Yearly Reading challenges

Discussion in 'Reading Pad' started by klee73010, Feb 5, 2018.

  1. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    Do you have yearly reading challenges you follow? I've not done the books that I know have been suggested here, but I'm now in another reading group. Several ladies there are doing various challenges from "Modern Mrs. Darcy", "Popsugar" or "Book Riot's Read Harder" challenges. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea to choose books to fill prompts, but I was just curious if you follow any sort of yearly book challenges.

    On my "To Be Read" list this year:
    Completing "Throne of Glass" series by Sarah J Maas, and her "Court of Thorns and Roses" series. The reading group I'm in is doing read alongs of this series, so I am reading these over the next few months. I'm also finishing the "Left Behind" series and Game of Thrones series, a classic, a banned book, a translated book, crime novel, and a few other prompts.

    my TBR pile seems to continue growing, and in my over complicating fashion, I've made lists and more lists and even more of lists of books...

    what are you reading? What challenges are you following?
     
  2. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    I'm not following any yet. I keep thinking each year I will do one, but haven't yet!

    I enjoy Modern Mrs. Darcy. She has recommended a lot of books I love!
     
  3. bellbird

    bellbird Pollywog

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    I've seen lists like this on GR and pinterest - more generic categories like you'v mentioned: a historic fiction novel, a best seller, a female author etc. I just need a 'read the books you already have' support group, but i keep end up buying and borrowing more and having to find more shelf space...
     
  4. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    I've seen one with that square! Read a book sitting on your shelf!

    (PS: as much as I love paper books, that is totally why I switched to a kindle. My bookshelf feels unlimited! Down side: I forget what's on it)
     
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  5. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    :giggle I am the same!!! The game of thrones books were on our shelf, as is the majority of the left behind series, and I am reading both of those.

    Many years ago, I decided I was going to have an amazing classics library, and went a bit crazy buying a ton of classics that I've never read (Emma, Don Quixote, Heidi, Pride and Prejudice, etc). There are so many I do actually want to read, but so many I bought just because they were on some arbitrary classics list somewhere. I have a few on my tbr list for this year. So I guess you could say I am starting to read several that were indeed on my shelf. :giggle

    I don't usually buy adult books (I buy so many kids books though....). I've learned to just buy books I love and will re-read, (my harry potter series is well loved. :beat) and my library usage has improved.


    I have no idea what is on my kindle app, besides library books. I have been getting a "BookBub" email each day for years and "buying" all the free books that catch my eye. But all they do is catch my eye. I have probably 300 or more, and I've probably only read 10 or so. :giggle

    I didn't know until recently that you could organize them into groups or categories. I was always annoyed that I couldn't sort by genre. Now that i could put them in genre categories, maybe I will enjoy browsing the virtual shelf when a mood strikes me.... have to make a few lists and categories first. :giggle :giggle :giggle
     
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  6. Karen

    Karen Wiggle it, just a little bit!

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    The only reading challenge I do is the Goodreads one where you pick how many books you'd like to finish in a year. I also try to read all the books we pick for the book club here and I just recently joined a real life book club for the first time in my life. I hope I can keep up with all those "required" books and still have time to read what I want to read too. Lol.

    A couple of years ago I came across a "100 best books ever written" list and I started to read some of those mixed in with my regular TBR list too. I just like to try new things sometimes to keep it interesting. I also will read along when my middle school boys are reading somethign as a class. My 6th grader did "Wonder" in the fall and then we went as a class to watch the movie. Now my 8th grader is doing "A Wrinkle in Time" so I better get going on that one too before that movie comes out.
     
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  7. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    I saw a list like that on Pinterest! Also, I want to read books that were turned into movies. I think I'm starting with Disney ones.... in alphabetical order. :giggle
     
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  8. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    Re the first bold... that is how I feel about the John Jakes 8 book series, "The Kent Family Chronicles" and his 3 book series, "North and South Trilogy". I have all 11 of these in hardcover as well as Kindle versions. Time to read them all again.

    As for the 2nd bold, how do you do this? Is this what they call "collections"?
     
  9. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    Yep, @HavaDrPepper !! I just learned this within the past month or so, and haven't played with it much. I was able to scroll through and add books to a collection I named "kid's books" and another called "cookbooks" or something. You have to manually do it, but I think you can do it from the app, or in the Amazon digital content screen. I just don't like that it's manual, and the only way to keep it up to date is to do it each and every time you add a new kindle book. I will have to make it a monthly "chore" basically to go in and update my collections. Just seems like a lot of manual labor, but perhaps it would curb my incessant kindle hoarding. Hahaha :giggle
     
  10. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    @klee73010 I looked at it after posting and found how to do it. It is a lot of work and isn't really user friendly... at least on the actual Kindle itself. I made a collection name, chose over 20 books to add to it but forgot to click "add". Not realizing, they weren't saved, I went back to the collection screen where that collection does not show up so I can add to it! I tried going to a book and selecting the collection there. Going back to the collections screen, that collection still didn't show up. Had to do a lot of going back and forth and I finally got it to show up... only after I had made a second collection with the same name (it added a 2 to the end). I did eventually get all the books in the collection I wanted and deleted the duplicate one.

    After all that when I made a new collection name, I added at least 1 book to it so it showed up on the collection screen! I will be fine tuning the collections by going to the book screen and checking each to see if it is in a collection.

    Hopefully after doing all this work, it will be more useful when I go to select a book to read!
     
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  11. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    Start with the Grimms Borthers versions! So much more fun than the Disney-fied fairy tales! :giggle
     
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  12. berniek

    berniek I have a girl crush on the Naming Fairy

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    No I’m not. But I am subscribed to a service that lets you download 8 ebooks and audiobooks each month. They are pre-selected so only choice within the 8. But it gives me much more books then I can read and I try to read at least two of them per month. That’s kind of like a challenge? Lol

    I like the idea of book club or challenge. But that’s going to be so expensive... our library sucks so I have to actually buy my books.
     
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  13. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    I read somewhere about Disney changing the fairy tales a bit.... or a lot. :giggle Having never read any of the originals, I am sure to be quite surprised!

    You could probably "apply" the books you have available in your downloads to various prompts... the prompts can be interpreted however you want. Prompts like "on your shelf but not read" or "re read a book you read in school". I would think many prompts would be attainable using what you have.

    Also, I know I've seen many sites in the past offer free versions of older classics. I have an android phone, and know that Google books offers free ones. Amazon prime has some free reading, too, but I understand that may be USA only. I get my free ones through Book bub, and as I understand it, those are regional offers, too. Where I live, I have access to 3 different digital library databases, and because I am close enough to other libraries I might be able to request their access, too. I'm not sure how your area works, but I've heard of people being able to pay small membership fees for different cities or states library access, so if that were a possibility, you could look into it. I don't subscribe to any particular book subscription, though I would be interested to learn about what's available in my area for those. :beat
     
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  14. tinkerbell1112

    tinkerbell1112 Offical Ambassador of the Magic Kingdom

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    Might have to try to do the category in the kindle app. I didn’t know about that either. I’m thinking it would be a good way to categorize those I’ve read. I’ve never been able to tell what I’ve read yet or not at a glance:blahblahblah
     
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  15. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    That was the reason I connected to Goodreads. When I finish a book, and connect to wifi, my kindle updates that I've read it. So, I can glance through Goodreads to see where I'm at!
     
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  16. tinkerbell1112

    tinkerbell1112 Offical Ambassador of the Magic Kingdom

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    How does kindle update?? Is love to know. I get a lot of free books for kindle and they're usually ones I am not dying to read so I forget about them. I need a way of keeping track

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
     
  17. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    I don't know if I can add books to Goodreads shelves? But I know it updates my currently reading, and any books I've finished reading. It offers me a rating option at the end of the book.
     
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  18. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    Only thing with that is you need to be connected to the internet to update. I don't keep my Kindle connected. I only connect when I have a bunch of new downloads.

    I just get on the goodreads website and update manually. I like looking at my stats on there when I do :)
     
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  19. klee73010

    klee73010 I might have a thing for drummers

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    @HavaDrPepper
    If you have goodreads and kindle connected, it would update goodreads whenever you connect kindle for downloads. It's part of the syncing it does, as far as I know.

    @bestcee I have my kindle app connected somehow in my goodreads settings so that any kindle purchases/downloads (including library books I borrow on Overdrive in kindle format) are added to my "want to read" shelf. All those book bub downloads are automatically added to that goodreads shelf. When I open the book to finally read it on my kindle app, goodreads moves it to my reading shelf... upon finishing the book in kindle app, I can add a rating and click a box that says "move to read shelf" or whatever it says. And goodreads does all this automatically when I connect the kindle online.

    Further thinking, maybe there *is* a button I push on the goodreads side that has to sync the bookbub kindle "purchases"... i cant remember if mine is set to do it automatically, but i know goodreads automatically marks books to currently reading and read.... I'm just not sure if the adding them to the "to read" shelf is automatic or if I press a button. Hmmm.... if I press a button, I know it *can* be automatic .
     
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  20. HavaDrPepper

    HavaDrPepper Space. The final frontier

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    I have Goodreads on my kindle but it never updates automatically when I do connect. So there must be something to do to tell it to update. But then I don't want it to. Like I said, I like to do it on the website and see my stats.
     
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