Reading Challenges Done Right - My 2022 journey to beat last year's record!
The world seems to be obsessed with reading challenges. Every book-related website you’ve visited in the first quarter of 2022 likely had some variation of "52 books in 52 weeks" or "My plan to reach 5 books per month in 2022". You open the article, which usually features the heart-wrenching story of the author's cactus dying, or something, so they've decided to dedicate the year to becoming the best version of themselves and reading an obscene amount of books in a given period of time. Somehow, by the end of the article, they convince you that the challenge, while strenuous and taxing, is something completely achievable by the average 9 to 5 working individual. With an abundance of excited energy, and with the spirit of a hastily made New Year's resolution still fresh in their minds, a lot of people are taking the leap heads-first into such challenges.
Most people quickly realize that reading such a high number of books is a ludicrous enterprise and, seeing how they'll never reach the intended number give up after the first or second book. Maybe they'll pick up one, or two more before the end of the year... Maybe.
Reading challenges could be a great motivator to ramp up your reading volume. Or they could completely derail your reading journey. Photo credit: Unsplash.
Now don't get me wrong - being the special snowflake that I am, I've also jumped on the "yearly challenge" bandwagon a while back, but after trying a few of these, I came to the realization that there is something most of these articles don't tell us. And it's something that women have been trying to tell the world since ancient times - size matters! No, not that (but I like where your mind immediately went). Book size absolutely matters!
To put this into perspective, I myself am a huge fan of the fantasy genre. Probably every 3 out of 5 books I read on average will feature some kind of magical element. But guess what? Fantasy books are thick (again, love where your mind went but we're still talking about books here)! In fact they are usually at least twice the size of a volume from any other genre. Guess what again? Fantasy books don't normally come as singular editions. No, these stories are so complex and large-scale that it normally takes at least a trilogy to hold them. And if you're a little OCD like me, your brain will be itching to know what happens in the next one. And the next one. And the one after... Pretty much, you won't rest until you have answers (To quote the famous words of Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory: "I don't need sleep, I need answers!”)
So let's jump back to the start of last year, 2021, when I valiantly decided that I will brave the “52 books in 52 weeks” reading challenges. I had just received my first Kindle for Christmas and was eager to test it out with a few of my favorite books. My first picks - The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Actually, I finished them quite fast, all things considered, and was hyped to choose my next pick. And this is where things went horribly wrong. I was scrolling Amazon for my next pick, when my eyes fell upon the Complete Wheel of Time series Kindle edition, still heavily discounted because of the holiday period. Click - impulse buy! Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series was always something I wished I could finish, but buying a total of 15 books meant that I needed to invest time/cash, which I previously didn't have. But now I had it, conveniently converted in a single file and ready for me to dive into it.
Reading Challenges Done Right tip #1: size matters! Photo credit: Unsplash.
At this point you're probably wondering: "So this guy got a Kindle for Christmas and a massive discount on 15 books? What the heck is he complaining about?" Ah, but you forget, dear readers, that I had devoted myself to a reading challenge. And for those of you unfamiliar with Jordan's work, the shortest instalment - The Path of Daggers - is "only" 687 pages long. The longest - The Shadow Rising - rounds up at about 1007 pages. Let's agree then to average the 15 books at about 850 pages per volume. An "average" book of any other genre, consist of 250-450 pages, with fiction generally inching closer towards the end of that spectrum, and business or self-help books gravitating towards the 250-300 mark. Let's average it at around 350 pages, for the sake of argument.
Now, let's put all these numbers in the context of the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge. To complete the required number by reading "average" books, one would need to read approximately 18,200 pages. To complete the Wheel of Time series, which totals 15 books, including the prequel, one needs to read approximately 12,750 pages. Crazy, right? But it's also something i didn't really thing about before starting my challenge last year.
On top of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, I managed to finish the entire Wheel of Time series, plus an additional 6 books (5 fiction and 1 fantasy), to a total number of just over 17,000 pages. Which means that while I thought I had failed miserably in my quest, I was closer to beating the challenge than I thought.
Therefore, for this year, I am no longer tracking my books read, but rather number of pages. And this is my challenge to all of you - to beat 18,000 pages in one year not by reading what you must, but by reading what you love.
How do you approach reading challenges? Let us know your favorite one in the comments below!
Affiliate Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This article uses affiliate links, meaning: at no additional cost to you, we earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. We only feature products that we believe in and use ourselves. Your support means the world to us and allows us to host this website. Thank you!