MobileRead Book Challenges discussion

Main Goal(s) :
52 novels (1 book a week)
15,500 pages

Side Challenge(s) :

#1 January 2013 Challenge ~ New Year, New Reads! ~PA Group [Ended 01/31/13] (view spoiler)[
Medium - 5 books : 2 of 5 Completed

✓ 1. Author #1: Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly
2. Series: Chicagoland Vampires - Some Girls Bite
3. Character/Creature: Kira Solomon - Shadow Blade (Shadowchasers #1)
✓ 4. Location: Wales - Among Others
5. Free Choice - Author #2: TBD

(hide spoiler)]

#2 The I'll Try Anything Once... Challenge! (Courtesy of Mrs. J)
Goal : Read 1 book from each category throughout the year. (List in post #2)

The I'll Try Anything Once... Challenge!


✓Adventure School of Fear
Auto-Biography/Biography
Chick-Lit
✓Childrens Book Of Thee I Sing
Classics
Cyberpunk
Drama
✓Dystopian The Hunger Games
Educational
✓Erotica Elfbitten
✓Espionage Casino Royale
✓Fantasy Elfstruck
✓Graphic Novels Chobits: Omnibus, Vol. 1 I've read: 4 of 4
Gothic
Hard-Boiled
Historical Fiction
Horror
Humour
Literary Fiction
✓Magical Realism Among Others
Mystery
Noir
Non Fiction
✓Paranormal Shadow Blade
Philosophical
Poetry
Post-Apocalyptic
✓Romance Solid Soul
✓Science Fiction A Scanner Darkly
✓Steampunk The Friday Society
✓Supernatural Clean Sweep
Thriller
True Crime
✓Urban Fantasy Geekomancy
Victorian
✓Young Adult The Iron King

Personal Bonus Categories:

✓Award Winner Soulless
Banned or Challenged
Mobile Read Author
✓Mythology Runes

Not Categorized:

A Town Like Alice
Kitchen Princess, Volume 1
Three French Hens



Short Stories:

The List:


A Scanner Darkly ~ 01/07/13

Among Others ~ 01/13/13

A Town Like Alice ~ 02/07/13

Shadow Blade ~ 02/10/13

The Hunger Games ~ 02/16/13

The Iron King ~ 02/24/13

Geekomancy ~ 02/27/13

Chobits: Omnibus, Vol. 1 ~ 03/06/13

Help Wanted [Short Story]~ 03/25/13

The New Girl [Short Story]~ 03/25/13

At Her Command [Short Story]~ 03/26/13

All Of Her [Short Story]~ 03/27/13

One To Watch [Short Story]~ 03/27/13

Into Her Fire [Short Story]~ 03/27/13

Wish Her Well [Short Story]~ 03/30/13

All the Queen's Men [Short Story]~ 03/30/13

Casino Royale~05/03/13

Kitchen Princess, Volume 1~05/12/13

The Friday Society~05/29/13

Solid Soul~11/18/13

Soulless~11/21/13

Night Heat~11/24/13

Elfbitten~12/11/13

Elfstruck~12/12/13

School of Fear~12/16/13

Of Thee I Sing~12/20/13

Runes~12/22/13

Clean Sweep~12/25/13

Three French Hens~12/26/13

List Too:

MobileRead Links:

The 2013 Annual Reading Challenge – List Thread

The 2013 Annual Reading Challenge - Discussion Thread

Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

MobileRead Book Club Selections List

MobileRead Book Clubs (Sub Forum)


Other GoodReads Book Club Groups:

Paranormal Addicts & Newbies - Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy ~ PA

Fantasy Aficionados ~ FA

Beyond Reality ~BR

Various Reading/Book Lists:

Novels Mentioned in Among Others , Novels Mentioned in Among Others Too and Novels Mentioned in Among Others Three


Science Fiction And Fantasy Finalists (2011)


2012 Nebula Awards Nominees Announced

FIRST!

Edited to add: I knew you'd be on board. Go 2013!

:)

How could I not. I love you guys!

And we love you! **group hug!!**

**hug back!!** lol (yes, I am that mushy).

Shoot! I wanted to be first!

*group hug!*

MrsJoseph wrote: "Shoot! I wanted to be first!"

Yes. I know.

Muahahahahah!

Christa wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "Shoot! I wanted to be first!"

Yes. I know.

Muahahahahah!"

:-P

LOL you two. Are you going to be running the challenge threads over on MobileRead again next year Nyssa?

Sure, if the powers that be want me to. Any questions, suggestions or concerns?

Question: What would you say is a good avg. for the number of pages for a short story?

Novels avg. at approx. 300 pages, but I have no idea what the avg. is for a short story and I'd like to set a goal for "# of pages read" in 2013.

Thanks.


Edit: I read on Wikipedia that the accepted standard for a short story is anywhere between 5 & 20 pages; the average of which would be 12.5, therefore, 25 short stories would be just over 300 pages . So my page number goal for 2013 will be 15,500.

Pages are dumb to me, but then so are number of books. A given book can vary 50-100 pages some times depending on the format of the print and not all 443 page books are equivalent.

Next year's goal for me is another challenge which turns out to be 44 books and around 12,500 pages based on the stats.

For your short stories I would estimate a little higher than 12.5 and say probably 20 for 500 pages.

Heh. I rounded up the number of pages challenge from 15, 300 to 15, 500 - 1. Because I know many of my novels are longer than 300 and 2. because it looks better. It seems that I can now add 3. Its more accurate, based on your suggestion! :)

Nyssa wrote: "Question: What would you say is a good avg. for the number of pages for a short story?

Novels avg. at approx. 300 pages, but I have no idea what the avg. is for a short story and I'd like to se..."

I'm all late...

LOL You can still answer, if you like, anyway. As the resident book-pusher your input is greatly appreciated. :)

Some more useless statistics. Short story collections I read this year:

11 stories for 239 pages = 21.7 pages per
11 stories for 297 pages = 27.0 pages per
10 stories for 229 pages = 22.9 pages per
17 stories for 223 pages = 13.1 pages per

overall 49 stories for 988 pages = 20.2 pages per

Nyssa wrote: "Question: What would you say is a good avg. for the number of pages for a short story?

Novels avg. at approx. 300 pages, but I have no idea what the avg. is for a short story and I'd like to se..."

The length of a short story can vary between 1000-8000. I do know that a 4500 words long short story is 15 pages.
The lazy way would be to add the Count pages to Calibre.

I'm finally listening to myself and keeping my goal "manageable".

52 novels (1 book a week); 15,500 pages.

Most (if not all) will come from the 4 book clubs of which I'm a member:

MobileRead (of course)

Paranormal Addicts & Newbies - Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy

Fantasy Aficionados

Beyond Reality

My book club participation will be determined mostly by time, money and intrest.
I was so thrilled to see that my library system has finally added access to overdrive, only to learn that the selection online is worse than "in house"; very, very disappointing. I wish there was a way to use overdrive, without having to have a library connection.

Nyssa, I've been reading short stories all this year, and I would say that the shortest has been 20 pages, except for one. I would put the average short story at 25 pages.

So, I'm thinking.. Maybe instead of keeping a manual list, I should add one of the GoodReads widgets and/or a link to my 2013 shelf, so that whoever is interested can take a look.

Or not! Apparently GoodReads widgets don't actually work on GoodReads.


Anyone else find that to be a bit ridiculous??

I've picked up a "Side Challenge" [ January 2013 Challenge ~ New Year, New Reads!] courtesy of the Paranormal Addicts & Newbies - Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Group

I know I can cover 3 of the 5 easily, possibly 4, this month, but the 5th may be tricky as not all of my January reads will be Fantasy themed.

So my first book of 2013 will be
A Scanner Darkly, which is the January SciFi Selection @ Beyond Reality.

^Nice. I haven't read it yet, but probably will some time. I've got a P.K. Dick title in this year's required reading list as well.

Homeinmyshoes wrote: "^Nice. I haven't read it yet, but probably will some time. I've got a P.K. Dick title in this year's required reading list as well."

This will be my first PKD title.

I checked out the one on your list: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It sounds both interesting and creepy.

^It's also from 1974. :)

My actual read list might end up being significantly different in the end. I've already started a couple of non-fiction books that might replace others on the list.

I haven't even started yet...

Seems I just can't leave well enough alone.

I've added a 2nd challenge to my goals for 2013. (See Posts #1 & 2)

You're so organized!! I'm so not...

Well, I'm pretty interested in the I'll Try Anything Once challenge. That sounds crazy fun.

MrsJoseph wrote: "You're so organized!! I'm so not..."

Only online...to make up for the chaos that is my RL. LOL

Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Well, I'm pretty interested in the I'll Try Anything Once challenge. That sounds crazy fun."

Doesn't it though?? Join us!!!! :D

I'm not sure about philosophical and chick lit. Would High Fidelity count as chick lit? :)

Hmm Philosophical may be a challenge.

I'm sure you can find one chick-lit book to enjoy.

I might read The Help or reread The Color Purple - I'll have to find my copy, I haven't seen it lately.

I have finally completed my first book of the year:
A Scanner Darkly .

Next Up:
Among Others .

I love this site, so much!! So, as I'm writing an update for Among Others, I wonder, out loud, if there is a list of the novels mentioned in the story, which motivates me to check on Google.

Guess what I found and it was right here! :D

Novels Mentioned in Among Others

And here's one found on LiveJournal: Novels Mentioned in Among Others Too

I found another on LibraryThing: Novels Mentioned in Among Others Three

:-D

I finished Among Others (my 2nd book of 2013) tonight. What a great book. I was not expecting to like it as much as I did!

^That one does look interesting. I'm resisting pressing the Want To button, but just barely.

Nyssa wrote: "I finished Among Others (my 2nd book of 2013) tonight. What a great book. I was not expecting to like it as much as I did!"

Yaay! Congrats!

I'm still not reading...

Thanks Mrs.J :)

May your reading drought end with the return of your health and may both happen tomorrow, or at least soon!

:-)

I've fallen into Skyrim...

And Torchlight.

Having a very off week, mostly due to work. I'm usually able to find at least 15 minutes of reading time during my work day, but that just did not happen this time around. Persuasion is kind of keeping my intrest, but I think I already know how things will be resolved.

To mix things up a little I've started Shadow Blade. I'm only a few pages in, but so far so good.

Nyssa wrote: "To mix things up a little I've started Shadow Blade. I'm only a few pages in, but so far so good."

Yaaay! I enjoyed that one.

I'm still playing games. :-)