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Self Challenges - Janet's Five Challenges for 2014 (now four challenges - as one is complete ;). )
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Last year I decided to try to read as many series as I could. I have chosen a few (!) different series that I have started and enjoyed and decided to try and complete the series.
~~~~~~~~~~These are the books that I have already read.~~~~~~~~~~
1. Three Girls by Rachel Schurig
2. The Single Daddy Club by Donna Fasano
3. Love Story by Rachel Schurig
4. Jukebox Heroes by L.B. Clark
5. Jackrabbit junction mysteries by Ann Charles
6. Merrily Watkins by Phil Rickman
7. Savannah Martin Jenna Bennett
8. Murray of Letho by Lexie Conyngham
9. Lorne Simpkins by M.A. Comley
10. The man from U.N.D.E.A.D. by Darren Humphries
11. Liv Bergen Mysteries by Sandra Brannan
12. Agatha Raisin by M.C. Beaton
13. Hamish Macbeth by M.C. Beaton
14. Mary O'Reilly by Terri Reid
15. Stacy Justice Mysteries by Barbra Annino
16. Serenity Holland by Talli Roland
17. Jake West M.J. Webb
18. Yorkshire Dales Mystery by Susan Parry
19. The Glass Apple by Robert Franks
20. Lexy Baker Bakery Mystery by Leighann Dobbs
21. Daisy Dalrymple by Carola Dunn
(books 1 - 6 and one read out of order)
22. STAC Mysteries by David W. Robinson
The first two challenges are easy - because the books are already on my kindle, or because I have already read books by that author and know I enjoy their style of writing. Whenever I am looking on Amazon I tend to home in on names that I recognise, also I have alerts set up for new books by several favourite authors. My third challenge is to find twelve new authors to try. (One per month? ) That is new to me - I will not include any that are already on my first challenge as there are several on there that would count for this challenge. They will also be authors that have written more than one book that I have read (or want to read)
This is the challenge that I think will be the hardest - & the one I am not likely to complete.
My fourth challenge is not really a kindle challenge at all. I have some paperback copies of Georgette Heyer books and I have been looking for the rest to complete the collection. They are on kindle but are about three or four times the price of the paperback copies that I can pick up in second hand/charity shops. I am going to step up the effort to add to this collection. I have seen used copies on Amazon - but in many cases the postage costs have put the prices similar to the kindle prices.
Finally I will also keep a track of the number of books read as I have in previous years. I'm not sure what to set the target at, as I passed my target last year.
Good luck Janet, there are a couple on your to read list that I've read that I really enjoyed, hope you do too.
Plenty to keep you busy here! Enjoy. :0)
trying to challenge myself to read 50-100 books! but I always seem to be working... hmm could be a tricky one!! x
Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "Good luck Janet, there are a couple on your to read list that I've read that I really enjoyed, hope you do too."Which ones did you like Desley?
I really enjoyed The Surgeons Blade, there are quite a lot that are also on my tbr list, so I'll have to keep an eye on your views
I've managed to clear a few from my tbr pile and add a chunk to my series challenge, as Amazon kindly put some of the Daisy Dalrymple books on offer so I was able to fill in gaps in the series.I have enjoyed reading them, and will add that if they were paperbacks, and not on my kindle, then they would be added to my pile of "bath books" for future re-reading. Of the characters in the books I like Daisy & her husband, but took a real dislike to her friend Lucy. It is a while since I read the first books in the series and cannot recall what I thought of her in those stories, but she appeared in some of the later ones, and I really did not like her at all.
I must read another Daisy Dalrymple soon. I filled the gaps in my collection during the sales, too.
Challenge #1 Progress **** updated 10th September ****
READ
(all read as part of
)
(all read as part of
)
from
Challenge #2 Progress **** updated 7th September ****
Series Challenge books read this year
1. Stacy Justice Mysteries by Barbra Annino
2. Daisy Dalrymple by Carola Dunn
3. Amelia Peabody Elizabeth Peters
as a result of finally reading the omnibus from my backlist challenge I now have a new series to read :)
Series complete.
4. Three Girls by Rachel Schurig
5. The Single Daddy Club by Donna Fasano
6. Vicky Bliss by Elizabeth Peters
series complete7. Cornish Mysteries by Carola Dunn
8. Daughters of Mannerling by M.C. Beaton
9. Mary O'Reilly by Terri Reid
10. Jackrabbit Junction mysteries by Ann Charles
11. Little Wychwell mysteries by Stella Stafford
another series read as a result of reading a book from my backlist challenge
12. STAC Mysteries by David W. Robinson
13. The Falconer Files by Andrea Frazer
14. Lorne Simpkins by M.A. Comley
15. The Tea Series by Sheila Horgan
16 The Man from U.N.D.E.A.D. by Darren Humphries
Challenge 3 Progress **** updated 7th September ****
Elly Grant
Catriona McPherson
Andrea Frazer
Rebecca York
Christina A. Burke
Kathleen Bacus
Challenge 4 Progress**** End of year update ****
No books found - but I will have to get new copies of
and
as those books are falling to bits :(Found one (at last). Regency Buck
which I have started to read, it is not at all familiar so far, - I think that this is one that I have not read before.Bought and read
. All on my kindle, I will still keep a look out for paperback copies though! And all read so long ago that they are not familiar at all.
Challenge 5 Progress. NOW COMPLETE 26th January
Current Total 24 books read. (3,251 pages according to the Goodreads Challenge) There are some short stories in that total, but there are also two compilations of three books, plus I am currently just finishing the third book of a four-book omnibus, so the total number of books read is actually 31.
The page count is probably not accurate as it hasn't altered after adding the four book Amelia Peabody omnibus. I may delete the omnibus editions and add the individual books instead.
30th January 2014
I have replaced the omnibus editions with the individual books. The total is now 32 books (4,134 pages )
6th February 2014
The page count (which I got from the Goodreads Challenge page) was totally wrong - quite a few of the books didn't have page numbers with the kindle editions. I should have realised that the average number of pages per book was too low - even allowing for the fact that I had some short stories included in the total.
**** updated 28th February ****
Total books read at 7.30pm on 28th February 60 (18,359 pages)
****updated 25th March ****
Total books read up to yesterday evening 80 (23,611 pages)
****updated 31st March ****
Total so far 92 books
****updated 5th June ****
Total read up to yesterday 156 books (42,908 pages)
****updated 8th July****
203 books (54,727 pages )
********Challenge total passed at the weekend.*******
The total is not accurate - I have read some books that were in box collections, but since I haven't read all the books I wanted to add the ones that I had read rather than the set that I had bought. Some of the books don't exist as individual kindle editions at the moment, so my book count is two or three more than the challenge total.
The reason I haven't read the complete collections are
i) I have already read the book
ii) the book is a second or later book in a series and I have not read the earlier books. I may go back and read these books later.
iii) I started to read the book and decided not to continue. I will not be reading these books later.
Wow, that's amazing for one month, it took me nearly a year to read that many
Desley (Cat fosterer) wrote: "Wow, that's amazing for one month, it took me nearly a year to read that many"It is probably due to the fact that I read whenever I have a spare minute - I watch very little television at all nowadays. Plus I have always read quite quickly.
I think I have done OK so far in my challenges - yes I have bought some books this month but they included
1. New books by authors that I have on my list of authors to watch out for.
2. Books from my wishlist appearing in sales/price drop promotions
3. Books which fill gaps in series that I am reading.
As a result I have read some books that fit into my first two challenges and read a total of 33 completed books for January.
Working my way through the Amelia Peabody books, reading in order until the 16th book which apparently goes back a few years. So I'm skipping over that one for the moment and will go back to it later.I remember seeing these books many years ago in the library and picking one up thinking it was by Ellis Peters and putting it back thinking it looked boring. I have to say I am enjoying reading them now - even though there are one or two things that annoy me ;)
Updated challenges so far. I have cleared a few off my backlist challenge - but not many. I have also read one paperback (
) which I bought three years ago. I need to crack on with that list. Some of the books that I have read have been on my kindle for a while, but not quite as long as those on the backlist challenge. I have also bought a few anthologies because there have been books on my wish list that were included in them - I wasn't going to pass on a bargain of a book that I wanted for 77p instead of £3.99, with a bonus of another three or four books. So I have added a few new authors to my reading list.
I haven't added to my Challenge 3 list though as I have not read at least two books by any new author.
Challenge 4 has not shown any progress yet either. Niece#1 tells me that there are second hand bookshops in Cardiff. I will be able to check that out myself when I go to visit.
Wow, 156 books! good luck with challenge 4
Updated 8th July 2014Challenge One - I have read some more from the list. It does not seem to be getting any shorter though.
Challenge Two - I have read more series books (& added more series that I want to read to my list)
Challenge Three -
Challenge Four - One book found in Cardiff. The search continues.
Challenge Five is now complete.
Updated 7th September There are some more series that I need to add. Total books now over 260 and 67,000 pages - total not accurate because of reading some but not all books in box sets, plus a couple of books that don't have details of page numbers.
***End of year review of challenges.***
I've not updated all books read over the last couple of months, I will have to get on with that. I didn't increase the challenge after I reached 200 books at the beginning of July.
I've not done well with the backlist challenge, there were too many new books tempting me. I should have been firmer about reading or deleting from that list.
I have read a few more books that were in series that I enjoyed, but I also found more new series to read. Plenty more to keep me going through 2015.
I've got a few of the Georgette Heyer books on kindle, I had them on a wish list and they came down to almost the same price that I paid for the last second hand paperback that I found.
New authors - I'm not sure I reached this target, I will know for sure when I have finished updating books read for the last couple of months.
Then the next job is to decide whether I will set myself challenges for 2015 or whether I will just get on and read whatever takes my fancy.
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Also there are some Daisy Dalrymple books bought prior to December 2012, but not included on last year's challenge as I did not have the next books in the series at the time.
TO READ