2019 Reading Challenge
It’s early January, so the perfect time to set up a new reading challenge. Last year I had a reading challenge of 30 books, that I’ve updated to 52 and again to 60. In the end I’ve read 85 books. This made me confident to set up a high number for this year: 75 books. I don’t want to feel any pressure, so I would rather try to have a smaller number of books planned. The challenge started with me finishing a book yesterday. I woke up 2 hours before my husband and I did spend a lot of that time reading and so I managed to finish my first book of the year, a memoir. Check goodreads for updates if you fancy.
A few years ago I’ve had a reading challenge that involved reading different genres of books. It wasn’t a very good idea, as I didn’t like all those genres and didn’t read as much. The genres I didn’t read from were mythopoeia, famous detectives, and science. I also read a book from other two genres I’m not keen on, like science fiction and horror. So, I’m a bit apprehensive to set up specific genres, because now I pick books I’d like to read, and managed to read a few science books too.
Although I did decide not to pick specific genres, I did decide to add three books to my reading challenge. In the 40 before 40 list I’ve made, I did mention I should read 3 books I didn’t actually want to read. When I wrote that, I was thinking of Russian classic books. Those sort of books that I already know the names of, but not something I’d pick from the bookshelves. That is because I do prefer light fiction books, regency novels that are not too demanding. But I should start crossing off things from that list, thus, me setting up these three books in the reading challenge:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Did you set up any reading challenges?
Anna Karenina is my favourite Tolstoy’s novel. I prefer it to War and Peace, but reading one of the recent threads on Mumsnet, saw that it defeated many people, and they could never finish it.
Lolita is brilliant, of course, but I found it difficult to read, as the narrator is such a vile character.
As for Crime and Punishment, we studied it at length at school, but I haven’t re-read it since. Don’t know if I would recommend reading it.
Have you read anything by Bulgakov? Master and Margarita, or Heart of a dog?
Good luck with your challenge!
I picked Anna Karenina because I love the first line, I hope I’ll like the book. Lolita’s story will be something I’m most likely going to get angry about, I though I shouldn’t add it, but now is on my list. It’s hard to recommend books you’ve studied at school, isn’t it? If I can’t finish it, I’m going to search for another one.
I haven’t heard of Bulgakov, I will have a look at these two books.