2016: A New Year of Reading

In 2015 I took on several reading challenges. I challenged myself to read (1) at least 36 books from my To Be Read (TBR) pile, (2) authors from around the world, and (3) books from thirty-nine different genres. Additionally, I took on (4) Book Riot's Read Harder challenge, (5) the What's In a Name challenge, (6) the Eclectic challenge, and (7) the Goodreads challenge to read one hundred books overall.  Unfortunately, I only managed to complete three of the seven challenges - the TBR challenge, the world challenge, and the Goodreads challenge. I think my failure to complete all my challenges was due to the conflict between choosing a book based on whether it met the requirements of a challenge and choosing a book simply because it interested me. More often than not I went with option number two.

This year I am taking on six challenges:
1 - Mount TBR
2 - Specific TBR Challenges (reading certain books & series from my TBR pile)
3 - Reading the World
4 - Book Riot: Read Harder
5 - Genre 
6 - Cloak & Dagger

My main reading goal for 2016 is to whittle down my TBR pile, hence the Mount TBR and specific TBR challenges.  Further, I plan to fulfill the non-TBR challenges (3 through 6 on the above list) with books from my TBR pile. Hopefully by the end of the year my TBR pile will be a fourth (maybe a third) of what is is now.

Four of the six challenges I've done before. The specific TBR and the Cloak & Dagger challenges are new for me. Participants in Cloak & Dagger challenge can read any book from the mystery, suspense, thriller or crime genre. Read one to ten books and you're amateur sleuth, eleven to twenty and you're a detective, twenty-one to thirty and you're inspector, thirty-one or more and you're a special agent. I love mysteries so this challenge is made for me.

I am excited about this new year of reading. So many books and 365 days to read them. With some luck I'll complete all my challenges. Even if I don't, I'm sure to read a bunch of good books in 2016.

Happy New Year & Happy Reading