2019 Reading Challenge discussion

After reading through the comments from the past couple weeks, it has come to my attention that a lot of people are confused about how to read all 300 books in one year. So, without further ado, Amelia’s foolproof plan on how to complete this challenge!!...

We start with the grand total of 300 books. Now, we could divide that by 365 and learn that we would have to read about 0.8 of a book every day for the whole year... but that’s a lot to take in. And life gets in the way so we’d have to calculate this and that and pretty soon it’s just too much.

So let’s start over.

We start with the grand total of 300 books a year. If we divide that by 12, we now know we need to read exactly 25 books a months. Okay. That seems a little more doable than all that previous craziness about .8 and all that Jazz.

Okay, 25 books a month. February might be a little awkward because it’s slacking in the days category but we can make it work. Now, each month has a 24 hour readathon (which is the key to success). I can normally read anywhere from 3-5 average sized books in this time period. But remember, even 20 page children’s books count toward this challenge so anyone could read upwards of 10 books in one day. Which brings our monthly total down to 15-20 books.

Now, you only have to read anywhere from 0.3 to 0.6 of a book a day, which is right around half a book. An average novel is about 400 pages, so half is 200. It would take the average person about an hour and a half to read this much.

So my recommendation? Take about two hours before bed to read if you have no time throughout your day. Just think, you’d probably just spend that time browsing social media anyways.

Happy reading,
Amelia

Amelia wrote: "Take about two hours before bed to read if you have no time throughout your day. Just think, you’d probably just spend that time browsing social media anyways."

Sounds like a great plan! Now if only I can persuade dh to spend those 2 hours reading instead of watching TV shows... 😄
(He likes me to watch the shows with him, but I'll need to be reading!)

Great plan ! It is doable I'm sure ... thanks to the readathon days. And another way to get through it is to throw in some graphic novels to read for the challenge ;) Much quicker read than a book usually !

Great plan!

Audio!!! It really helps! I listen on my comute. Gives me about an extra Hour and 15 mintutes of a book each day.

Abbie DiscoSuperFly wrote: "Audio!!! It really helps! I listen on my comute. Gives me about an extra Hour and 15 mintutes of a book each day."

Audio is huge part of mine too - listen to audiobooks on 1.25-1.5x while I clean or get ready and before bed. That usually gets me an extra hour or two of reading (though I read physically a lot faster, so it's like an extra 30-60 minutes of sitting down to read, but plunked in where otherwise I can't read)

Other things I think help (I read 305 last year)

Mix in graphic novels, poetry, shorter books and middle grade.
(Here's about 40 shorter books I loved last year, under 350 pages https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...)

Mix up formats so you can pick up a book anywhere - I usually have an ebook, audiobook and physical book going at the same time. Depending on what my library has available, sometimes it's the same book, sometimes it's 2-3+ books.

Don't have other hobbies. LOL But really, I watch a few TV shows, some Youtube videos, and play around on Instagram and Facebook some, but most of my down time is reading now. DH and I buddy read, so that I can have a topic of conversation that's new (and not just "how were the kids" and "how was work")