Reading Challenges and Goals 2020

Today is the big day to reveal the #armedwithabingo challenge! I made it into a standalone page on my website and since it is one of the two reading challenges that I am taking part in for 2020, I thought I would let you know about both in one short post, in case you wanted to join both. 🙂

After scovering the Internet for Reading Challenges for 2020, I narrowed it down to four that I wanted to take part in:

• The #ARMEDWITHABINGO challenge that I am organzing with Ariel
• The A to Z Reading Challenge hosted by Ginger Mom and Company
• A science-fiction only book challenge – I was going to aim for 10 books in the genre in 2020.
• A reread challenege where I would reread 4 books from my read pile.

But when Ariel and I started working on our book bingo, I realized that two would be more than enough and instead of challenges, I could set goals instead for rereading and science fiction. Recent conversation with Erynn reminded me (and you’ll read this when I post my #2019inbooks conversation with her later in the week) that I don’t stick to one genre at all so I might be setting myself up for a bit of failure there. 🙂

Reading Challenges

#ARMEDWITHABINGO

Now, without further ado, here is a mini reveal of the #ARMEDWITHABINGO challenge. You’ll find the link to the standalone page after.

This challenge came out of Ariel and me building a list of books we wanted to read together in 2020. We weren’t sure how we were going to choose which one to read so we thought maybe we could come up with a board and randomly select a book… sounds a lot like a bingo board doesn’t it? Yup! So we made one!

Learning from my mistakes last year (I could not get into the book bingo that I had created with my friend, Varun), I knew I had to make this a public commitment. I remember the book Power of Moments speaking about this. Another mistake was not keeping a regular check in time.

Motivation and community play a huge role in this! We asked the reading community on twitter for some ideas and brainstormed some ways to enjoy reading together. Today, the book bingo details were finally published and you will be able to navigate to the sign up.

It isn’t really a challenge – I think of it more as community reading. We wanted all types of readers, whether you read for fun or to review, to be able to take part in it. I reached out to some of my author friends and asked them if they would be willing to giveaway their books during our quarterly check-ins.

Go check out the FAQs and more details on this page!

https://armedwithabook.com/armedwithabingo/

The A to Z Reading Challenge

This is the third time that Ginger Mom & Company is hosting the challenge and my first time taking part in it. Since I have never done a readathon, I decided to go all in and also be hosting one in the Fall.

The A to Z challenge, you guessed it, is about reading a book with each alphabet in the year. The sign up website also has a very helpful guide for how the titles of books can be organized for the challenge. For example, prepositions like ‘a’, ‘the’ do not count.

Reading Goals

As a book reviewer and blogger, the number of books that I read in a year have increased drastically. This has also to do with the amount of time that I now have to dedicate to reading.

In the coming year, I have the following reading goals:

• I want to read more alongside the community – buddy reading The Book of M with Varun and The Farm with Ariel led to amazing discussions and I can’t wait to pick up books with them again. So far, I have 5 buddy reads planned for sure (with Varun, Ariel, Erynn, Stephen, Sahi) and if you would like to read a book with me, we can share some options. 🙂

• Tackle my ever growing TBR pile – this means taking time out for the books I want to read, alongside the books I accept to review and buddy read. It is easy for these books to take the back burner. It has happened many a times this years.

• For someone who has been an reverent user of Goodreads, it is hard to not set a reading goal – but I’m going to try. I truly admire people like Noly, Mae and Alak who do not keep track of the number of books they read and I want to experience this liberty from a goodreads reading challenge. In my recent musings about who I am as a reader, I have learned that I really don’t care about the number and this would be a good way to think less in terms of the quantity of books and more about the quality of books. I can always count how many I read. 🙂

If you are an avid reader already and read consistently, what does the Goodreads Challenge / setting a number for the year bring into the reading experience for you?

• I started compiling a list this year about the books I want to reread. There are so many! In the coming year, I plan to reread at least 2 books – not too ambitious but hoping it is doable. 🙂

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What are your goals for 2020 and are you taking part in any challenges? Do share in the comments. 🙂

And don’t forget to join me in the #ARMEDWITHABINGO! I would love to have you there!