The Reading Challenge Group discussion

We know that it can be hard sometimes to get your bearings in a new group, and on Goodreads in general for those of you who have recently become members or who haven't tried out the site's many wonderful features before, so we thought a post offering helpful hints for getting started was just what we needed to help you get the most out of your experience in this group.

So, without further ado, here are a few of the things you'll need to know in order to fully participate in The 2015 Reading Challenge Group -

1. Introduce yourself! We'd like to know who you are, what part of the world you're from, what kind of literature you love, and anything else about yourself that you feel like sharing. We're a friendly group, and we love to chat and share our love of books with one another. Jump right in and join us! The introduction thread is here.

2. Set yourself a reading goal. Members have set personal reading goals for 2015 ranging from 5 books to 365 books! The number of books that you read depends entirely on you. This isn't a contest to see who can read the most - it's a community full of people who are challenging themselves to read as much as their schedules, circumstances, and personal preferences will allow. We're here to encourage each other and share our love of great books, not compete with each other or put each other down. So set whatever goal feels right for you. There are a few different ways that you can do this -

a. Set a Goodreads Reading Challenge goal. You can do this by going here and typing into the widget how many books you hope to read in 2015. Once you have that number set, the widget will appear on your personal Goodreads page. Every time you finish a book within 2015 and declare it "read", simply go to the Edit Review page and under "date I finished this book" select the day, month, and year 2015. Once you save the review with that date on it, the book will automatically be counted towards your 2015 goal.

b. Set a Genre Challenge goal with this group. One of the features on this group is our Monthly Genre Challenge, where we challenge each member (only if you want to) to read at least one book each month in that month's chosen genre. On this group's main page, you'll see a box labeled "Challenges." Within this box are 3 widgets (if you can't see all 3, click on the "More challenges" link underneath the box). These are the Non-Fiction Challenge, the World Literature Challenge, and the Genre Challenge. If you'd like to join in with any of these challenges, just type into the widgets the amount of books you hope to read in 2015 for them, and follow the instructions to create a shelf on your Goodreads page for each one. Then, every time you complete a book in 2015 for one of these challenges, remember to add it to that shelf when you edit your review. Once it's on that shelf, it will automatically be counted towards your goal, and we'll be able to see it here on this group's challenge page.

Here are the monthly schedules for each Genre Challenge.

Non-Fiction Challenge -

January - History
February: Sociology/Relationships/Family
March: Autobiography/Memoir
April: Arts/Hobby/Skill Related
May: Health/Wellness/Self-Improvement
June: Biography
July: Nature/Animals
August: True Story/True Crime/Current Events
September: Science/Math/Technology
October: Psychology
November: Travel/Food/Essays
December: Religion/Spirituality/Philosophy

World Literature Challenge -

January: South America
February: Middle East
March: Sub-Sahara
April: Southeast Asia
May: Central America/Mexico & Caribbean
June: Western Europe
July: North Africa
August: South Asia/India Subcontinent
September: North America
October: Eastern Europe
November: Oceania/Australia
December: East Asia

Genre Challenge

January: Historical Fiction
February: Romance/Chick Lit
March: Contemporary/Literary Merit
April: Poetry & Plays
May: Fantasy (includes Utopian)
June: Minority Studies/LGBT
July: Manga/Graphic Novels &/OR Humor
August: Mysteries
September: Science-Fiction (includes Dystopian)
October: Horror/Thriller &/OR Short Story Collections
November: Adventure &/OR Travel
December: Children's Lit &/OR Traditional Lit

We're doing this in the interests of helping members to broaden their literary horizons, perhaps to step out of their comfort zone a little bit, and see what these different genres have to offer. Each month we'll have threads set up for people to recommend and discuss their favourite books in the genre-of-the-month (those threads are here), as well as having a group read of a book from that genre that members have voted on to read together and discuss at length (the group read threads are here).

3. Set up your own Personal Challenge thread. This is not a requirement, but a lot of members are finding it useful and fun to create their own thread in the Personal Challenges folder. You can find the folder here. To create your own thread, click the "new topic" link on the top right of the list of topics. Call it anything you want, but preferably include your name in the title so that you can find it easily amongst the multitude. That thread is then your own - you can keep track of the books you read throughout the year, post your own goals or challenges as you go along, even post or link to your reviews if you feel like sharing. Others will no doubt stop in to cheer you on or discuss the things you post, and we encourage you to peek into other people's personal challenge threads as well to offer encouragement and show some interest in your fellow members.

4. Join in with Group Reads. We will have 5 main group reads each month, as voted on by our members. These are the Classic Group Read, the Young Adult Group Read, the Genre Group Read, the World Literature Group Read, and the Non-Fiction Group Read. Feel free to join in with however many of these group reads as you want. The more the merrier! Towards the middle of the month we set up nomination threads for the next month's group reads, again to be voted on by the group members. I'm sure we'll be reading some great literature together throughout the year! The Group Reads folder is here.

5. Join in with our Mini-Challenges and Readathons. There's always so much going on in this group! Each month we have a few "official" mini-challenges, which are short-term challenges with a fun theme to help keep reading exciting throughout the year, but any member can start a mini-challenge thread of their own and invite others to join in. You'll find the mini-challenge folder here. There's also a Points Challenge, where members can earn points for each book they read, which you can find here. And, of course, our Readathons, when members challenge themselves to read like crazy for a few days and post their page counts as they go. The Readathon folder is here.

6. Suggest a Buddy Read. As well as the official Group Reads, we also allow Buddy Reads here, which are unofficial group reads that the members set up on their own terms. If you see that another member will be reading something that you're planning to read yourself, feel free to ask that person if they would like to make it a buddy read. If that person is willing, take the discussion over to the Want to start a buddy read? thread and ask if anyone else would like to participate. Once you have a few interested parties, set up a thread for the book in the Buddy Reads folder, arrange a start and end date amongst yourselves, and off you go! You can also suggest a buddy read on your own, even if you haven't seen anyone else with that book listed in their reading plans.

7. Be kind to your fellow members. Everyone here loves to read, and that's probably more than you have in common with a lot of people you meet in your daily life! We're a community, even a family of sorts, but we're also a very diverse group with very different opinions, tastes, and beliefs. It's possible to disagree without arguing or belittling another, so we would ask that you please keep discussions friendly and be as open-minded as you can. As I said before, we're here to encourage each other and share our love of books, not to compete with each other or make one opinion out to be superior to the rest. It takes all kinds to make a world, as the saying goes, so please bring your best "live and let live" attitude to this group so that it remains fun and uplifting for all.

8. Have fun! If there's a topic you feel like talking about, feel free to open a discussion thread in the appropriate folder. If you'd like to talk about a book that doesn't have a thread yet, feel free to open one. If you're struggling with meeting your goal, let us know and we'll encourage you. If you're on a roll and feel like doing a happy dance, go right ahead and we'll join in! We're all in this together. Let's have a great reading year, everyone! :D

If you have any more questions or comments or suggestions, you can leave us a comment in the Any Questions? thread. We're here to help. :)

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Note: If at any time you would like to leave this group or edit your e-mail settings for discussion notifications, simply go to the group's main page and somewhere near the top (between our group profile info and our Currently Reading shelf) it should say "You are a member. Edit | Group info." Click on "Edit" and that should take you to a page where you can leave the group or edit your personal settings within the group. If what you want to edit isn't there, click on "back to my account" at the top right of the page, and that should take you to your Goodreads account settings. What you need might be in there.

Note #2: All of the above information was compiled while using the Goodreads website, not the app. If you're using the app (or any other means of accessing the group) and the above advice isn't working for you, please let us know.

Please remember, we moderators are only Goodreads members just like you. We have no special abilities on the Goodreads website as a whole, just a select few here on this group that we have built together. Please bear with us through our mistakes. Thanks for making this group awesome, everyone!

Awesome update, Faye. Thanks!

Thank you! Phew! Big job. :)

I can tell. My mind is actually a little bit blown just thinking about it.