Read 'Em & Cheer
Jan. 17th, 2011 02:27 pmGenerally speaking, I set out to read 50 books in a year: this is my baseline, so to speak, inspired by ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
50bookchallenge back in 2004. Considering I feel naked without a text to hand and read every day - really, I can't go to sleep if I haven't read in bed - I haven't had any problems meeting this goal. I have generally resisted bumping up the baseline to 100, because I don't tend to read that fast and it is actually about quality rather than quantity.
However, Goodreads has started a handy widget on their site that enables you to set a Reading Goal and watch your progress over the course of the year. Faced with that, I decided to set my personal goal at 75.
I suppose it should surprise no one that I'm already five books in. (Okay, maybe it's a little surprising. To be fair, two of those were mostly read in 2010.)
Another goal that I set myself last year and intend to continue this year is making time to read more online fiction. Additionally, I intend to read more print magazines (mostly genre, such as Weird Tales and Fantasy & Science Fiction).
I also enjoy participating in some book clubs, such as the monthly reading challenges atcalico_reaction and the Women of Science Fiction challenge that Dreams and Speculation is doing this year.
Beyond these, I'm engaging in the following projects:
THE PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP CHALLENGE
I'm actually trying this one again: I began it in 2009, tried again in 2010, and still never managed to fulfill the criteria. I've only read one McKillip novel each year for the past two, and both The Changeling Sea and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld were beautiful. This year, I'm going to read The Bards of Bone Plain, her newest work, along with Harrowing the Dragon and Solstice Wood. For real, this time.
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES CANON CHALLENGE
Last year, my husband and I decided to read the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes canon and also watch the complete Jeremy Brett collection of Sherlock Holmes television adventures. For those unfamiliar with the metrics, that includes: 4 novels, 58 short stories, and 41 television episodes.
As I wrote last year:
A couple of things prevented us from executing this grand plan within the twelvemonth. One was that the Jeremy Brett television series does not always follow the publication chronology of the stories. Consider also that the Brett series wasn't available fully on Netflix Instant until relatively recently, and you can see why we'd have difficulty organizing our episode-viewings in tandem with our readings.
While Andy mainlined ACD throughout the year, reading nothing else, I read a couple of Holmes novels and then wandered off to other fiction, and only made a concerted effort to pack away more of the anthologies once six months of 2010 was gone. Given how much else I read this year, I still felt that consuming half the canon was pretty exemplary. Andy should certainly be lauded for having completed the reading part of the challenge within 2010, though!
In retrospect, however, I feel this is a much better two-year challenge. I'm poised to read the remaining 21 short stories and two novels. I've added the Jeremy Brett episodes to our Netflix Instant queue, and so I'm ready to go there as well.
The challenge is afoot!
(Also, you can keep track of these formal reading challenges in my sidebar.)
50bookchallenge back in 2004. Considering I feel naked without a text to hand and read every day - really, I can't go to sleep if I haven't read in bed - I haven't had any problems meeting this goal. I have generally resisted bumping up the baseline to 100, because I don't tend to read that fast and it is actually about quality rather than quantity. However, Goodreads has started a handy widget on their site that enables you to set a Reading Goal and watch your progress over the course of the year. Faced with that, I decided to set my personal goal at 75.
I suppose it should surprise no one that I'm already five books in. (Okay, maybe it's a little surprising. To be fair, two of those were mostly read in 2010.)
Another goal that I set myself last year and intend to continue this year is making time to read more online fiction. Additionally, I intend to read more print magazines (mostly genre, such as Weird Tales and Fantasy & Science Fiction).
I also enjoy participating in some book clubs, such as the monthly reading challenges at
calico_reaction and the Women of Science Fiction challenge that Dreams and Speculation is doing this year. Beyond these, I'm engaging in the following projects:
THE PATRICIA A. MCKILLIP CHALLENGE
I'm actually trying this one again: I began it in 2009, tried again in 2010, and still never managed to fulfill the criteria. I've only read one McKillip novel each year for the past two, and both The Changeling Sea and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld were beautiful. This year, I'm going to read The Bards of Bone Plain, her newest work, along with Harrowing the Dragon and Solstice Wood. For real, this time.
THE SHERLOCK HOLMES CANON CHALLENGE
Last year, my husband and I decided to read the entirety of the Sherlock Holmes canon and also watch the complete Jeremy Brett collection of Sherlock Holmes television adventures. For those unfamiliar with the metrics, that includes: 4 novels, 58 short stories, and 41 television episodes.
As I wrote last year:
Another thing I've been meaning to do forever is read more Sherlock Holmes' stories! My husband idly suggested the other day that, if we really wanted to, we could watch the entire Jeremy Brett collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures. I had just been perusing an annotated edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories and that suggestion made me leap up, cackling and rubbing my hands together briskly as I conceived a grand plan! That plan being that we would read, together, each story and then watch the Jeremy Brett episode. It is evidence of my husband's stout heart (and keen literary interest) that he immediately proved game for such an endeavor. (Also, that he really enjoys Sherlock Holmes fiction.)
A couple of things prevented us from executing this grand plan within the twelvemonth. One was that the Jeremy Brett television series does not always follow the publication chronology of the stories. Consider also that the Brett series wasn't available fully on Netflix Instant until relatively recently, and you can see why we'd have difficulty organizing our episode-viewings in tandem with our readings.
While Andy mainlined ACD throughout the year, reading nothing else, I read a couple of Holmes novels and then wandered off to other fiction, and only made a concerted effort to pack away more of the anthologies once six months of 2010 was gone. Given how much else I read this year, I still felt that consuming half the canon was pretty exemplary. Andy should certainly be lauded for having completed the reading part of the challenge within 2010, though!
In retrospect, however, I feel this is a much better two-year challenge. I'm poised to read the remaining 21 short stories and two novels. I've added the Jeremy Brett episodes to our Netflix Instant queue, and so I'm ready to go there as well.
The challenge is afoot!
(Also, you can keep track of these formal reading challenges in my sidebar.)
