♥ Reading Challenge 2018 ♥

[Jackho]

Welcome to the super cool club house of the Newgrounds Literature Family - aka The LIt Fam.

Whether you're wishing to read more as part of a new year's resolution, already an avid reader or even if you're just passing through, this is the right place for any and all book discussion.

How it goes:
1. State your reading goal for the year, the amount of books you want to read.
2. Read some books.
3. Post about them here. (Anything from a sentence to a summary. Reviews are encouraged but not required)
4. Read some more.

At the end of each month I'll @ you in a post to track everyone's progress and give a friendly reminder-nudge. Make sure to get your updates in each month to see your progress marked on the neat monthly update pic.

Of course people also free to write one-off posts on books you've read or just drop in for some discussion even if you're not planning to join the challenge. If you happen to have a Goodreads account, share that too.

Starting from February we're also going to try a book of the month thing, like a traditional book club.

Good luck to you all, happy reading, and always remember to stay cozy.

[Jackho]

- GUIDELINES -

Choosing a goal.
A goal should be set in accordance with your own ability. Try to pick a number you're confident is achievable, but would still be a challenge for you. You're better off overshooting a goal than losing momentum when you realize it's impossible.

What counts as a book?
Do audio books, e-books, novellas, graphic novels, manga etc. etc. get counted too?
Anything you want to count, counts. You can limit yourself by only counting traditional books toward your goal, or you can just throw everything in, or you could assign different values to each - for eg. a novel could be worth one point toward your goal and a comic book might only count as half a point. This is your own challenge tailored to your tastes, and mixing formats can help to avoid burning out.

Can't decide what to read? Here's some resources to get you going.
Goodreads' top books of 2017
Reddit's favourite books of 2017 (inc. many other 2017 lists)
Reddit's favourite books in general
'The Essential Man's Library'
Project Gutenberg - Free E-Books
Open Library - more free ebooks
Amazon's Free E-Books
And of course the best resource of all needs a shout-out: your local library.

Lastly, I'd recommend hitting the little red follow button on the top right of the page to keep up with the thread.

- Last Year's Thread -

[Ganon-Dorf]

I've already started Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, I'm about 70 pages in already. As well, I'm reading through Tomb of Annihilation, a Dungeons and Dragons campaign book that I'll be running later this month, but on to the goals and what not.

Last year I barely achieved 24 books, this year I'm going for 40. I won't be counting scientific articles I read unless they are substantial in length, on the list is also the LOTR trilogy, Dance of Dragons, and that's about it for fantasy, I'll be focusing more on logic, math, and mythology with some neuroscience.

[Asandir]

Count me in. I will go for 25 books again, will increase the goal if I reach that too early. Would expect to read less than last year, pretty much read most books on my to-read-list. Looking forward to how book of the month will work out.

[Oolaph]

ok here we go i'm doing it guys i'm COMMITTING

My main problem is that I buy books, start them, and then put them down and never pick them up again. So this'll maybe help me get those bookmarks past the half way point on those stupid things collecting dust on my shelves.

Gonna go for a simple & modest 12 book goal. One for each month so I can easily tell when I'm slacking and need to pick up the pace.

Also count me in on this book club deal. Our album/movie of the week clubs were tons of fun and I've been missing that regular NG check-in and interaction on things. Idk if I'll stick with it since I don't primarily read fiction and that's probably what most people will pick, but we'll see.

[DrSevenSeizeMD]

Sign me up! 30 books is my goal.

[argile]

I'm going to start with 50 books to start off

[ADR3-N]

I was going to knock 2 books off my previous 10 book goal, but now that I know I can count audio books and manga, I'll go ahead and shoot for 25.

Read Mass Effect: He Who Laughs Best.

It's a short backstory on how Jeff "Joker" Moreau ended up piloting the Normandy SR-1 in the Mass Effect series despite some serious bias in the Alliance Navy against cripples.

I also scored a metric TON of stuff like Hagarism by Patricia Crone, the Osama bin Laden correspondences, Reliance of the Traveler, In the Shade of the Quran, and others. So no longer am I short on material. :)

[Bit]

Listen up, THOTs:

I am going to escape this gay Earth by reading as many technical books, novels, comics, manga, short stories, and cook books as possible. So, when I'm not crying, masturbating, or watching cartoons meant for children, you can bet your ass I'll be (eye-)balls deep in sweet, sweet literary escapism. If you don't think that reading is the coolest shit, get the fuck out of my face.

I will be reading 20 books and participating in the book club.

[Haggard]

Ok, I'm in. 12 books is my goal.

I already have one down: Captain Tsubasa, Volume 2. Did you know, that a hard shot soccer ball makes "Gyuuuuum" when it travels through the air?

[argile]

At 1/1/18 06:40 PM, argile wrote: I'm going to start with 50 books to start off

Actually I might need to refine my reading goals based on how much I pace myself while reading ,I normally don't skim through them unless it were to make a fast decision on what get while at a library or book store. But there's no doubt that'll I'll be devoting a good deal of my time reading whenever I'm not focused on the next movie from netflix or on the current game i'm interested in playing on the 3ds at the time but that's on a even lower priority compared to film or television
I need to fuel my imagination and comprehension skills despite how concrete my judgement is most of the time

[Dean]

I'm going to set my target as 10 books again this year. Last year I think I only managed a pretty disappointing 5. I'm only including traditional books in that goal, although I will be working my way through a big pile of graphic novels that I have as well, so hoping that wont have too much impact on achieving my goal.

For my first book, I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Maybe cheating a little bit with this one because I was already about a quarter of the way through it, but I'm still counting it if I finish. Just got done reading a chapter that explained what would likely happen if a big chunk of rock from space collided with Earth (RIP) and how unlikely it is that we'd see it coming in time to do anything about it. And even if we did see it coming, there's probably not a whole lot we could do to stop it. Nice relaxing bed time read.

Hoping to read a fair bit of non-fiction this year. Assuming I stick to that, it will probably be history and pop science books about whatever takes my interest.

[Kiwi]

I’m in for a goal of 35.

January:
1. Message in A Bottle ~ Nicholas Sparks

[SatanBrain]

Why is the goal an amount? Shouldn't one aim to read books by quality and not by quantity?

[Haggard]

At 1/3/18 06:08 AM, satanbrain wrote: Shouldn't one aim to read books by quality?

And how exactly do you measure "quality"? Is one Thomas Mann worth two Stephen Kings?

[SatanBrain]

At 1/3/18 12:56 PM, Haggard wrote:

At 1/3/18 06:08 AM, satanbrain wrote: Shouldn't one aim to read books by quality?

And how exactly do you measure "quality"? Is one Thomas Mann worth two Stephen Kings?

One shouldn't aim to read 'many' books but quality books. There are many criteria for books' quality but one can start by known accomplished writers such as you've listed.

[Slint]

At 1/3/18 12:56 PM, Haggard wrote:

At 1/3/18 06:08 AM, satanbrain wrote: Shouldn't one aim to read books by quality?

And how exactly do you measure "quality"? Is one Thomas Mann worth two Stephen Kings?

Good books, as opposed to shit books, I guess. Many of the former, and zero of the latter. Quality AND quantity.

[Asandir]

At 5/15/17 11:37 AM, Asandir wrote: Finished another book:

77. Der Name des Windes (The Name of the Wind. The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One), Patrick Rothfuss, 863 pages

The Name of the Wind. The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One is the first book of the (currently not finished) Kingkiller trilogy. Story is told by the main character Kvothe, as Chronicler requested him to tell his story so that he can write it down for future generations. Kvothe is the child of traveling performers, the first chapters describe his early childhood and how he learns the first lessons of the magic system called "sympathy", teached by Abenthy.

Those peaceful times come to a sudden end when Kvothe's parents and all of the Edema Ruh group get killed by Chandrian, mysterious entities, only similiar in appearence to humans but with varying abilities, like hiding themselves in shadows, casting blue fires, etc.

Kvothe swears to find out the mystery behind the Chandrian after a nearly 2 year odyssey of his traumatized mind basically shutting off completely and only letting him survive on auto-pilot. For that goal, he has to become a student of the University, which teaches alchemy, sympathy and most importantly for Kvothe, has a huge library where hopes to find out more about the Chandrian.

Throughout the book, Kvothe struggles with his loss and constant poverty, he lives on the streets for a good chunk of the book and even once he gets enlisted in the University, barely gets by.

Excellent book. I will read the next one the future (which is released in German in form of two books), but not right away, as the final book is not finished yet. I recommend it, as it's one of the best fantasy books I've read, on par with Lord of The Rings. The best thing is that Kvothe is a diverse character with all sorts of shortcomings that make him more realistic than your usal shining heroes.

1. Die Furcht des Weisen (The Wise Man's Fear. The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two), Patrick Rothfuss, 1381 pages

The Wise Man's Fear is the second book of the The Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy (third book is not finished). This one has been split into two volumes in german, due to the amount of pages, a wise decision.

I want to avoid spoilers but in general I can say that I enjoyed this one just as much as the first one. Despite its length, it's a great read throughout. Looking forward to reading the final book once it gets released.

[Kiwi]

January (2017 - Read 2):
1. Message in A Bottle ~ Nicholas Sparks
2. Improper Etiquette - Janice Maynard
3. Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color by Chuck Palahniuk

February (2017 - Read 4):
March (2017 - Read 5):
April (2017 - Read 1):
May (2017 - Read 2)
June (2017 - Read 3):
July (2017 - Read 7):
August (2017 - Read 6):
September (2017 - Read 8):
October (2017 - Read 6):
November (2017 - Read 4):
December (2017 - Read 5):

[Boss]

I read between 20 and 30 books last year so I guess a realistic but motivated goal for me would be to get closer to between 50-100, hopefully closer to the 100 side, although I will probably be slowed down by wanting to jump into bigger books with more pages and more complex, and more foreign books to challenge myself

[Yomuchan]

I'm in! And this time, I'm upping the bar from 10 to 15 books!

[Dean]

So for almost a week I've had no internet connection in my house which has resulted in me reading more often than usual. Sadly (never thought I'd say that) my connection came back online today, and I'm really hoping that doesn't result in me wasting time aimlessly browsing the web like I usually do at nights.

Determined to meet my reading goal this year and I'm already starting to think about what the next book will be.

[argile]

Almost done with the first book of the Harry Potter series It's rather great I'd say,Hagrid's probably my favorite character so far. Gonna go barrow the other books available on Kindle Unlimited

[klavierclock]

There's something similar to this where you finish a book every week, it's the one I originally did.

[Kiwi]

January (2017 - Read 2):
1. Message in A Bottle - Nicholas Sparks
2. Improper Etiquette - Janice Maynard
3. Bait: Off-Color Stories for You to Color by Chuck Palahniuk
4. Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie (Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, #1) - Jordan Sonnenblick
5. The Mammoth Book of International Erotica - Maxim Jakubowski

February (2017 - Read 4):
March (2017 - Read 5):
April (2017 - Read 1):
May (2017 - Read 2)
June (2017 - Read 3):
July (2017 - Read 7):
August (2017 - Read 6):
September (2017 - Read 8):
October (2017 - Read 6):
November (2017 - Read 4):
December (2017 - Read 5):

[Oolaph]

Starting out the year with The Art of Practicing. About half-way through it now, so far it's talked about the mindset one should have while practicing in order to use the time spent to its full potential, mostly being aware of what your weaknesses and bad habits are and focusing on correcting them. Also touches on things such as meditation and "tuning into your environment", which sounds corny, but performances do heavily rely on the mental state of the performer and those are some ways to "be at peace".

I'm currently on the section that covers posture & efficient muscle use, mostly focused on piano which is convenient since that's the instrument that I need to work on the most right now.

[Asandir]

Done reading these books:

2.Mäusefest, Johannes Bobrowski, 136 pages
3. Eine kurze Geschichte der böhmischen Raumfahrt (Spaceman of Bohemia), Jaroslav Kalfař, 364 pages
4. Herr Origami (Monsieur Origami),Jean-Marc Ceci, 157 pages
5.Des Menschen Wolf (Three Little Pigs), Apostolos Doxiadis, 320 pages

Mäusefest:

22 short stories in prose style. Many have the treatment of jews around the Second World War as topic, others how people deal with censorship (from the state and also self-inflicted censorship to avoid punishment). Not used to prose so took a bit to get used to it. All in all enjoyable to read though.

Spaceman of Bohemia:

Jakub Procházka will be the first czech astronaut. Part of his routine in space are weekly talks with his wife Lenka via satellite. After thirteen weeks in space, his mind starts to show first signs of madness, just being made worse by his wife ending their relationship. Soon he notices that the ship has one more member: the alien spider Hanus. Together they explore Jakub's past memories, among them growing up with his parents, his father working as secret agent for the czech government and using torture on "enemies of the state". After the Velvet Revolution, everything changes for Jakub's parents : they get sentenced but flee the country but die in an accident, while Jakub remains in the Czech Republic with his grandparents. From this day, Jakub believes to be cursed by his fathers wrong-doings and seeks to do something great for his country, like becoming the first czech astronaut.

Fantastic book. Thematically it deals with how states, governments can change quickly - while people usally don't. Highly recommended.

Monsieur Origami:

The japanese man Kurogiku travels to Italy to find the love of his life, a woman that he saw once in his homecountry Japan. He can't find her but decides to stay in Italy, living in a ruined house, dedicating his life to the art of Origami and meditation. For that purpose he grows kōzo trees, which are used to produce Washi, soft, resistant paper used for Origami.
The clockmaker Casparo soon finds this man, who is called Mister Origami by others and his cat Ima (japanese for "Now". Casparo wants to build a clock that encompasses all date and time formats. This meeting changes both men.

Great book. I also learned a lot about Origami and how the paper used for it is being produced.

Three Little Pigs:

Can a bad man turn good? That question gets explored by Mr. Xiomar, who tells us a story: Ben Frank is a hard working man. Unfortunately Lady Luck is not on his side, endangering his own little shoe business, resulting in him drinking more alcohol and gambling too much. One fateful day he beats up a man in a bar with a broken glass bottle. The 42 year old man dies - and this man was the only son of the mafia boss Tonio Lupo (latin for wolve). Tonio Lupo visits Ben Frank in prison, swearing that his three sons Al, Nick and Leo Frank will die - when they turn 42. Shortly after Ben Frank told his oldest son about this curse, he dies in prison, with "nobody" witnessing the murder.

That is where the story kicks of and showcases how the three brothers try to escape their deathly fate - Al by trying to become as rich as possible, Nick by becoming famous - Leo Frank doesn't know about the curse early on, as he is only seven when his father gets killed and his brothers don't think that he can understand what Tonio Lupo has put in motion.

Phenomenal book.

[ZJ]

I'm gonna shoot to finish 25 books this year.

Just finished Of Dice and Men by David Ewalt. It was a super nerdy book about the history of Dungeons and Dragons and the community that surrounds it. The guy who wrote it even talked about his own campaigns and his experiences with the game. I've never actually sat down and played the game before, so this book kind of inspired me to get out and try it for the first time. It seems like it'd be a total blast if you did it with people who were really passionate about it.

[Oolaph]

At 1/8/18 07:30 AM, ZJ wrote: I'm gonna shoot to finish 25 books this year.

Just finished Of Dice and Men by David Ewalt. It was a super nerdy book about the history of Dungeons and Dragons and the community that surrounds it. The guy who wrote it even talked about his own campaigns and his experiences with the game. I've never actually sat down and played the game before, so this book kind of inspired me to get out and try it for the first time. It seems like it'd be a total blast if you did it with people who were really passionate about it.

Might add this to my to-read list.

I've been playing D&D weekly with a group of friends for a few months now, it's all our first campaign except for the DM who has only played one campaign before this. He made his own story, setting, and has even been making little home-made props to make the storytelling a bit more exciting. Been having tons of fun, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

[Jackho]

Alright fam, so in regards to the book of the month. To start off, what if we each nominated a book (yes, even you @dean), and then the group votes on which nominee they like most (obviously you can't vote for your own nominee). The book with the most votes will therefore be something most of the group is genuinely interested in reading.

Second, I reckon there should be some restrictions on the books that can be chosen. We've already said it needs to be easily obtained, and obviously should be something with some discussion value. And I'm thinking there should be a page limit as well - to ensure it's something everyone can get through within a month. How does 350 pages sound as an upper limit, with the recommended count being <300? Everyone should be able to get through that in a month.

Sound good? If so, you can go ahead and throw your nominations up. Once most of us have picked one I'll make another post listing them all and we can start voting.

I'm nominating Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Best known as the book that inspired Blade Runner and its sequel, and sometimes it's published under that title instead. About a cop hunting down a group of androids, indistinguishable from humans and built for manual labour. They've gone AWOL after realizing they're artificial and near the end of their short lifespan. A sci fi classic with existential themes. Clocks in at around 250 pages.

At 1/1/18 03:15 PM, Hoodie wrote: I say 26 now

At 1/1/18 03:22 PM, Ganon-Dorf wrote: Last year I barely achieved 24 books, this year I'm going for 40.

At 1/4/18 07:39 AM, YomToxic wrote: I'm in! And this time, I'm upping the bar from 10 to 15 books!

At 1/2/18 12:01 AM, ADR3-N wrote: I was going to knock 2 books off my previous goal, but now I'll go ahead and shoot for 25.

Absolute mad lads! Best of luck to you all.

At 1/1/18 03:55 PM, TheQuietGamer wrote: I'm going to actually set a goal this year and try to match the 30 books I read last year.

Neat, everyone gets a progress bar this year then. I knew my immense photoshop skill would tempt you!

At 1/1/18 04:03 PM, Oolaph wrote: Gonna go for a simple & modest 12 book goal.

At 1/1/18 05:22 PM, SevenSeize wrote: Sign me up! 30 books is my goal.

At 1/2/18 12:12 PM, Haggard wrote: Ok, I'm in. 12 books is my goal.

At 1/8/18 07:30 AM, ZJ wrote: I'm gonna shoot to finish 25 books this year.

At 1/1/18 06:40 PM, argile wrote: I'm going to start with 50 books to start off

Welcome aboard! Nice to see some this many newcomers, I think we've already surpassed our numbers from January last year.

And 50 books for @argile? Very ambitious.

At 1/2/18 12:33 AM, Bit wrote: cook books

oh lord why did this get published

At 1/3/18 11:04 PM, Boss wrote: I read between 20 and 30 books last year so I guess a realistic but motivated goal for me would be to get closer to between 50-100, hopefully closer to the 100 side

Shall I stick you down for a 50 book goal then?

At 1/3/18 06:08 AM, satanbrain wrote: Why is the goal an amount? Shouldn't one aim to read books by quality and not by quantity?

Quality is subjective, and quality comes with quantity. People read more when they set a goal, and reading more books inevitably means reading more good books. No one's going to purposely read through shitty books just to get their number up. You can't know which books are good before you try them. The only way to find your favourites is to read a wide variety.

Besides that, is someone truly well-read if they've only ever tried critically acclaimed books? I think you need to get at least some asinine bullshit in there to call it a balanced diet.