Friday 4 September 2015

A successful challenge

I set myself so many challenges this year that it's hardly too much of a surprise that now, nine months into the year, the majority of them have fallen way by the way side! Namely #yearofcraft (#epicfail) and 52 Photos in a Year, which considering the amount of photos I take shouldn't have presented too much of a problem, but the week by week thing just didn't grab me and eventually I just stopped logging in. But there is one challenge that I am keeping up, and actually making good progress, and that is the 50 Books in a Year challenge on Goodreads. 

This is a bit of a no-brainer really as I am always reading. If it's a really good book I'll grab any opportunity I can to put my feet up and immerse myself, but even if it's not so good I always read before I go to sleep every single night. Even if I can barely keep my eyes open I'll read a few pages, call it my night time ritual. 

Some books I race through in a couple of days, others, like The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins took over 3 weeks and set me back a bit, but a few days of jury duty soon sorted that out (many many hours of waiting...and waiting...and waiting...). I think I actually stand a good chance of completing this challenge, go me! 

I have learned something from this challenge, and the lesson is that I'm not very good at writing book reviews. This is a major reason that I have avoided book clubs over the years. I either like a book or I don't and I'm not interested in breaking it down and saying why or why not. I get genuine pleasure from reading and there's a part of my brain that equates book reviews to English Literature at school. Why did you like it, which bit did you like best, what do you think this character was feeling...no! Was it good or was it bad? Would I read it again? Those are probably the only two questions I'm willing to answer. A fascinating book club member I definitely wouldn't be! I'm happy to leave a star rating, and I occasionally write a line or so if I'm so inspired, but I can't imagine anyone else finds my paltry reviews very inspiring at all. 

Having said all that I'm following a couple of people who are doing the same challenge or the double whammy of 100 books per year, and it's fascinating to see what people choose to read! My choices are mainly driven by charity shop purchases, library borrowing, or revisiting old favourites. I'm so intrigued to know what drives the decisions to pick up a book. Even though they say you never should, I am often drawn by the cover. The very first Murikami I read was for entirely this reason - the crisp white covers with the minimal black and red writing and a single image - gimme! 

If you'd like to follow along with my challenge and see my book choices you can do so here on Goodreads.

What do you think about a book challenge? Could you do it? 

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