What I Learned Reading 100 Books This Year #TuesdayBookBlog #AmReading

#Reading #Goodreads

For my Goodreads 2019 challenge I set myself a goal of 100 books.

I would just like to say it was a challenge! Enjoyable, but there were times when I did wonder what had possessed me to set such a target. I know some of you out there read a lot more, but for me 100 books was a long way out of my reading comfort zone. In addition 2019 proved to be one of the busiest years to date what with me deciding to publish my book and changing my day job, so reading 100 books couldn’t have come at a better time 😂

Here’s what I learned:

Certain things have to give when doing a reading challenge. I have been forced to spend less time on Twitter in order to make time for reading.

There has been less time for romantic pillow talk as I have had books to finish.

The challenge has led to other creative initiatives. Reading 100 books has intensified my love of pretty book covers which in turn has resulted me in doing more on Instagram. Before my 2019 reading challenge I wanted to increase my instagram following but never gave it the focus it needed.

I didn’t have much reading stamina prior to this challenge. This year there has been no time to not finish / shelve books halfway through so I have read every single book.

Even though there have been times when I have struggled to read, there have also been times when reading books has been really beneficial. I have found that anxiety loses its grip on me when I have my head stuck in a book. As my anxiety has been troublesome this year this challenge has proved useful.

This challenge has forced me to consider reading books from my loved one’s TBR pile – gasp!

Book hangovers are tougher to bounce back from with this sort of challenge. A book hangover is where the book you have just read was so good you struggle to reinsert yourself back into daily life and you can’t pick up another book as nothing will ever compare to the one you just read.

I experience a lot of fictional crushes and at one point during this challenge I was a hot and sweaty mess for weeks.

This challenge has made my internal writing critic worse. Reading a lot of good books makes you view your own writing differently.

I have never been more appreciative of good books.

Have you read 100 books in a year and if so how did you find it?

Have a good day!

Posted by

Still waiting for the Sleepless in Seattle film sequel. Romcom Author. Book Blogger. Mum of teens. Owned by a golden Labrador.

15 thoughts on “What I Learned Reading 100 Books This Year #TuesdayBookBlog #AmReading

  1. I’ve actually read 134 so far thi year! The most I’ve ever read in a year!
    And I’ve never been one to leave a book partly read.
    I hit 72 last year, and was gobsmacked at that. So having read nearly double that this year… Well!!!
    Becoming a NetGalley member has stretched my genre reach too!
    Oh, I do love a good book! 💜🥰

  2. A book hangover, oh I know what you mean! It’s a blessing to have found a book that will give you a hangover, but it truly is tough to move on.

    I’ve read 70-something so far. I think 100 is fantastic. Congrats!

  3. I once read almost 350 books in a year. I don’t advise you try that. Because reading is one of my priority activities, I fit in a lot of reading time. I have cut back though, because reading that many books doesn’t leave time for much else, so I’ve only set my reading goal to 104 books this year (I’m on book 103 right now). It’s still a big number, but reducing the number of books has made more time for other priorities in my case, like writing my own books, caring for my furkids, and spending time with my hubby. Luckily, my ability to multi-task means I can start a new book while still getting over another, even when the one I’m getting over contained a character I’m crushing on so hard my rapid breathing is almost giving me an asthma attack.

  4. I really love this post. I am sorry anxiety has been a bitch this year, but I am glad you got to kick its butt with books. What I’ve learned from my reading challenge this year is that I can’t lose sight of the reason why I read: for pleasure. So next year, my goal will be 1 book. The rest will be fabulous extra! I don’t need more pressure, haha. And I want to give my TBR all the love it deserves xx

  5. That is a fantastic challenge to give oneself. And the book hangover! I definitely have experienced, I remember “Out of Oz” by Gregory Maguire and my love for Rain and Tip. I couldn’t read anything for ages!
    And as for the anxiety, it really does help, and I do wish I could focus on those helpful benefits instead of worrying about “what will I write next?”.
    Did you plan out what you were going to read in advance? Like month by month or anything? I would love to do a challenge such as this, as I have so many unread books in my home.

  6. Well done for reaching your reading goal! I set myself a challenge of 75 books this year and, when I finished that with plenty of time to spare, I doubled it! And I’m happy to say I’ve since reached that goal too!

    One great thing I learned from it is how to be comfortable with not finishing books. If I’m really not enjoying a book, I no longer push through like I used to. I DNF it and try not to feel too guilty. Life’s too short to waste on books that just aren’t for you, after all.

  7. Wow, that’s a crazy number. Me being a slow reader only puts me at a book a week max. Have never had the privilege to experience a book hangover. Perhaps I just need to read more. Nice piece!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
https://lucymitchellauthor.blog/2019/12/10/what-i-learned-reading-100-books-this-year-tuesdaybookblog-amreading/
lucymitchellauthor.blog
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-10
108654
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:33AOC5WU77KQJSRSGT33SBX5CROXYEZH
<urn:uuid:d08f4a86-b6af-4d71-8335-ea13f1e50c4e>
2021-03-01T22:19:46Z
192.0.78.25
text/html
sha1:HSW27TGBS27THGFYKGH5FTT4WPRCKYCW
<urn:uuid:94c78e46-5cff-4e81-873f-09fd6788076a>
https://lucymitchellauthor.blog/2019/12/10/what-i-learned-reading-100-books-this-year-tuesdaybookblog-amreading/
response
<urn:uuid:44c832cc-3205-4881-ad59-6bd9ddb4b351>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-10
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for February/March 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-39.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/