Books 2022 Reading Challenge

I'm currently reading the following:
Stephen King - The Shining (1977) (Audiobook)
- Actively listening to this, at least an hour or so a day. 36% or so done, according to the app. The narrator, Campbell Scott, is pretty great. I'd seen reviews of his narration mention that he was a bit monotonous, but I don't get that at all.
James Lapine - Putting It Together (2021) (Physical Copy)
- Received this as a Christmas present from my significant other, and started reading it the same day, but haven't picked it up since then. Will get around to finishing it, hopefully.

I'll sign up! Going to keep my goal a bit lower and hopefully finish it this year. I'll say.. 20 books to start with? :D

I'll update with the list of what I've read in this post:

Progress: 2/20

Books read:

Just a heads up everyone before you set your goals. We have decided to tweak the requirements for comics slightly this year.

For 2022, five issues of a comic will count as one book. Manga will continue to be one volume.

Mercury's gonna read 5 books. GoodReads profile here!

Probably gonna start off with John Grisham.

[2/5] as of 23 January

I'm back for more. But this year, my goal is to read only 14 books, because that's exactly the number of unread non-scientific books I currently have in my possession.

I'll sign up as well, with the tentative goal of 15 books. I'll only be counting novels, not comics I've read, otherwise I would knock out this goal in a day or two.

GoodReads Profile

Last year I read around 40~ish, but since this is gonna be a busy year for me (sadly things are gearing away from remote) let's start with 25 books for the year again and see how far that will take us.

I'm gonna really struggle, but I'm still putting myself down for 12.

One a month... let's see how it goes!

Going to set a more modest goal: 80 books. I barely beat the 100 from last year and I'll probably be busier this one... Can you imaghine, I still haven't finished any books this year!

...I need clarifying on the comic book rule. So I'm subscribed to a weekly comic magazine [on top of The Economist, The Guardian Weekly, Private Eye, Mongolia, Retro Gamer and Ballena Blanca] - 82 pages including several running series. Does that count as a book per five weeks?
And let's say I buy a 50-page comic. Not a weekly but a single-story book. Does that count as a book, or would I have to read five?

Ivysaur said:

Going to set a more modest goal: 80 books. I barely beat the 100 from last year and I'll probably be busier this one... Can you imaghine, I still haven't finished any books this year!

...I need clarifying on the comic book rule. So I'm subscribed to a weekly comic magazine [on top of The Economist, The Guardian Weekly, Private Eye, Mongolia, Retro Gamer and Ballena Blanca] - 82 pages including several running series. Does that count as a book per five weeks?
And let's say I buy a 50-page comic. Not a weekly but a single-story book. Does that count as a book, or would I have to read five?

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Both of those count as one comic, so yes one book for every five 😊

Then I shall start:

10.4: The 52 weekly issues of El Jueves for the year. I've been religiously reading that magazine every week of my life since I was 9 and, well, I don't plan on stopping any time soon. So I'm going to save the effort of logging a new .2 every week.
For reference, it's a mature comic compilation. Not in the sense of (only) 'sex' but, you know, topics about adult life- work, relationships, politics and the like. And yes, I started reading that when I was 9.

1. The Peculiar - Stefan Bachmann

It's a steampunk fantasy about half fae living in Steampunk London after the Fair Folk invaded. It's well written for the most part, although it doesn't have great female characters (I don't think any one of them passes the potted plant test) which was a bummer since the description gave more sibling duo vibes.

Oh well, I guess it's still worth a read, it's just as good as it could be.

I'll probably read its sequel next, I guess.

1 / 25

2. The Whatnot - Stefan Bachmann

This was a fever dream, and not in a good way. While I did enjoy the villains, the heroes felt lackluster, Hettie still doesn't pass the potted plant test despite being one of the POV characters this time around, the conclusion felt rather lackluster and the book just felt weird to sift through.

2 / 25

On the subject of how things count here, I have a question. So, I have the Integral Works of Lovecraft on my list but despite that being one book (one file) it's a collection of all of his stories. Counting it as 1 book feels like underselling it, but counting it as 65 (the number of stories) feels like severely overselling it, considering the majority of it are short stories.

There are roughly 456704 words, which using NaNoWriMo rules would count it as 9 books. Although looking into the contents, it appears that there are 5 novellas (which could presumably be a book), 1 novel, 1 novel fragment and the rest is more or less short stories (with a couple letter excerpts in), so something around 7 or 8 would also seem plausible, I guess.

Edit:

3. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

It was a cute story, I guess. A bit of a light read, the end was a bit predictable but over all it was a nice read. Would recommend.

3 / 25

11.4: Enciclopedia del disparate 3 - JM Rodríguez Plasencia. Third and final installment in the series of absurd test answers. Going to miss the laughs.

12.4: Parecía un buen fichaje - Miguel Gutiérrez. A list of the most absurd and insane hires in major Spanish football teams. Lots of "wtf" moments. Very enjoyable.

I have another pair going on, each with some 2.5 hours' worth of content left, according to my Kindle's estimates.

Pikaboo said:

On the subject of how things count here, I have a question. So, I have the Integral Works of Lovecraft on my list but despite that being one book (one file) it's a collection of all of his stories. Counting it as 1 book feels like underselling it, but counting it as 65 (the number of stories) feels like severely overselling it, considering the majority of it are short stories.

There are roughly 456704 words, which using NaNoWriMo rules would count it as 9 books. Although looking into the contents, it appears that there are 5 novellas (which could presumably be a book), 1 novel, 1 novel fragment and the rest is more or less short stories (with a couple letter excerpts in), so something around 7 or 8 would also seem plausible, I guess.

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I would say something like that is always going to an arbitrary decision, so go with what you feel. You came to very similar numbers two different ways: 8 & 9. They're pretty close, so go with what you feel is fairest :)

i started negative space (2020) by b. r. yeager!

I'm going to try to read 40 books this year

Ivysaur said:

I have another pair going on, each with some 2.5 hours' worth of content left, according to my Kindle's estimates.

Click to expand...

Whoops I finished one of them on a single sitting.

13.4: The Devil and the Dark Water - Stuart Tutton. I love this guy, I love his mysteries, I love how bizarrely twisted everything is in his words. A fantastic dark crime novel set in a boat.

I finished my first book of the year, The Babysitter's Coven by Kate Williams, so I'm at 1/40 now