A Tale of Two Reading Challenges

Early in the year, I came across an interesting reading challenge. It looked fun, but it also looked difficult and I've been on the fence about whether to do it ever since. The original is posted here, but this is the quick rundown:

January: A book published the year you were born
February: a book recommended on a blog
March: a book that has been made into a movie
April: a book from your childhood
May: a book from another country
June: a classic you never got around to
July: a book you found on a social-networking book site
August: a genre or format you don't usually read
September: a book from an opposing point of view
October: a book being read by a local book club
November: an award winner
December: someone else's favorite book

There are a few things here that I think are interesting and that line up pretty well with things I've been wanting to read. It turns out that the first novel in the Vorkosigan Saga was published in 1986, which gives me a good excuse to start that series. June may be just the push I need to finally finish Treasure Island. And the May challenge lines up nicely with my honeymoon, so it would be really easy to find and read a book published in a foreign country.

Then again, there are things on this list I'm less excited about. Finding new recommendations from blogs or the internet in general is not something I need to do. My to-read list is long enough as it is, just from me hearing about new and interesting books in the course of my daily life. The last thing I need to do is actively seek out more books. I'm also somewhat less excited about September, partly because I don't know what to read, and partly because I think life is too short to read things I dislike. If I disagree with a book strongly enough, I probably won't finish it. Though I suppose it depends on the topic and how much I'm willing to tolerate another point of view.

Anyway, I'm definitely torn about this challenge. And seeing as January is almost over and I haven't started yet...well we'll see if I end up attempting it at all. Maybe I can do part of it.

Once I joined Goodreads, I learned about another challenge, that seems a bit more up my alley. It's called the Monopoly Genre Challenge. The idea is that each "monopoly" represents a different genre and each property is a specific sub genre. To earn a monopoly, you read a book from each sub-genre. The goal is to collect as many monopolies as possible by the end of the year. Here's the challenge, along with my progress and plans:

Monopoly Challenge Genres: purple are completed books, red are planned books

As you can see, I've already made some headway here. The fact that I had one complete monopoly already definitely push me over the edge on attempting to complete this challenge. Then I realized that my current to-read list actually matches up with this challenge pretty well. Throw in a couple of Kevin's books that I wasn't necessarily planning to read, but that I have easy access to, and this one seemed like a no-brainer.

I read a lot of fantasy and science-fiction, but I like to branch out beyond those categories, too. This gives me a good excuse to read some non-fiction and test out some genres I usually stay away from. It also gives me an excuse to re-read Clan of the Cave Bear, which I've wanted to revisit since high school but can never seem to make time for.

There are a couple of genres that I'm completely stumped on. I haven't got the slightest idea where to begin with romance. But I have enough of a plan to get started, and I can keep my eyes open for interesting books over the course of the year.

There are also a few books I've been wanting to read (Beloved, The Blind Assassin, Time Enough for Love), that don't seem to fit anywhere in these two challenges. But given the rate at which I read, I should have time for them this year anyway. Especially with two transatlantic flights in my near future.

I'll try to remember to keep you all updated on my progress, at least on the monopoly challenge. The first challenge I may treat as more of a guideline than something I really want to finish. We'll see how it all goes. In the meantime, I'm excited to break out of fantasy a bit and explore some more of what's out there.