Preliminary Thoughts on This Year's Book Challenge

I started a 75 Book Challenge on LibraryThing on a whim this year, not knowing whether or not I would be able to complete it and not knowing the effect it would have on me. I had never done a book challenge before and 75 seemed like a pretty attainable goal if I worked at it. Now, with the year drawing to a close, and my number of read books resting at 47, I thought I would just take a moment to reflect on what doing the challenge has meant for me this year.

• It's definitely been humbling. I considered myself a pretty avid reader until I became part of the 75 Books Challenge group and realized just how much I was getting lapped by other members of the group, who had 50 or 60 books down by the end of May. I don't know if these people can speed read, à la Dr. Spencer Reid, or what, but I was impressed and humbled by their progress. It motivated me to try harder to complete my own challenge.
• It's brought books back into my life in a big way. I've always been a reader, but, as I got older and technology became more readily accessible in my life, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that my books fell by the wayside. Oh, I would visit the library and get a few from time to time. I wouldn't always read them all. I stuck to a couple of authors and didn't really look for anything new. My academic career involved so much reading that the idea of reading anything more, even for pleasure, became less and less appealing. Doing the Challenge has led me back to the world of books and I find myself choosing to read rather than sit at my computer more and more often.
• It's introduced me to new authors and the wider online community of readers. Without the Challenge, I probably wouldn't have paid much attention to my LibraryThing account, and I certainly wouldn't have been interested in making another account on Goodreads, a site I now love for its recommendations and reviews. Recommendations from both sites have led me to new authors, like Tana French, whose writing I adore but whose books probably wouldn't have grabbed my attention if not for the system of recommendations and listings of related books.
• It led me to read beloved children's books that I had missed in my own youth. This might not be very impressive from an adult point of view, but some of these books still really touched me despite my age, and I'm glad that I got the chance to read them, even if it was later in my life than the authors intended.
• It's made me think about where I'm going in my life in terms of my career. Getting reacquainted with books, book catalogues, and libraries has motivated me to do research into possibly becoming a librarian one day, so that I can help others discover the love of reading and the drive to constantly try new books that I've rekindled in myself through the Challenge. It's not a sure thing, but it's given me something to think about and aim for.
• It led me to start writing reviews and writing this blog, which, in turn, leads me to write more often, something else I had been letting fall by the wayside. I love to write, and maintaining this blog gives me an opportunity to exercise my writing skills outside of an academic context. Throughout my academic career, I've found that a large amount of essay writing, which often involves strict guidelines regarding content and structure, has stifled my ability to just sit down and write something that was 100% mine, without a crop of citations poking up everywhere. Constantly being graded undermined my confidence in my own writing abilities. With my reviews and my blog, I'm free to just write, and it keeps my more creative side in good working order.

In all, even though it's become pretty clear to me that I'm not going to make it to 75 this year (at this point, I'll be happy with 50, and everything after that will just be icing on the cake), the Challenge has really affected me in a positive way, and I would strongly encourage anyone who wants to increase the importance of reading in his/her life to take one on. Whether it's a modest 20 or 30 or an ambitious 100; whether it's with a group or just by yourself, it's worth it.