Do you do the reading challenge on Goodreads? I confess I love picking the number of books I want to read for the coming year and then trying to reach that goal.
Of course, I’ve been keeping spreadsheets for years that include “books read” column which I tally up at the end of the year.
I went back to see if the numbers for the past few years of Goodreads challenge compare to the years of tracking it on my own.
In 2006, the first year I tracked my reading, I read 59 books. I had a middle schooler and two high schoolers, all involved in sports. I stayed in that range of 55-65 for a few years.
In 2011, I jumped into the 80s, which is interesting because it’s the year my first book was published, and I was writing others! But also, two of my three children were at college.
2020 was my first year of over 100 books read. In fact, the number was 103. Not surprising, really. Not only was COVID happening, but we had other stressful things going on in our life.
Since then, I’ve stayed in the 90-105 range each year—until this year. This year, I’ve read a whopping 113 books—and we still have a couple of weeks to go!
I enjoy tracking my reading independently, but I love doing it through the Goodreads reading challenge. Goodreads tells me at the end of the year not only how many books I’ve read but how many pages! I would never be able to track that on my own. Or rather, I could, but it would be tedious and time-consuming! It also will tell me the shortest and longest books I read and a few other interesting stats.
If you are curious about what I’m reading, I share each month’s reads on Instagram and Facebook and do a mini-review blog post on my website about them at the end of the month. Or just be my friend on Goodreads are see my list as it grows!
So here’s my question for you: do you set a reading goal for yourself each year? How many books are you reading if you keep track?
I love to know what other readings are doing, so chime in!