I've seen that lots of us are participating in several different challenges this year. Tell us what other ones you are doing and tell us a little bit about how it works. I've even seen that there are some doing 4 and 5 challenges! Hurrah for these brave souls! :-D

I wanted to try the Fantasy one because I have really become a fan recently, but I just don't know if I'm experienced enough to choose books for their categories. I don't really understand the fantasy genres yet. I thought the genre I liked was Historical Fantasy, but I've since found that this isn't even a real genre so I'm back to not knowing what I like. I have no idea what you call the genre, or sub-genre?, I like. I think I might watch and read in the fantasy forum this year and maybe give it a try next time.

So, what are your other challenges?

I am doing the one over at Goodreads as well as those here.  In this one it is how many books you will read this year and set a goal, I chose 145 and I am 7 down. 

I'm doing the Goodreads one as well, and I love the way the GR software will track your  # of books read for you. I've also signed onto the Historical Fiction Reading challenge at the Historical Tapestry blog. I'm fairly certain the highest lovel of 20 HF books in a year is a no-brainer for me.

Okay, Cathy, I will try this again, lol!! I am seriously losing my mind! I wrote a response to this post and somehow ended up sending it to Cathy as a pm instead of a post here. I need more sleep!! Or, maybe its the Lortab I took for pain. I should probably quit typing before I embarrass myself even more than usual, lol.

Okay, here's my post or what I can remember of it:

 I could do the Historical Tapestry one 5 times, but it is good to have a goal. Maybe if I signed up for it, I'd remember to check that blog more often...it's a good one!

I like the Goodreads one, might have to try it myself. I'd like to try for reading 200 books this year. Maybe participating in the GR challenge will help me decide to get more involved with Goodreads. It's such a great website, but I've been wishing I had something like Goodreads that I could use offline. I don't know if that is possible though.

Sorry about that, Cathy! I bet you were wondering WTH I was talking about, lol.

I'm going to work on the M/T reading challenge - just the basic one for starters. This is a no brainer since I have many mysteries sitting on my shelves SCREAMING AT ME!! I have got to find ways to get to these books and wouldn't you know it, the second book that I read for that challenge wasn't on my shelf (but I found it at the library - phew).

Since I was so excited about the challenges here for this genre (my favorite), I decided to join the Classics Lit challenge as well. There's a TON of classics I've never gotten around to reading and I kept telling myself last year I'd read some but never did. So I'm hoping this will be the push I need. Then I was looking over all of my other books I wanted to read this year and almost every one of them could be put into the Contemporary Lit challenge categories, so I went ahead and signed up there as well. Why not, right? ;)

I figure I'll reduce my *current* TBR stack in the process and still get to participate in some challenges. It's my first year with challenges, so I don't know what I'm getting myself into really, LOL!

I'm keeping track of some personal challenges on the games forum, too. Reduce TBR, purge a certain # of books, read more books than last year, etc.

Valli, I'm sure I'll have the challenge at HT banged out by March at the latest depending on the size of books I read between now and then. The rest will be just gravy. Goodreads is really a lot of fun, and much of it is using the updates for corny prose and/or your favorite quotes you want to remember and/or thoughts on your read in general.

Anyone interested in reading Camilla by Frances Burney, at least four of us are going to buddy it starting Feb. 1 at Goodreads.

Kelly, I also joined the Classics challenge, for the same reasons. I have read many of them, but a LONG time ago and they have been sitting on my TBR for years.

I also joined the Biggest Loser challenge.

My life has been really hectic the past couple of years and I joined all the challenges last year and wound up with not meeting any of them. So I am taking it light this year. Just two challenges, and the Biggest Loser is ANY genre, which allows me to read per my mood, lol.

I've never been one for challenges, as I don't like to *have* to read certain books and my moods are always changing. I've joined the PBS one, but with no goals, I'll just fill in a spot when I finish a book and see where it ends. The HT challenge is a no brainer for me, and The Biggest Loser is perfect for cleaning up some of the piles (I hope).

I'm one of the crazy people doing 5 challenges.  It's not as bad as it sounds, because like many of you, I would be reading a lot of those books anyway.  I join them for a push to read just a little bit outside of my usual comfort zone.  I would never sign up to read a genre I have no interest at all in, but keeping lists like that reminds me to choose something a little different.  For example, the nonfiction challenge--if I had my way I would read almost all psychology and medicine books, one after the other.  That's fine, but there are other topics that I think I should learn something about, not to mention even have an interest in, so it breaks me out of the pattern of reading the same things all the time.  I'd say about a third of all the challenge books I signed up for are books I would not read without the challenges, and another third I might read but not this year. 

I also enjoy the hunt for the books--I find so much I didn't know about and learn a lot during this process.  Not to mention I consider myself a "list" person.  I just like things neatly coordinated into lists! (Too bad that doesn't carry over to neatly coordinating my physical books!)

Diane

Besides this one (and the biggest book loser) lets see...

I'm doing the 2011 Reading Challenge at Goodreads, the one from the Historical Fictionistas Group on Goodreads that runs til the end of Feb (these are done back to back all year long), my chivalrous deeds historical fiction challenge on my blog, the TBR reduction challenge on Roof Beam Reader's blog, the Historical Tour de Genre challenge on Bitsy Bling Books, and the Georgette Heyer HF challenge on All Things Historical Fiction.

Yep, I'm a challenge junkie.

I was going to do the one at Historical Tapestry too but then I didn't want to confuse myself by participating in too many that require reviews to be posted.  I did too many of those last year and kept forgetting to post my reviews so they would count :(

I'm all about no pressure with reading this year.  If it fits a challenge great.  If not and I don't finish any of these oh well.  At least I'll be reading a lot of great books all year long!

It's nothing official anywhere, but my personal challenge was to use as many TBR books that I already owned for the HF Challenge here. I thought I had a more impressive list, but I just counted and I'm only using 17 TBR books! This is not good, considering I have a bookshelf and a half (both of which are 6 feet tall!) of TBR books. So much for making a big dent this year!

I am hoping to participate in Holly's challenge a bit, but unfortunately I don't know how many *courtly* books are in my immediate reading future.

I'm not doing any other online challenges, but I do have some personal goals. The main one is to read 52 books this year. I've this goal for the past couple of years, and I haven't had any trouble making it yet. I also want to read 12 non-fiction books. That one is a little harder. I'm not really motivated to read non-fiction, which is why I try to set a goal for it.

I am doing the mystery and thriller challenge with has 12 categories and two bonus. I will not do one of the bonus because it is mysteries withcolors in it and I have none and don't need to add more books to my over croweded shelves.

Of course I am doind the paranormal swap (I set up). 12 categories and 2 bonuses. 1-3 books in each category. Paranormal books tend to be smaller 300 pages so the paranormal readers go through a lot of books in a year.

What Ilike about these challenges is it gets me to read new authors I would not have read otherwise.

Alice

In addition to the HF challenge I'm doing the Mystery/Thriller challenge here on PBS. Since beginning to read HF last year I have sorely neglected my mystery books. I'm also doing the Goodreads challenge, my goal is 100 books.

I have no idea what you call the genre, or sub-genre?

Valli, the fantasy challenge leader offered definitions in another thread. It really would be helpful to place them with the challenge itself, but if you're still interested, it's here.

I'm doing the Christian fiction challenge...It has about 20 categories and we have to pick 14 of them.  PBS is enough of a time-suck for me.  I refuse to even check out Goodreads or very many blogs just because I know I'll get hooked.

I'm doing all four challenges in Historical Fiction, and also doing Contemporary and Mystery challenges. If I get through all of those I might attack a few more such as Classical, Christian, and Fantasy.

I'm doing the Eclectric Reader challenge, which I developed after years of failing at other challenges.  The goal is to read whatever I want, whenever I want and at the end of the year I will have completed the challenge.  Hey, it works for me.

I'm doing the Eclectric Reader challenge, which I developed after years of failing at other challenges.  The goal is to read whatever I want, whenever I want and at the end of the year I will have completed the challenge.

Oh, Donna -- This sounds like a perfect challenge -- mind if I join you?

Besides the Around the World in 80 Days Challenge, I am going to do the Relative challenge with YA HF.  I am also in the Mystery/Thriller challenge, which won't be too hard since I love mysteries.  Also the YA and NF challenge, but only the light versions of those.  And also the Classics challenge.  The last three I have to really push myself to read.  HF is new to me and that is why I'm not doing anything to hard. 

I think I may be stretched a bit here because if I don't finish a challenge I am upset with myself.  However, I am going to try a different approach and just be glad that I got books read in all categories.  lol