Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Reader's world of so many "challenges"

This is my third year of keeping track of what i read in a year. But since joining Shelfari.com i am able to do it without much hassle, the virtual library is so convenient when setting what  book i just read. One thing i like, was also joining the different challenges. I have signed up to 3 challenges in different shelfari groups. The Quantity Challenge in the Filipino Flipping Pages (FFP) group, aiming to hit 75 books read by end of 2010. In 2008 i read around 48 books, i finished 63 books in 2009. The Quantity challenge is one way of trimming down my towering TBR pile (it is now leaning precariously :-) and making me feel less guilty about the number of books on my shelf not yet read. To date I am on my 40th book, more than halfway with my goal.  The second challenge that i took was the one from Paging All Bookworms Challenge, this time it's not the number of books but just an accounting of how many pages one has read so far. Although in this case i didn't set a certain number of pages read for 2010. I am just competing with myself in this challenge. However, it is nice to know at the end of the year how many pages you have devoured :-) i can see myself  setting up a certain number of pages read for 2011 after a 2010 benchmark. The one delightful challenge that i joined was A-Z Reading Challenge, initiated by IslandHopper. This challenge makes me vary my readings for this year and discover new authors. By new, i mean authors whose books i haven't read yet. The goal is to read 26 authors with surnames from A-Z from January 1-December 31, 2010. With the huge number of books lurking in my library, i was able to set-up my A-Z authors, except that i am still looking for my X! As of this writing, i am down to 8 books! I am doing well so far and having fun reading new authors.

My reading mood is really to read what grabs my fancy, but i like putting a little management on my chaotic readings and setting an objective. After all, as some readers lament.."so many books, so little time to read", so this will also maximize my leisure time for reading.

But the real challenge is to read all the books in my library! Hmm...i kept saying "I should stop buying books"..i wonder when will i listen to myself?