2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion

The results are in! The list is coming along really well and we now have 31 of the topics for next year :)

1. The first book in a new to you series
2. A book from the Rory Gilmore challenge
3. The 16th book on your to-read list
4. A book that was mentioned in another book

There is also a poll about whether or not we would like to keep the same group for 2016 so be sure to fill it out!

The topic for the next round of suggestions will open on Sunday, August 30

I think for the 4th, I'll pick a book from Burning Alexandria (it's a short story but I don't mind :p), there are plenty of book references in it.
Glad to see the 1st one. The 2&3 will be easy ones.
It's a good batch for me, even if most of my favorites are not there.

Great! Three of my four options were chosen :-)

I'm actually happy with this turn out! I've got loads of new series to start!! Although I'm not entirely sure what the Rory Gilmore challenge is.

I updated the full list, we have some pretty complementary topics, it will be interesting to put them in order (like a book about books before this number 4).

I didn't know about this Rory Gilmore challenge either, so I looked for it and its basically a list of the many books this Rory character read during the TV series. I saw many interesting books in that list and then I voted for it :-)

One of mine made it again yay! I've been working on the Rory Gilmore challenge on my own. There are 339 books from many different genres so I believe everyone can find at least one book that interests them.

If anyone hasn't heard of/watched Gilmore Girls, I highly recommend it. All streaming on Netflix ;)

Laura, I am happy to say that I am going to start this series this weekend. Plus my roommate loves it haha

Gilmore Girls is fantastic - it was not at all what I expected, so much better! You can see the Rory Gilmore challenge here: http://www.listchallenges.com/rory-gi.... I'm only up to 52. :(

I only read 22, and there are more books I want to read in this challenge. I would not be interested in all of them, but I very much link the diversity of genres. Rory Gilmore seems like an interesting person.

Woohoo, 3 of the 4 I picked won. I really can't wait until next years challenge, there are a lot of good topics.

Sophie wrote: "I only read 22, and there are more books I want to read in this challenge. I would not be interested in all of them, but I very much link the diversity of genres. Rory Gilmore seems like an interes..."

I've read 25 so far, but as you say, Sophie, I'm not interested in reading all of them, so it's a challenge already lost :-)

I have read 41 from the Rory list and some of the rest are already in my TBR list, but in the list are also books that I am not interested at all to read, as you said the good thing is the variety on the list

I think it's definitely one of the better list challenges to have to choose from - pretty sure almost everyone would find at least one book on there that interests them.

I'm going to try and complete all 339 books at some point. I think I'm crazy haha, but I think it will be fun to see how long it takes me to read all of them!!

I must be out of kilter with everyone else on this challenge! None of my top picks ever makes the chosen 4. I like the idea of the Rory Gilmore one( although it wasn't very high in my own choices) but the other 3 don't appeal much at all. Sorry.

It would be very interesting to know how many people actually vote in each poll. Is there any possibility that you can tell us please, Laura?

Jody wrote: "I think it's definitely one of the better list challenges to have to choose from - pretty sure almost everyone would find at least one book on there that interests them."

If you can't find at least one book on that list, then you are very picky!

I'm working on 6 other lists from that site. Even though many books can be found on more than one list, it's going to take me probably forever to complete them all :-D

I love that site! I've got a spreadsheet with a few of the lists in it to work through - I'm pretty boring in that I enjoy reading all of those books on the typical "You must read these!!" book lists, which helps. :) But sometimes I wonder if I spend more time organising and thinking about reading than actually reading.

I wonder exactly the same as you Jody! Sometimes I'd better read than organize my lists and different options for each week ;)

I'm with you both on that one. If I spent half the time I use on planning and organizing what to read on actually reading, I probably would have completed several of my challenges in no time!

Oh my gosh. Mine finally made it! :D It's the fourth book. I hope you guys won't have too much of a hard time with it.

I read 57 books in the Rory Gilmore challenge but I've never seen the show before. I'll check it out and if I like it, I'll decide whether to finish the challenge or not.

Jeanie wrote: "I must be out of kilter with everyone else on this challenge! None of my top picks ever makes the chosen 4. I like the idea of the Rory Gilmore one( although it wasn't very high in my own choices..."

I am right there with you. I had the first one in my top four and that is it. I believe I only had one I liked last week too, if that.

Jeanie The responses have decreased by a fairly large number since we started the polls. In the beginning, we got about 100 responses, with that becoming about 70 and the last poll we got 59 responses. That may be due to the time of year since it's vacation time for a lot of people, along with back to school.

Typically, the ranked top 4 are pretty in line with the most popular (the most voted for topics in question 1 are also the highest ranked). The results weren't quite as skewed this time (most choices had a few votes) but there is usually a pretty clear top 4

Yay! I suggested the Rory Gilmore challenge. I have not actually seen the whole series, just a few episodes here and there when my sister was watching. This is more like a lifetime challenge for me. i want to read a few a year from this list.

@Jody I love those "You must read these" list too!

I've noticed that there are already three suggestions related to series. Shouldn't there be a limit as with short books?

I think my favourite thing about the topics for next years challenge so far is that they're all pretty open topics, as in although they need to follow that specific topic or rule they don't really have to be any specific genre or type of book (for the most part) which means that people are still free to choose books that are more likely to appeal to them rather than being stuck.

Adriana wrote: "I've noticed that there are already three suggestions related to series. Shouldn't there be a limit as with short books?"

I actually agree with this. It can be enough of a struggle keeping up with one series that you really want to read while there are other stand alone novels you want to read and I just think piling on several series topics is going to be a bit too much. Especially for people like me that once they start a series, they don't want to stop until it's done and then the reading challenge itself just goes flying out the window. Also some people aren't as fond of series as others so it would be harder for them to pick so many series of books.

Books from series can also be fitted into other topics if that person really wants to read it.

I agree about the series topics, and Francesca said it perfectly. :)

Although I love reading series, I totally agree with you guys, we should not impose them too much on people who prefer stand-alone books.

For the moment, the topics related to series can be used for one series only (we have the 1st, the 2nd and a 0.5 book), it won't be more than the trilogy from this year, but I agree it's enough for a 52 weeks schedule. However I disagree about the "books from series can be fitted in other topics". I read mostly series because I prefer them and couldn't use them for most of the topics.

I'm more worried about the "in the title" topics, we have already a lot of them and I would like to choose my books for other reasons than the titles.

I agree with you guys. I love reading a series because you get more character development over a couple of books compared to just one. But at the same time, I am already in the middle of about 4 different series and really don't want to get into another one until I finish at least one of the ones I'm reading.

That's true Zaz, I haven't thought about the title themes, but it can be complicated sometimes. I may be easier for people with big TBR-lists, but it can be frustrating for people who don't necessary want to read books they never heard of before.

The list you made by themes in the Announcement topic is going to be really useful to be careful in the next polls to choose topics that are less restrictive.

Maybe, as we're over the halfway line on the topics, we could put some slight restrictions on the new couple of suggestions batches like 'nothing series related' or 'nothing specific in the title' so that the challenge will be able to get a little bit more variety and then after we've done a few more batches with those sort of restrictions we could go back to including them for the last few. I don't know, that might not work at all, but I think we may need some way to make the challenge list a little bit more varied. A lot of slightly similar things are winning each time.

Francesca wrote: "Maybe, as we're over the halfway line on the topics, we could put some slight restrictions on the new couple of suggestions batches like 'nothing series related' or 'nothing specific in the title' ..."

I think this is a good idea. People vote for what they like and may have forgotten that a topic similar to that is already on the list.

I actually like the In the title ones. I did an I spy challenge in another group and I found that by going through the Goodreads lists there were a lot of books already on my TBR list that would fit the categories.

Francesca wrote: "Maybe, as we're over the halfway line on the topics, we could put some slight restrictions on the new couple of suggestions batches like 'nothing series related' or 'nothing specific in the title' ..."

I agree. And maybe put a little note on the post for people to be aware of what has been chosen already when suggesting/voting.

Yes, I agree, there's enough series ones. The one I suggested which is the next in a series you are reading is meant to be continuing on a series you read in a prior year.

Charity wrote: "I actually like the In the title ones. I did an I spy challenge in another group and I found that by going through the Goodreads lists there were a lot of books already on my TBR list that would fi..."

I like them too!

I like the title ones too, but I can see that we do have a lot of them already.

The in the title ones can also be interpreted different ways. Like the body parts one can be things like eyes, blood, heart, or bones as well as specific body parts which would encompass a lot more books. You can also broaden them some like the one that was he, she, man, woman could be broadened to anything that would designate gender (ie daughter, husband, queen) Also, instead of just in the title it could be in the title or on the cover.

I post a link to the Announcement section in each of the polls but I can also remind people of specific similarities. In the voting thread I'll review the suggestions and post any of the current themes that could be viewed as similar, such as the series ones.

Since people have a lot of differing opinions, I think we should leave the suggestions open to whatever users post and then we can hopefully count on the voting to reflect the overall opinion of the group. If you don't like the idea of a certain type of theme then just be sure to rank it very low in your own vote. Hopefully reminders of similar themes will help with this also, with people not suggesting and/or voting on themes that are similar to what we already have.