Reading Challenge 2015

stack-of-books

This year, I set myself the goal of reading 60 books, and I’m happy to report that I met the challenge!

I also took on the fun Popsugar challenge to see how many of the following categories I could meet. Here is what I have (titles marked with an asterisk were read in prior years):

1. A book with more than 500 pages
Poland – James Michener*

2. A classic romance
The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough*

3. A book that became a movie
The Martian – Andy Weir

4. A book published this year
The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins

5. A book with a number in the title
365 Tao – Doug Fischer

6. A book written by someone under 30
The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank*

7. A book with nonhuman characters
Gods Behaving Badly – Marie Phillips*

8. A funny book
How to Be a Woman – Caitlin Moran

9. A book by a female author
The Valley of Amazement – Amy Tan

10. A mystery or thriller
A Cold and Broken Hallelujah – Tyler Dilts

11. A book with a one-word title
Orlando – Virginia Woolf

12. A book of short stories
Dirty Love – Andre Dubus III

13. A book set in a different country
A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

14. A nonfiction book
Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

15. A popular author’s first book
    One L – Scott Turow

16. A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet
Some Luck – Jane Smiley

17. A book a friend recommended
Paris, He Said – Christine Sneed

18. A Pulitzer prize-winning book
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr

19. A book based on a true story
Devil in the White City – Erik Larsen*

20. A book at the bottom of your to-read list
The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

21. A book that scares you
Possession – A. S. Byatt

22. A book more than 100 years old
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens*

23. A book based entirely on its cover
The Writer’s Desk – Jill Krementz

24. A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t
Romeo & Juliet – Shakespeare

25. A memoir
Long Quiet Highway – Natalie Goldberg

26. A book you can finish in a day
Loose Woman – Sandra Cisneros

27. A book with antonyms in the title
Angels & Demons – Dan Brown*

28. A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit
Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

29. A book that came out the year you were born
Asterix in Britain – Goscinny & Uderzo*

30. A book with bad reviews
Adultery – Paulo Coelho

31. A trilogy
Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean Auel*

32. A book from your childhood
Famous Five – Enid Blyton*

33. A book with a love triangle
Euphoria – Lily King

34. A book set in the future
Bone Clocks – David Mitchell

35. A book set in high school
Looking for Alaska – John Green

36. A book with a color in the title
Madness, Rack, and Honey – Mary Ruefle

37. A book that made you cry
One True Thing – Anna Quindlen*

38. A book with magic
The Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston

39. A graphic novel
Avatar the Last Airbender: The Search

40. A book by an author you’ve never read before
Case Histories – Kate Atkinson

41. A book you own but have never read
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

42. A book that takes place in your hometown
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry*

43. A book that was originally written in a different language
My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante

44. A book set during Christmas
The Little Match Girl – Hans Christian Anderson*

45. A book written by an author with your same initials
November Butterfly – Tania Pryputniewicz

46. A play
Amadeus – Peter Shaffer*

47. A banned book
Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller

48. A book based on or turned into a TV show
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov*

49. A book you started but never finished
The Celestine Prophecy – No Idea*

 

*Books I read prior to 2015

 

Photo Credit: http://bibliopublicalugo.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html#.VnwAyfkrLVThttp://bibliopublicalugo.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html#.VnwAyfkrLVT



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6 replies

  1. Very impressive! I’ll have to try that challenge, although I don’t know if I could accomplish it in one year.

    Sent from my iPad

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    • Well, mine are not all in one year. I think some of the categories, don’t really require that you have even read anything. It was easier to do retrospectively. I just read what I read and figured out which book fit which category after the fact. Try it. You’d be surprised how many categories you can fill.

  2. Congratulations that is quite a collection of books and I see some I will put on my TBR list.

    My goal (on Goodreads) was 25 for 2015 and I finished with 30. Thank goodness there were no categories to fulfill.

    BookRiot also has a “Read Harder” challenge list for 2016: http://bookriot.com/2015/12/15/2016-book-riot-read-harder-challenge/

    I think I may do #BustleReads challenge: read books by women and writers of color. They have a great list of recommended books.

    • Ooh! Cool! Ima check out the bustle list. I also did the Goodreads Easy Reading Challenge which was to read a book in each of 15 different genres. Found that quite tough–horror? Romance? Graphic Novel? Not really my cup of tea. Don’t think I’ll do that one again. In fact, I still have one more genre to go–fantasy. Been avoiding it the whole time, but now I found out Ishiguro’s latest is a fantasy, so I might make it.

  3. Tina, this is a a great list and what a great challenge. I am now relying on what I post on goodreads to remind me what I have read during the year. My partner, Tim and I have a tradition where we read to each other just about every night. I know I cover a variety of books that way, but am so bad about tracking them. Then there are the books that I read to help me as a writer–ever find that it is now harder to just read for pleasure?

    • Oh me too! If it weren’t for Goodreads, I would have no idea what I read. Actually I have to cross check Goodreads and my Amazon order history, and even then I miss some because I have taken to checking out books from the library–this habit is making me broke!

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