Reading Challenges

So today I'm grumpy because there are so many books to read and yet so little time!  I imagine this is a common complaint among readers - yes, myself included - but it's relevant to what I want to talk about today.  How do I pick books when there are so many to choose from?  And how do I keep myself from going back over the same well-worn path of cozy mysteries I normally stick to?  Well, this year I'm going to try reading challenges.

For 2019, I have decided to make an attempt (because I'm already certain I won't complete them) to do two challenges.

First, the BookRiot Read Harder challenge.  There are 24 tasks for the challenge, and the goal is to push yourself to read things you might not read otherwise.  As I said in my reading goals post, I would like to stretch my boundaries a little and branch out to other genres (I specifically mention non-fiction because I read almost no non-fiction at all) so this is kind of an ideal challenge for me this year.  Do I think I'll complete it?  No.  No way.  But my goal is 12 of the 24 tasks, and I think that's very manageable.

Second, the POPSUGAR reading challenge.  There are 40 tasks - as well as an additional 10 advanced tasks.  Looking through these, some of theses tasks seem like I'll be able to tackle them no problem with pretty minimum deviation from my normal reading habits.  There are a couple that I'm really not sure about, so call me defeatist but I'm already certain I won't complete this challenge either.  And that's fine!  My goal is to complete 20 of the tasks, which I feel confident (kind of?  don't quote me on that) that I can do without too much difficulty.

So, assuming I read a unique book for each task of the challenges (which I will not, by the way, I am absolutely going to double up whenever able), that's 12 for the first, 20 for the second, plus the 11 I have to read for book club at work - and then 7 books to choose freely!  And then I'll have met my 50 book goal for the year.  My goal is always 50 books and I never have much trouble meeting it, which makes me feel accomplished, even if it's only in a small sort of way.

Anyone else doing any reading challenges?  I joined the GoodReads groups for both, but I haven't really looked at them because I got super anxious about it.  I will keep a list here of what I'm reading for each as I read it, so we'll see how I do!

Happy reading!