Back in January, I set myself a Goodreads reading challenge for the year. In 2016 I’d managed to read 46 books, having set myself the target of reading 30. This year I thought I’d read 45. I’d considered going higher but at the time I still had my thesis to correct, and I knew that with the job I had at the time coming to an end in June, I might find myself with unexpected life changes that could absorb my reading time.
As it happened, I got my thesis corrections handed in by the end of January, and I got myself a new job which still gave me plenty of reading time (although I can expect to read a lot more patents law). As a result, on Sunday I finished reading my 45th book of 2017, which happened to be Jane Eyre. Interestingly, I finished this year’s challenge at about the same time as I finished last year’s challenge – last year I had 88 days to go when I finished, this year I had 90. Not bad!
So I’ve been reading about 1.125 books a week. At this rate, I’ll have finished 58 by the end of 2017. That said, this strikes me as a good opportunity to pick up some of the longer books on my shelves – the ones I’m normally intimidated by. It’s not for nothing that House of Leaves is sitting on my bedside table (apart from anything else, it’s too heavy to put in my handbag and read on the train).
Goodreads tells me that I’ve read 14086 pages so far, which is kind of cool. The longest book was Wolf Hall at 653 pages (it felt a lot shorter). I do love a good stat. Who knows, maybe if I’m feeling brave next year I’ll go for 50 books… or maybe I’ll remember I have some exams and won’t bother.
Have you got any reading challenges on the go?
In Becky's Head 
Yup, my usual 24 books in a year and, as usual, I start out really well then fall away through the year and end up ‘having’ to read 4 books in December. Currently I’ve read 16 and I’m 2 books behind schedule. Dang!
P.s. your widget on your website says 42 of 45, have you updated Goodreads?
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Haha, we’ll see if we can get people to pick something nice and short for bookclub 😛
P.S. Thanks for the heads up! This widget breaks a lot
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I’ve never counted before. My intuition is that I read about 25-30. I’ll have to pick up the pace to get on your level. 🙂
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Well, if you ever feel like keeping track I do recommend Goodreads. And 25-30 is probably about what I was reading before I started keeping track – I think it makes you more conscious of your reading habits, which, naturally, makes you more likely to read.
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good points, I could start doing that. I go to goodreads all the time anyway.
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