2020 Book Challenge Ambitions

This will be the year Jocelyn goes a bit overboard with book challenges despite the fact she didn’t really keep up with all the ones she meant to do last year. Oops. But obviously it’ll be totally different this time!

I actually do think it will be different in 2020 because several of these challenges are new to me and will all tie in together to help me get to my overall 2020 goal of finally reading more of the books I own. To say I have a book-buying problem is an understatement and to top it all off, I have Kindle Unlimited, Audible, and a library card that gets used so much I’m amazed it’s not in pieces from how often it gets scanned.

I recently cataloged all my books into the LibraryThing app and it was embarrassing to see how many books I own that I haven’t taken off the shelf since I bought them. I’m not even going to check how many unread e-books and audiobooks I have because I think that would send me over the booknerd edge.

So, hopefully, this will be the year I finally tackle those shelves! I’m only going to be giving brief overviews of the challenges I’m taking part in, but soon I’ll be putting up individual posts going into more detail.

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Goodreads Challenge

Even though most book bloggers I know take part in this challenge, there are a lot of people out there who feel counting how many books you read takes away from the enjoyment of reading. I get where they’re coming from and if you’re someone reading just for the numbers, I can see how that might give you a bit of fatigue.

That’s why I never make my goal that much different than the previous year’s goal and honestly, if I don’t make it, I don’t make it. There have been a couple years where I didn’t but I really liked most of what I read so overall I was a happy bunny.

2019 saw me reading the most I ever have as an adult: 117 books against a goal of 85. Audiobooks helped with this a lot, as did starting this book blogging journey. Just in case it was a fluke, I don’t want to push myself too hard so this year I’m setting my goal at 90.

Mount TBR

I had to laugh when I saw the Mount TBR challenge because regular readers of my blog know that I often refer to my backlog of books as TBR Mountain. I’m hoping to keep that mountain from turning into an overwhelming volcano eruption, so this challenge is perfect for me. I chose the 3rd level: Mt. Vancounver: Read 36 books from your TBR pile/s

NetGalley and Edelweiss

This will be my second year as a NetGalley reviewer. Joining NetGalley and requesting books has been one of the greatest things I’ve ever done with my life (sorry hubby). Haha, but in all seriousness NG led me to create my blog and this has been an incredible journey so far, one I hope to continue on for many years to come.

Last year I reviewed 50 books, earning me the 50+ reviewer badge, so I’m going with the third level of the NetGalley and Edelweiss Challenge: Gold – 50 Books

Audiobook Challenge

Prior to the last few years, I wasn’t a huge audiobook listener. I usually only listened if the narrator was also the author and I had heard that the audio was a better experience than just reading it (looking at you Steve Martin).

That all changed once my library started offering audiobooks. It took me awhile to really get into it, but once I did whoo boy I was unstoppable. Last year nearly half the books I read were consumed as audio and I regret nothing. So the Audiobook Challenge sounded right up my alley! I chose the 5th level to reflect how many I listened to last year: Binge Listener (Why read when someone can do it for you): 20-30

2020 Book Blog Discussion Challenge

Sometimes with blogging it feels a bit like you’re screaming into the void. I definitely get the most out of my blog when people comment and we can have a nice back and forth, so this Discussion Challenge seems like a perfect way to get more dialogue going on my blog.

Beat the Backlist Bingo 

Beat the Backlist Bingo was one I took part in last year and even though I didn’t get the full house I was hoping for I did get pretty close. I’ll be posting soon about how well I did, but in the meantime I’m raring to go for the 2020 version. I mean, who doesn’t like a bit of bingo?

My Personal Mini-Challenge

Every year I set myself a mini-challenge shelf on Goodreads in addition to doing the main GR challenge. Last year was Science Fiction Books I Really Should Have Read by now, previous years included 19th Century Brit Lit and 20th Century American Lit. I haven’t managed to read all the books I set out to within these challenges, but I’m still glad to be pushing myself to read things I’ve always meant to.

This year’s challenge is why I’ve decided on the other challenges listed above. 2020’s shelf is aptly titled: You Have Books at Home. I’m going to exercise as much booknerdly strength as I can to stop myself from amassing more books because, well, I have a lot of books at home.

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This may be a bit too ambitious, but I really want to get my shelves read so hopefully all these challenges will help. Are you taking part in any of these? Or doing different ones? Let me know in the comments!