Book Challenges Wrap-Up 2019

This year I tried to do something new with my reading, and do a few year-long book challenges. I also attempted to set some of my own personal reading goals, some of which I succeeded and others I sadly failed. If you’ve been reading my wrap-ups for the last few months, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.

So today I’m going to be wrapping up my Reading Resolutions and Reading Challenges of the year.

Reading Resolutions

(my original post of my resolutions)

Read 103 Books

I did this and more. As of the date I’m writing this, I’ve read 195 books this year, almost doubling my goal. I may even get to two hundred by the end of the year.

Read 1 Indie book a month:

I started out in this challenge strong, but by the end of the year, I pretty much gave up on this one. I did, however, read 10 out of the 12 Indie books I was hoping to read, which isn’t horrible. It honestly wasn’t that I hated all them, and I did enjoy a few of them, I just rarely found them as good as all the rest of the books I was reading. I may occasionally read indie books, but I don’t think I’m going to resolve to purposefully read them next year.

Read 2 short stories a month

Like my last resolution, I mostly did this but then gave up the last few months. I read 18 out of the 24 I was supposed to read this year. However, unlike Indie books, I enjoyed the majority of them I read, I just prefer novels, so I will definitely try to read more short stories again next year.

Read more challenging books

I’m going to count this as a success. I read quite a few challenging books that I’ve been wanting to read and haven’t. These include some super long books like Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and some shorter but highly dense books like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Mostly, I just filled by head with deeper philosophical reads and I loved every moment of it.

Compete in at Least One Read-a-Thon

I ended up not doing this. Whenever I learned of a read-a-thon and thought about doing it, I was always too busy. And whenever I had a chance to read more, there were no read-a-thons going on. I could have created one of my own, but I never bothered. Maybe next year…

Reread some books

This one is perhaps the one challenge I am most ashamed of. There were only four months out of the year I reread any books. I just find myself not wanting to reread a book when I have so many new books to read. Sigh…maybe next year I’ll try to reread some.

Reading Challenges:

(my original post on my challenges)

I competed in three main challenges this year, and succeeded in all of them!

The Year of the Asian Reading Challenge

The whole idea of this challenge was to read as many Asian authors as you could. There were different levels and I chose the most difficult, Bengali Tiger, trying to read 50 books by Asian authors this year. And I did it! I read a total of 54 books.

Back to the Classics Challenge

This one was the easiest challenge, which was read a book in each category, totaling 12 books. Pretty easy and I finished this challenge months ago. Also, some of these I read several books which fit the category, but I just put in the first one I read this year.

1. 19th Century Classic: Silas Marner by George Eliot
2. 20th Century Classic: 1984 by George Orwell
3. Classic by a Woman Author: Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
4. Classic in Translation: Confessions by St. Augustine
5. Classic Comic Novel: Kitaro by Shigaru Mizuki
6. Classic Tragic Novel: Notre-Dame of Paris by Victor Hugo
7. Very Long Classic: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
8. Classic Novella: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
9. Classic From the Americas (includes the Carribean): Popol Vuh by Anonymous
10. Classic from Africa, Asia, and Oceania: The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo
11. Classic From a Place You’ve Lived: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
12. Classic Play: Pericles by Shakespeare

Pages Read 2019

This challenge centered around how many pages you read and, like the first challenge, it had different levels. I chose a level kind of in the middle, the Apple Tree, which challenged 48,000 pages in the year. I wanted to just try for the Redwood (the hardest level), which was 84,001+ pages, but I thought that would be way too hard.

As it was, not counting this month (because it’s not over yet), I read a total of 52,891 pages. So, I completed my goal and more!

Basically, I’m happy with all the challenges I completed this year. I wasn’t perfect, but I’m amazed how I well I did considered I had a big move at the beginning of the year and started college later in the year.

How did you do on your reading challenges/goals this year? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments, follow my blog for more musings and, as always,

Best wishes in your life full of adventure,

Madame Writer