Why I’m Lowering My Goodreads Challenge for 2017; and Why You Should Consider It Too

Like many a book enthusiast, I love using goodreads to track and rate what I read. I especially love the yearly reading challenges that keep me on pace with reading throughout the busy year. When I was a child and teenager, I didn’t any external tracker to keep up my reading pace. However, once I got into college and then a post-college job and 20-something ‘what am I doing with my life’ stress, I found the challenge a great way to keep reading as a priority in my life.

My usual goal was 50 books. In 2015, I raised that to 60. (I read 68.) In 2016, I raised my challenge to 75.

In 2017, I will be lowering my challenge.

Why am I and Why Should You?

When I focus on number of books read as my goal, I find myself shirking away from reading longer or more difficult texts due to how it will affect my pace. For example, I’ve been interested in giving Les Mis, the thousand page book, a shot for many years now, but I have not.

This may be either a conscious or unconscious choice of your own, when reading to hit a target number of books. You resort to quantity with shorter or easier books. Now, there is certainly a lot of great shorter works like novellas or faster reads like graphic novels that should be mixed in your year of reading. As a children’s librarian, I read a good deal of children’s middle grade novels for my own professional development (and interest, there is some great work in that genre). So, let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with a short read, and they can indeed be of great entertainment and artistic quality.

On the flip side, I believe we should use the goodread challenge, other internet challenges, and new year’s resolutions to do exactly what is in the name. Challenge ourselves. Stretch ourselves. Resolve to do better. I am at the point that I know I can get a large number of books read in a year on top of my other obligations and interests, so my real challenge this year is to try tackling the larger, challenging books that have been on my mental to-read list.