How Did I Do With My 2021 Reading Challenge?

hello and welcome back to supposedly fun my name is greg today i thought it would be hopefully interesting for you to talk about 2021 reading goals and as much as i had one and look forward a little bit to 2022 and just generally talk about reading goals i think it will be useful for me which is why i hope it will be interesting for you to sort of get a handle on where i'm at with my reading goals i'm in a really good spot and i just kind of want to run through what they are how i have met them and i am trying to decide if i want to set a goal for next year because i set a reading goal the very first year i was on booktube and it it worked really well the first full year that i was on booktube was 2019 and then i set a reading goal for 2020 and i overshot by a lot i actually i think i have the book that i was using for my goals so you can kind of see how i had two reading goals in 2019. both of them were pretty simple easy to wrap your head around my first goal was i wanted to read more books by women than by men because up to that point it was always really close but i always read more books by male authors than by females and i pretty much crushed that 66 of the books that i read in 2019 were by women the others were by men and there was one non-binary author that you can see right there and my other goal for that year was that i always tend to read lgbtq books but i really focus on the g so i wanted to increase representation of the l b and t and i did that i went from 3.4 of my my reading in 2018 to 20 of my 2019 reading featuring either lesbian bisexual or transgender authors or subject matter characters things like that so those were achievable goals but then we got to last year and i had my read outside your comfort zone challenge i never actually used this because i just i had these multi-pronged approaches that i wanted to force myself to read outside my comfort zone and because it was so ambitious by the end of the year i had only met roughly half of the goals that i had set for myself and i was really stressing out and i ended up canceling my read outside your comfort zone goal for 2020 and then this year i decided not to do a reading challenge because this is a thing that i do i had success in 2019 and then i got made it really complicated in 2020 so i kind of block myself a little bit by making things more complicated than they need to be and actually i'm curious do you do that as well am i alone just because i had success in 2019 i went all in and almost set myself up to fail in 2020 and i have had a much easier time in 2021 not having any kind of defined goal the only thing i have done that approaches a reading goal for 2021 is the reading challenge from montana book company it's sort of like a bingo card they just have all these different categories and in your reading throughout the year you have to find a book that will meet that criteria and at the end of the year you turn in your list to them and they have a raffle so that is as much of a reading goals i've had and i feel like this has been very useful for me because the challenges that they came up with kind of organically fit in with the reading that i do throughout the year i frequently will look at bingo cards and other challenges that people do and i get frustrated when there are like really specific challenges for instance i just saw one recently where uh the challenge was read a book with a blue cover now obviously there are plenty of books with blue covers but please don't make me find one there was a i saw one a while ago that said read a book with a red door on the cover it's like don't make me find a book that i want to read that has a red door on the cover so i get frustrated with those but this is specific enough that it's a challenge open enough that i can fit it in with my regular reading so that has been good so i'm going to go through how i've met these challenges in a little bit i'm assuming that they are going to do the 2022 reading challenge i think i'm gonna stick with this for next year and i'll make a more formal announcement in january when i finalize plans but here's what i'm thinking for 2022 right now if they do another reading challenge i'll be on board with that and i really want to focus on my pulitzer prize project so i'm not going to put parameters cause of course in my head i immediately want to start saying okay so i'm gonna read at least one pulitzer prize project book every month i don't wanna do that to myself just work on it that's gonna be my goal and i it's gonna be easy to show progress on that because in the two years that i've had the pulitzer prize project in which i try to read every book that has won a pulitzer prize for fiction i've only read two books for it because i've always had other things going on and i've allowed other things to come and get in the way and now i think i want to put a bit of a focus on that obviously i could probably i could meet a lot of the criteria or challenges on here with pulitzer prizes or pull a surprise winning books one of the prompts is pulitzer prize winner so i could easily make both of those goals work in tandem as long as i don't make it complicated and i love to make things complicated but i also in this notebook have by the way this was all really inspired by doris at aldi books and her bullet journal but i do not have the patience to follow a bullet journal it's just kind of inspired by her so this is the pulitzer prize project headquarters in the notebook it has all of the pulitzer prize winners blue are books that i had read previously yellow or orange are ones that i uh read for the project and then pink is when they didn't assign a winner from 1918 through 1971 i haven't done great with reading so you can see one two three four there are only four books in that era that i had read previously i've only read one since i started the project but once you get beyond that there's a lot of blue i'd had read a lot in fact since 1999 there are only one two three pulitzer prize winners that i have not read and had not read by the time they won so i'm going to work on this next year not going to make it any more complicated than that i don't think i'm going to think about ways of approaching it if i can find one that is pretty low key i'll go with it but i'm thinking i just just having the focus will be enough that's kind of where i'm at right now in terms of reflecting on not having a reading goal in 2021 but having a sort of pseudo-reading goal in 2021 and looking forward to having really loosely defined reading goals in 2022 if you have had a reading goal this year i'd love to hear how it went uh what it was if you are succeeding if you've thrown it out if you made it complicated like i love to do let me know in the comment section down below and if you are going to be planning a reading goal for 2022 let me know as well maybe you'll inspire me to do something but then i thought it would be fun to run through this and talk about the books that i read that i added to this in order to complete it so as of right now there are three spots that i have not checked off i put the title of two of the books on the list because i've started them so once i have finished those two books there's only one left and i'll talk about what everything is so the first prompt is a margaret atwood title and that is one of the ones i'm doing right now i'm using the blind assassin by margaret atwood i couldn't decide if i was going to try to do this or oryx and quake because i've had both of them on my shelf for a very long time they've been on my tbr for a long time so i wanted to use this prompt as an excuse to get to one of them and i couldn't decide which one i wanted to do both of them were available on audio i am actually listening to this even though i have a copy so i did a poll on my instagram stories and the blind assassin ran away with it so here it is but you can see i got this book for free from borders it was actually the very first book that i got for free as an employee of borders way way back in the day it had just come out in paperback so this is actually it is a paperback copy of the book but it had been sent to the store to be given to a staff member and i was the lucky person who got it i was actually in training and i saw it on top of a pile of a box full of books and it was at the top and i was picking it up and i was looking at and the man was like do you want it take it so it was the very first book i got for free which means i got it in circa january of 2001 and haven't read it so we're over the 20-year mark and that is scary anyway margaret atwood book this is the one that i am doing the audio is 18 hours and i'm about an hour into it right now so that's how i'm meeting that challenge moving down you have to read five children's picture books here i'm not going to show you but here are the ones that i read that met that fry bread a native american family story by kevin noblemayard if you have not seen that book it's really adorable and i enjoyed it harry the dirty dog read a crayon story by michael hall the sweet smell of christmas and harold and the purple crayon next prompt was a dystopian novel so i did the ballad of songbirds and snakes i listened to that on audio way back in january i believe it is the only dystopian book that i read this year so it's the only thing that would qualify for that slot luckily i got it early the next one is a writer from your hometown or home state that is one of the other ones that i am currently working on and i'm doing work like any other by virginia reeves interestingly this book is set in alabama but virginia reeves is from montana and currently resides here so it counts and this was recommended by charlie from the montana book company so i am working my way through it i am currently 80 pages in and really enjoying it so far i feel like this has flown under the radar even though it was long listed for the booker prize in 2016 i hadn't heard of it until charlie brought it up and i'm really enjoying it so far joel read this book as well and he has been enjoying it the next prompt is the 2020 man booker shortlist or long list in either the international or the regular competition i decided to stay with the regular competition and i went with real life by brandon taylor and this is why this checklist fits so well with my regular reading i had to read this for the booktube prize when i participated in the first round for fiction so it aligned perfectly and it was something that i had really wanted to read last year and just didn't get around to so it aligned with a bunch of different things that i wanted to read and i really enjoyed it it's lingering in my top 20 favorite reads of the year we'll see if it gets knocked out by the end of the year then i feel like i cheated on the next two i didn't really especially with kazuo ishiguro so the prompt is a writer from another continent not north america and i put clara in the sun by kazuo ishiguro on the list so obviously he is not from north america but i always feel like it's really easy to do an author from europe especially for me most of the authors that i read are either from europe or north america so in my head at the beginning of the year i put this down hoping that i would have another author that i could slot in and the problem is the authors that i could slot in instead are already being used on other spaces so it's fine he does meet the criteria in my mind i wanted to make it a little more complicated go figure and find an author who was not from europe in addition to not and i believe uh kosovo ishiguro is originally from japan yes he was born in japan in 1954 and he moved to britain at the age of five so he is born in japan and now resides in the uk so i'm gonna leave it if there was another author that i could have moved into this spot i would have but here we are the other one is actually more of a cheat because the next prompt is another writer from another continent not north america and for that one i went with the bad muslim discount by syed m masood so syed m massoud was born in pakistan he moved to the united states as a teenager with his family just like the male protagonist of this book so because he moved to the united states as a teenager i feel like i'm skirting the rule a little bit but he is originally from another continent and again this is one of those situations where i put it down on the list this was something i read in the first half of the year so it was clara in the sun i put it down thinking that somewhere along the way i would have another book to swap in but all the books i could swap in are being used for a different prompt and it's much harder to find options for those than it would be for this so i'm going to leave it it's going to be fine i'm not going to try to cram in another book it meets the criteria there it is a little bit of a technicality in my mind but again i like to make things complicated so the next one is science or or nature nonfiction i asked doris from aldi books for a recommendation for this one she gave me a bunch of really interesting ones and i went with the soul of an octopus by sai montgomery which is also in my top 20 reads and actually so is the bad muslim discount so that was something that i really appreciated because i don't read science or nature non-fiction and i really liked that book a lot so that's why i enjoyed this challenge because it forced me to get out of my comfort zone and it paid off pretty well the next one is a novella and the one that i put down is a single man by christopher isherwood which i read in june when i did my pride month reading i have this tiny pocket edition of it from picador modern classics i really enjoyed this i liked it a lot i had only read the berlin stories by christopher isherwood before and i've always wanted to read a single man and i've sell the movie but i had not read the book and again it paid off i liked this a lot and it is in my about 20 reads of the year so far then i had to read a book that was 500 plus pages and i went with the mirror and the light which i had to read for the booktube prize again when i did the opening round way earlier in the beginning of the year it's funny this book has kind of faded from my memory a lot more than the other two books in the series did it's not in my top 20 reads of the year and i had really anticipated that it would be when i read it i thought it was great i do think it's a little too long i think she could have either split this into two books or focused a little bit more i think what really spoiled me was the fact that bring up the bodies was so tight and focused and this one feels like it sprawls a little too much although the writing is gorgeous the next prompt was pulitzer prize winner i went with gone with the win by margaret mitchell even though i didn't finish it i honestly tried i tried so hard and if you follow along you know that already so it's a pulitzer prize winner i read most of it i read more than half and uh i'm never gonna pick it up again and you know what i just i want credit for that work so i'm taking it plus it since this is such a long book the fact that i made it 566 pages means you know that's like that's the length of another book so i am perfectly fine counting that one i beat myself up about the writer from another continent but i am perfectly fine taking credit for god with the wind so a book that's published the year a parent was born is next and that is my one remaining book i forgot to grab the book it's uh go tell it on the mountain by james baldwin that was published the year my mother was born so i'm going to once i finish the virginia reeves work like any other i'll pick up go tell it on the mountain and then i have met my reading challenge for this year a book that was a best of 2020 title now they don't clarify what best of 2020 means i took it to mean the new york times best books of the year list and i'll put a link to my reaction to that down below and i chose homeland elegies by ayad akhtar my other motivation for that book was that if that had won the pulitzer prize i would have already read it because i felt like it was a good contender it ended up not even being nominated for it but who would have known at the time next is a middle grade or juvenile book and i went with george by alex gino which has now been renamed melissa by alex gino because the protagonist of the book is an elementary schooler who is named george but is transgender and is struggling with coming out as melissa and honestly i don't know why they didn't name it melissa in the first place it would have made much more sense so i'm glad they changed the name of that book this one i might swap in something else because i have another option that i just finished it's a book that became a movie or series now in the beginning of the year i read my friend dahmer which was you can see adapted into a motion picture so it's still on there it qualifies but i'm wondering if i'm going to swap the power of the dog and i read the power of the dog for my gimme space spoiler alert your choice is what they call it so i wanted to make sure i read the power of the dog before the end of the year so i put it in there but i might move it to this spot or i might not because people have heard of power the dog people are talking about the power of the dog they're not talking about this book so why not shine the spotlight on something else it qualifies so i just talked myself into it i'm gonna leave it at my friend dahmer and then queer author lgbtq plus i did the prettiest star by carter sickles there were a lot of books that i could have put in there i could swap it out but i want to keep that one on because i read it it's one of the earlier books that i read this year and i really enjoyed it and so i want to give it that highlight and then indigenous author i originally had the yield by tara june winch and by the way tara june winch is an author i could use for writer from another continent but i originally had her under indigenous author and i swapped her for a different category i swapped her for setting south of the equator because australia is south of the equator and i didn't know how else i was going to meet that prompt so the book that i swapped in in place of the yield was love medicine by louise erdrich which is a fantastic book and certainly by an indigenous author so it works just fine and then read a latin x author i put like water for chocolate by laura escobel unfortunately this is the only book i read this year that qualifies for this prompt i started another one on audio that would have qualified but i put the audio down because i wanted to read the book in print and i never got back to it so again i could use laura esquivel for writer from another content but i need her for this one and i could use her for translated work but i need her for this one so that's the way it is going to the second page uh black author i put the final revival of opal and nev by donnie walton another book that's in my top 20 reads of the year and uh which i wish more people were talking about i have enjoyed it so that is what i am using to meet the prompt a book of poetry i put bite hard by justin chin it's the only book of poetry i read this year and i it was okay it wasn't as good as the first book of poetry or the book of poetry that i read last year but i i enjoyed the challenge of doing it and then choose a book by its cover charlie from montana book company recommended the reign heron by robbie or not i don't have my copy because i loaned it to my mother-in-law and she has not returned it which is why you don't loan books to people and the second they pulled that book off the shelf i knew that was what i was going to choose for the cover and i really loved it it's in my top five books of the year so far recommended by a friend i put the tuscan child by rhys bone because that was recommended to me by a friend last year and i got around to listening to it on audio sci-fi or fantasy title i put the fifth season by n.k jemisin which i read i want to say july or august somewhere around there and uh i had been wanting to read this one for a while and i hadn't gotten around to it so i'm glad i i'm glad i did i am still iffy on the book itself though uh staff pick i talked to charlie and they recommended this is how you lose the time war by amal el matar and max gladstone which i don't have my copy of because i loaned it to my neighbor and they haven't returned it so again this is why you don't loan things to people but that was what i'm using for that book in translation i put whereabouts by jumbo lahiri and this is another one where i like to make things complicated so jumpa lahiri usually writes in english but she's become fascinated by the italian language recently she wrote whereabouts in italian it was originally published in italian she did a translation of it back into english and it was published so it qualifies but part of me feels cheap for putting it there but i'm going to leave it it's going to be fine but also because i don't have anything else that would qualify uh a debut title for 2021 i have the prophets by robert jones jr which is also one of my favorite in my top 20 reads of the year so far uh biography memoir i put just as i am by cicely tyson graphic novel i am not going to print to say the title out loud but i will hold it up for you that's what i did for mystery thriller or suspense book i only actually read one book that qualifies for this and it was g is for gumshoe by sue grafton i'd usually turn to mysteries and thrillers if i'm in a bit of a reading slump or if i'm feeling stressed and i don't do that anymore i've found lately i have been turning to like either a gay romance or a gay y a book instead and i think a lot of that is because i don't like what the mystery genre is like after gone girl so i'm having fun experimenting with other things it's surprising that that's the only mystery thriller or suspense book that i have read this year but it is what it is a book from obama's favorite books of the year list luster by raven leilani which i also read for the booktube prize and it met two birds with one stone i read it for the booktube prize and it helped me meet this prompt classic literature i read passing by nella larson and loved it setting south of the equator again i put the yield by tara june winch there i had wanted to put her for indigenous author because she is an indigenous australian author even though she doesn't live in australia right now and the book is set in australia which is separate south of the equator and therefore it fits history and politics i put conditional citizens by laila lalami which is about citizenship and america and what it is to belong here and it's an interesting book for travel and food writing i have taste my life through food by stanley tucci it's a delight i recommend it and for my choice i have the power of the dog i'm not going to move this to something that was adapted to movie and that's it that is everything that i've read to cross things off on my reading checklist um i will put a link to the checklist down below if you'd like to check out the actual list and i'm looking forward to seeing what they pick for 2022. i assume they're going to do this again i hope they do this again because i have had a lot of fun finding ways to meet this and it points out gaps in my reading as well like the fact that i only had one latinx author to put on here is not great the fact that there was only one book in translation is not great so some things i need to work on in the future and be a little bit more aware of also the writer from another continent i wish i had writers from other continents i'm sure there are other ones if i spent time thinking about it and going through all of the stuff that i read i'd find others but uh yeah so that is how i met or how i am going to meet my 2021 reading goal because this is really the only reading goal i had and i have two books to finish and one book to start and finish and then i'll be done so again i would love to hear what your reading goal for 2021 was if you're having any struggles meeting it if you are planning one for 2022 let me know what it will be in the description in the description box but in the comment section down below as always i really appreciate your time thank you for that and i will be back until next time happy reading you

Channel: Supposedly Fun

Views: 1,004

Keywords: Books, BookTube, Reading

Id: 1CgFiB5GBh8

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021