Reading challenges 2020

Summer time is prime reading time for me, hot days are perfect for getting out of the heat and curling up with a good book.

Sometimes it takes me a bit of time to get really organised but now that January is half over I have organised some of my reading for the year and actually committed to a couple of challenges, and started my own challenge the Gaia reading challenge. I always sign up for the Goodreads challenge and pledge 32 books, that tends to be my comfort level. I usually exceed that number but if I pledge any more it adds a distracting element of stress to my reading, so I stick to 32. In addition I stumbled across a discworld reading challenge and a history themed challenge all details and links below.

Turtle recall is a really cool Terry Pratchett Discworld challenge hosted by Annemieke at A Dance with Books. Both G and I are big Terry Pratchett fans, I guess the A’tuin mural on the pod kind of gives that away. Every year we seem to read or re-read several discworld novels anyway so I thought I might as well join the challenge and hang out with some like minded readers. Annemieke has also set up a Goodreads book club to go with the challenge making it easy for anyone to join in. I am only committing to Level 1 / The Counterweight Continent / 1-5 Books. I figure I can comfortably read 1-5 books, I am already planning on re-reading Witches Abroad this year, after that I am not sure what will be next. Annemieke is also organizing some group readalongs so I will probably join in with one or more of those.

The next challenge is When are you reading challenge with is hosted by Sam at Taking on a world of words. This is primarily a historical fiction challenge, although Sam also allows non-fiction which is great, I seem to read more non-fiction these days. Essentially the challenge involves reading 12 books, one related to each of the nominated time periods. So far I have selected two historical novels to start. I have been meaning to re-read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, so that might be my 1300 – 1499 read and my pre 1300 will be Memento Mori by Ruth Downie the most recent novel in her wonderful historical crime series set in Roman Britain. If you have any suggestions for any of the time periods, let me know whether they be fiction or non-fiction.

The complete challenge will include 12 books from the following eras:

• Pre 1300
• 1300-1499
• 1500-1699
• 1700-1799
• 1800-1899
• 1900-1919
• 1920-1939
• 1940-1959
• 1960-1979
• 1980-1999
• 2000-Present
• The Future

The Gaia challenge involves reading at least one book for the year or one book a month with a nature/environment or climate theme. You can read about it here: https://gumtreesandgalaxies.com/2020/01/01/2020-nature-environment-reading-challenge/

I tend to read a lot of natural history or nature related non fiction and I didn’t see any challenges like it so ended up starting my own. So far I have completed one book for this one, you can read the review here; The Wild Remedy; how nature mends us by Emma Mitchell.

Aside from the above reading plans no doubt my reading will be characterised by the usual random tangents and variety. Books are almost as good as travel, so for a hot day or a rainy day it is through pages that I trek, how about you what are your reading plans for 2020?