Goodreads Reading Challenge 2019

Though I have been a member on Goodreads since 2014, I haven’t really used it until this year.

If you go back through my (short) history, it’s easy to see that I only (initially) maintained a profile to log books that I had already read into the website. It wasn’t a complete record, nor did I ever post lengthy reviews and comments, as I often do now.

Once I worked my way further into my publishing studies, it became obvious that I would need to revisit my dusty profile and give it a makeover. I updated everything and set to maintain an active status. I added a few books that I had already read just for fun but left off my “read” dates—largely because I didn’t know them.

Now I keep vigilant track of every book that I am currently reading. I update my page counts as I go and always take care to add a review once I’ve finished a book. I update my “favorites” shelf and keep my list of preferred genres to a minimum.

At the end of 2018, the post for the 2019 reading challenge came up. I had already told myself that I needed to be reading more (as a publishing student, it’s absolutely critical to always be reading) and that I needed to be reading recently published works (i.e., nothing that had been published more than a year ago.) While this may have severely limited my options, it pushes me ahead and keeps me up-to-date with current literary trends.

Given that I hadn’t been an avid reader for a while (college really takes your desire to read and shoves it into a garbage can,) I decided to give myself what I considered a “reasonable” goal. I set my marker at 15 books, thinking if I could get through a little more than one book every month, then I would reach my goal without a problem. And no problem indeed.

After an initial drag through Kill the Farm Boy* I moved on to The Silence of the Girls. After finishing it, I was off. One by one I demolished my to-read pile**. Spying on Whales, Star Wars: Tarkin, Circe—and by the time I finished one book, I had bought two more. What can I say? I’m a book collector.

As of now, I’ve read 31 books. My to-read pile is still four books high, and I’m certain that I’ll get through these (and several more) before the year is out.

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*This book really killed my desire to read for a while. I’m a bit of a stubborn reader, and I don’t like to read a new book until I’ve finished the one I was currently reading. And it was taking me ages to get through Kill the Farm Boy because it was a horrible, terrible book. If you want to know how I really feel, check out my Goodreads review here.
**A pile that had significantly shrunk in size after I instituted my 1-year post-publication rule.

Note: I have since finished my 32nd book, Donna Zuckerberg’s Not All Dead White Men. Goodreads review available here.