3 Jan 2016

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Goodbye 2015 / Hello 2016 Reading Challenges!



I always look at the Goodreads Reading Challenge as a bit of fun rather than a goal I have to achieve otherwise I am not happy with myself.  This year is the first in a couple of years where I have reached 100 books read in the year!  In the past I have stressed about reading a certain amount of books in a year and certainly in the past couple of years that has ended in my reading slowing down so I don't actually reach 100 books in a year, which is something that I like to do.  This year I viewed it differently and look at the result!  There were some pretty amazing books read this year and some ok ones but the one thing that I took out of this year was that I read at my own pace and enjoyed every minute of reading, even when it was a book I wasn't enjoying very much... 



This was a new challenge for me this year.  Benjaminoftomes on YouTube actually introduced this idea to me.  It was more of a 'stop reading that new shiny book that you just bought or received for review and read those pretty books on your shelf instead' challenge.  In total, I read 50 books for this challenge which means that half of the books I read were my own.  That is more than what I have done in the past.  I suppose it also helped that I have been going through a bit of a reading midlife crisis type of thing where I have been slowly going through all my books and either trying to read them or if I am not interested in them any more pass them over to a friend or family.  



The Big Book Challenge is a challenge I host on Goodreads where the aim is to read more big books, meaning books that are over 400 pages.  For this year I set a challenge of reading 10 big books and I actually read 25!  I haven't consciously chosen big books but it just happened that 25 of the ones that I read this year were 400 pages or more.  I really like this challenge for me as I find I can get stuck in a rut of reading smaller books just to get my numbers up, which is definitely something I have done in the past.  This challenge makes me stop and think about what I am reading.  





Now we have started 2016, I am really excited to start a fresh new year with new challenges.  For this year, I am not going to make many changes to what I have done in 2016.  I am certainly going to do the Goodreads Reading Challenge for 100 books, Project TBR and my Big Book Challenge.  One thing I wanted to add for myself this year was to take part in more readathons.  It is something that I have seen a lot last year and looked like a lot of fun.  I am not sure which ones I want to take part in yet but we'll see! 


I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year filled with plenty of amazing books and wonderful reading experiences!!!

Best wishes

Debs :-)





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