Saturday, October 21, 2017

2018 Good Rule Reading Challenge

Host: Becky's Book Reviews (sign up)
Duration: January 2018 - December 2018
Inspiration: It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones. C.S. Lewis
# of books: readers decide

Sign up by leaving a comment! I do have comment moderation on because the amount of spam comments is overwhelming.

1. Decide if you want to set a monthly, quarterly, or a yearly goal for this challenge. You might start out with a monthly goal to see what works best, and then modify it throughout the year.
2. Set your goal of books. You might want this challenge to cover all the books you read this year. OR. You might want this challenge to cover a specific area of your reading. Either is fine.
3. Decide if you want your balance to be 50% new to 50% old OR if you want your balance to be 75% new to 25% old.
4. Set your qualifications. How will you be defining "new"? How will you be defining "old"? Do you view "new" and "old" solely in terms of publishing dates? Or do you prefer to see it as "first time reads" and "rereads." Either interpretation works for me.
5. If you read broadly--audience, genre, etc. You might want to set guidelines on how you want this challenge to work for you.
6. If you blog, you might want to write a sign-up post with your goals and perhaps a structured post or two that you can continue to update throughout the challenge. Share links if you want.
7. If you are on Goodreads, you might want to create two bookshelves. One for keeping track of old books. One for keeping track of new books. Feel free to share the links if you do.
8. I am on twitter if you want to follow me. @blbooks You may leave your twitter in the comments if you'd like.
9. Combine with other reading challenges if you like.  
10. DO ask questions, especially before the challenge begins and in the first few months. 

Some examples:

Goal: I want to read 100 picture books. I intend to read 75 new picture books. I intend to read 25 old (or classic) picture books.
Goal: I want to read 12 biographies or autobiographies. I intend to read 9 new biographies and 3 old biographies.
Goal: I want to read 4 cookbooks. I intend to read 3 new cookbooks and 1 old cookbook.
Goal: I want to use the Good Rule only when reading my favorite genre--romance. There are so many I haven't read but want to read that I want to go for 50% new and 50% old.
Goal: I want this challenge to count EVERY book I read. I don't like to set goals. But I will commit to staying with this balance no matter how many--or how few--books I read this year.


© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

8 comments:

Darlene said...

I'm in for this one! I want to make sure that I read as many "old" books (published 2017 or prior) to "new" (2018 releases). I hope to keep my "new" reads to less than 50%.

http://darlenesbooknook.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page_29.html

Christine said...

I’m trying not to join too many challenges for 2018 but this one if awfully tempting! Setting myself too many reading rules usually backfires, but I’m going to mull it over and see if there is a certain area of my reading I’d like to apply this too :)

Becky said...

Christine, the way I'm going to approach it is to have it all balance by the end of the month. Like, if you read six to ten books a month, then try to have three or four be "old" books. And every participant can define what "old" is. For some new might be 2017/2018 and everything else be "old."

Becky said...

My sign up is at Operation Actually Read Bible:

https://operationreadbible.blogspot.com/2017/11/2018-reading-challenges-good-rule.html

Carol said...

Like Christine above I wasn't going to too many challenges in 2018 but this is something I've wanted to try to do anyhow, especially in devotional reading. I'll have a look & think at how I can work this in.

Unknown said...

I'm in! Here's my sign up post: https://wp.me/p736eU-DW

Curly Carla said...

I'm in!

I want this challenge to count EVERY book I read. I plan to read 1 'old' book for every 3 'new' books I read. The 'old' books will only apply to ones that I already own but have not read yet. The 'new' books will apply to any books that I purchase that are new to me.

My year end goal is to read 100 books total because that is my goodreads goal as well.


Blog post to follow.... :) Thanks!

Unknown said...

This is my first challenge! I'm going to read one book published more than 5 years ago for every one published since then. They will include children's and YA as well as adult, and comprise both fiction and non-fiction. Thanks, Becky! I have a Goodreads goal for 50 books for the remainder of 2018.