Goodreads Challenge

I used to read all the time. I mean when I was a kid. I always had my nose stuck in a book. I was considered fairly rude and anti-social because I was always reading instead of doing whatever children and teenagers are supposed to do.

But at some point in my transition to adulthood, I stopped reading very much. To the point where I became extremely embarrassed as a writer to be unable to name my favourite author. Still haven't read enough to tell you.

Last year I got back into Goodreads, which I would enjoy a whole lot more if it wasn't owned by Amazon but apparently I am quite capable of ignoring my morals if they inconvenience me, and I took part in their yearly reading challenge. This just means you set yourself a target of how many books you want to read that year.

I started out with 24. I figured reading one book a fortnight was not much of a challenge. And I was correct and easily achieved this. So I upped my challenge by another 12 books. And totally failed. I only managed an additional three books. I can't even remember why I stopped reading at the end of last year.

So this year I decided to DO BETTER, which is always my resolution every year. So I set myself another 36 book challenge, and I started reading my books from scratch (they are in order of when they were published) and I am breaking this up (since old books can be a bit of a slog sometimes) by picking whatever looks interesting off The Housemate's bookshelf (his are in mostly author alphabetical, but divided by those he has read and those he has not, and a whole separate bookcase for Doctor Who) and to try to expand my tastes a bit, I am also trying to borrow more from the library (usually books I have seen recommended by friends on Goodreads). So I always have three books on the go (even in lockdown I have been renting ebooks). Annoyingly, I have somehow found myself in a situation where I have little drive to read any of my current three choices, when the whole point of always having three choices is to stop this from happening.

Anyway, I smashed my target and we're not even halfway through the year. I am cheating slightly, because Goodreads counts the books you gave up on (eight so far). I have upped my target by another twelve books.

This is what I have read so far...

Books I read because they are so famous:

Arabian Nights (first read but gave up)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams (first read)
Five Children And It - E. Nesbit (first read)
The Witches - Roald Dahl (first read but gave up)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J. K. Rowling (first read)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J. K. Rowling (first read)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling (first read)
War Horse - Michael Morpurgo (first read but turned out to be play adaptation rather than proper audiobook)

Books I read after seeing an adaptation:

Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen (read many times)
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (read many times)
Anne Of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery (first read)
Bleak Expectations - Mark Evans (first read, though I have listened to the radio series it is based on several times)
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (second or third read)

Books I picked up at random:

Toby's Room - Pat Barker (first read but gave up)
The Duties Of Servants (first or second full read, skimmed before)

Books I read because I liked something else by the same author:

Agnes Grey - Anne Brontë (first read)
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (short story) - Douglas Adams (first read)
Sharp Shot - Dominic Barker (first read)
Sharp Beats - Dominic Barker (first read)
Gregor the Overlander - Suzanne Collins (first read but gave up)
When We Were Very Young - A. A. Milne (first read but only skimmed)
Cashel Byron's Profession - Bernard Shaw (first read)
Back Home - Michelle Magorian (first read)
Persuasion - Jane Austen (first read)

Books I read because the author is famous:

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë (second read)
The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins (first read)

Books I read because someone recommended them to me:

House Of Glass - Susan Fletcher (first read but gave up)
Radio Silence - Alice Oseman (first read)
The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde (first read)

Books I read because I wanted to research if the author's agent would be a good fit for me:

A Dog Called Homeless - Sarah Lean (first read)
The Queen Of Bloody Everything - Joanna Nadin (first read but gave up)
Frozen Charlotte - Alex Bell (first read but gave up)
Who Let the Gods Out - Maz Evans (first read)

Books I read because I liked them when I was a kid:

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator - Roald Dahl (read many times but first read as an adult)
The Tale Of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter (read many times)
The Tale of Two Bad Mice - Beatrix Potter (read many times)
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher - Beatrix Potter (read many times)

Books I read after reading something interesting about them:

John Dough And the Cherub - L. Frank Baum (second read)





The best ones have been (in a very vague order of best first):

The Tale Of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
The Tale of Two Bad Mice - Beatrix Potter
Bleak Expectations - Mark Evans
Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
Sharp Beats - Dominic Barker
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J. K. Rowling
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Five Children And It - E. Nesbit
Radio Silence - Alice Oseman
A Dog Called Homeless - Sarah Lean
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher - Beatrix Potter