3 Things I've Learned from Reading Challenges

MCPL 2016 Reading Challenge
I first found out about reading challenges in late 2015 (Yes, I was way behind the times). I loved the idea. Since it was so late in the year, I tried remembering what I had read during the year and slotting it into different challenge categories. I think I did pretty well, although without any record of what I had read, it was hard to verify if I was remembering the timeline correctly.

Whether I fudged my numbers or not, I loved the concept of reading challenges so much that I pushed for MCPL to hold its own challenge. We revealed our first reading challenge in January.

Now the year is winding down and we are opening up the MCPL Reading Challenge completion form, I would like to share a few things I have gotten from the reading challenges I have completed, both MCPL's and others:
  1. Comedic memoirs. I am not a big television watcher. I announced this summer that I was going to watch all of Game of Thrones. Three months later, I am on Season 1, Episode 8. (Please, no spoilers in the comments!) I have seen the occasional episode of hit shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation, but I am by no means an avid follower. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? I quickly followed it up with Yes, Please! by Amy Poehler and Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. I enjoyed them all. Plus, they make great audiobooks, read by the (very funny!) authors.
  2. Graphic novels. I had heard a lot about the Saga books over the years, so I read the first one in 2015 to try to round out a challenge I had started in November. I enjoyed it a lot and have read several others. I have also started reading Fables and read the first Lumberjanes and Nimona, both by Noelle Stevenson.
    3. Completed MCPL Reading Challenge form
    My completed Reading Challenge
  3. Quantity does not guarantee variety. I read a lot. I am not a regular user of Goodreads or any other similar software, so this year I decided to start tracking my reading using Google Sheets. To date, I have finished or started 97 books in 2016. I read across a wide range of genres, time periods, and formats. You might think that amount of variation would guarantee a certain diversity of titles, but it doesn't. While I made a point of reading titles that would fit the categories in MCPL's Reading Challenge, I find I am still not reading anything from certain categories found in other reading challenges.
Completed the challenge? Congratulations! We would love to know what books you read. Book suggestions will be shared on social media. Challenge participants who submit a completion form will be entered to win a limited number of prizes during a drawing in January. You can suggest topics for our 2017 Challenge. Happy reading!

Lennea

Labels: , ,