Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Goodreads have a number of challenges Page-Turner, Speed Reader, Book Boss, Choice Archive....

Anyone working on them? They seem kind of hidden. At least when using the decktop Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/readingchal...
Click the second “Challenge details” to see more

don't get me started on the the Goodreads Challenge (grrr!)
it's such a disaster area in so many ways that I don't even want to talk about it
now I only use it as a simple visual "counter" of how my gross target number for the year is progressing

I've been trying to keep up with them - but yeah they've been kinda hidden.
But for 2025 they pushed me to read some contemporary titles apart from my classic reading

Ha! I didn't know these even existed, and I've been on Goodreads for years. Thanks for the information.

Samanta wrote: "Ha! I didn't know these even existed, and I've been on Goodreads for years. Thanks for the information."

they just started them in 2025 - but thye've not "advertised" them at all

I love the challenges! I have been encouraged to read out of my usual areas because of them. At first, the fact that I had to track them down was frustrating. Now I see it as more of a bonus for the true reading junkie.

I don’t cate for them because they seem to concentrate them on contemporary books. Perhaps that is because Goodreads is part of the Amazon empire, and of course, Amazon sells books.

I do participate in the numerical challenge, although I do wish that they also tracked number of pages read, because the number of books read can be misleading, depending on how think or thin the books are.

Thanks for pointing this out. I didn't even realize that there was a link to browse choices for those challenges. Honestly, I'm not a big challenge person at all because I feel like I'm too "locked into" a future read when I love the freedom to be spontaneous when picking a book. I'm like Darren and Terry: I just choose an amount of books I want to read in a year and go with that. I like being able to keep up with the progress of reading in general.

Terry wrote: “I do participate in the numerical challenge, although I do wish that they also tracked number of pages read, because the number of books read can be misleading, depending on how think or thin the books are.”

Have you seen The StoryGraph? https://app.thestorygraph.com/ They let you set a book goal and a page goal (and/or, if you’re like me, an hours/minutes goal for audiobooks).

I also mostly aim for number of pages at personal goal. I track it at
https://www.goodreads.com/review/stats/
and click "pages"

....but mostly I just read. Some books are heavy going no matter the pages. I am working on two math books. One of them I read about 5 page/hour.

I can see I read less pages in 2022. But I read A History of Western Philosophy. Most chapters I heard as audiobook, and then read them in paperback.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "I also mostly aim for number of pages at personal goal. I track it at
https://www.goodreads.com/review/stats/
and click "pages"

....but mostly I just read. Some books are heavy going no matter th..."

I like audiobooks, and I depending on the book I sometimes find that it helps to read along while I'm listening.

I think Ulysses would have benefited from that method.

For A History of Western Philosophy it was the thinking that took time.

J_BlueFlower wrote: "I think Ulysses would have benefited from that method.

For A History of Western Philosophy it was the thinking that took time."

Ah yes. That's what's slowing me down with Plato's Republic.

Spoko and J_Blueflower, Thank you for the suggestions. I just looked at Goodreads’ 2025 recap of my reading and it gave me a page count — almost 23,000 pages! I would have never guessed that.

Admittedly I'm a bit fixated on the GR challenges since I stumbled across them in the fall. I love working through them as they encourage me to read more broadly and I learn about new titles. A bit like group reads in my mind.

I have mixed feeling about them. On one hand, they open me up to MORE books I might be interested in, but I’m already spread very thin. I have too many new and old books i want to read and as someone who has worked in the library field, there are way too many books that I feel I *should* read. To clarify, I don’t work in a library presently, but it still feels obligatory to read widely and out of my comfort zone.

Another reading challenge makes me a little anxious (I’m reading as much as I can already. Sometimes I read… too much!).