to a great start. A lot of those books are ones that I've had on my to-read list for a long time."

Thanks for the encouragement. To have a goal is acutally really helping to read more. I hope I can keep it up throughout the year. ;)

I finished Dark Places. I found it a lot easier to read then Gone Girl. The different perspectives were told us from the beginning so that the reader had a better feeling for what was going on.
But still, Gillian Flynn has a tendency to write about characters, who are neither relatable nor fun. They are all crazy.
There are a lot of people out there, who have no problem with that, cinsidering the popularity of her books, but I need to identify with at least one quality of a character. And that just doesn't happen for me with Gillian Flynn's novels.
Let's see what Sharp Objects will be like.

Claudia wrote: "I finished Dark Places. I found it a lot easier to read then Gone Girl. The different perspectives were told us from the beginning so that the reader had a better fee..."

I feel the same way about Flynn's characters.

I started Winter of the World when it came out, but somehow I never finished it. So I decided to listen to the audiobook. In the unabridged version. It took quite some time, but was a nice experience. Not as well done as Fall of Giants, narrated by Dan Stevens, but still good.

Claudia wrote: "I started Winter of the World when it came out, but somehow I never finished it. So I decided to listen to the audiobook. In the unabridged version. It took quite some time, but was..."

The third book is much better than the second.

"Megan wrote: The third book is much better than the second."

I started it yesterday. Now I'm excited

I picked The Martian, because I only heard great things about it. My boyfriend actually read it before me and couldn't put it down. He loved the tone and so did I. We are excited for the movie, but Matt Damon would not be my first choice actually. While I was reading it I actually thought that this would be perfect for Robert Downey Jr. But we'll see.

I finished the Wayward Pines trilogy rather quickly, because it is an easy read. But even though there were a few unexpected twists, it wasn't as exciting as I expected.
I felt that only the first book had a real narrative. The others were just epsiode two and three to the pilot.

I listened to the audiobook version of Yes Please and I can't imagine that reading the book is more fun than listening to it. Read by Amy Poehler herself it gives the story an honest feeling that I can't imagine you get when you read it yourself.
It's very charming and very funny with great anecdotes. You get great insight in the work that has to be done to get a functioning career as a woman in comedy.

Claudia wrote: "I listened to the audiobook version of Yes Please and I can't imagine that reading the book is more fun than listening to it. Read by Amy Poehler herself it gives t..."

Yes! I totally agree. I just listened to the audiobook version of Tina Fey's Bossypants and I loved it. I cannot imagine that I would have enjoyed it as much if I had read it. Now I will add Yes Please to my audiobook shortlist, for sure.

Jackie B. wrote: "Claudia wrote: "I listened to the audiobook version of Yes Please and I can't imagine that reading the book is more fun than listening to it. Read by Amy Poehler he..."

Bossypants is definitely on my to hear list as well now. I'm really looking forward to it

A few years ago I read Cloud Atlas and loved the distinct voices of the different stories and the way it all came together.
The Bone Clocks only takes place over one lifetime instead of many, but there are still a lot of different characters. All of them meet Holly Sykes and all of them are influenced by her presence.
It is an intriguing story about people with a science fiction element to it that fits in perfectly with the rest.

It took me quite a while to get into Rebecca. It's really hard to root for the heroine at the beginning. She is making stupid decisions and most of the time you feel second-hand embarrassment for her. But after she finds out the truth this book turned into a really gripping thriller and the heroine is much more relatable and likable.

I finished A Farewell to Arms today and I have a similar reaction to it as Bradley Cooper does in "Silver Linings Playbook" even though it's for different reasons. I would throw it out the window, hadn't I listened to it on my phone. It's an infuriating book and I can not, for the life of me, understand what makes it so special.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Invisible Library.
For once the reader does not experience the magical world of the story at the same time as our heroine. Irene has been part of this world all her life and that really is a breath of fresh air.
Our entry point is with Kai, who has experience with the library, but is on his first assignment in an alternate world.
The world is not a dystopian future, but a rich fantasy world, which you could also propably find in an episode of Doctor Who.
The characters are quite intelligent and know how to help themselves in any given situation.
It's an exciting detective novel with some actually surprising twists and some you can see from a mile away. But that doesn't hurt the story and I am looking forward to read the next book.