Tag Archives: book challenge

The 2017 Reading Challenge

Each year, I try to commit to reading a book a week. That is 52 books a year.

With every book read, I reward myself monetarily so that I can purchase something very expensive that I really want.  In past years, I used that money to purchase a very expensive designer handbag.  This year, I am using my earnings to save money for my new home.

I created a reward system as a way to force myself to save.  This year’s reward system is designed to help me save more for my new home, as well as declutter my library (both physical and electronic).


Make the Time to Read

This past year, I found other lovers of books reading more than 100 books in a year.  While that is an incredible challenge to complete, I resolved to read more than 52 books this year.

I’ve heard from a lot of people lately how they are lucky to read one book a year.  I don’t know what they are doing, but everyone should be reading more.  It is important to keep challenging your brain and your mind.  We need to always be continuously learning.

I am a very busy person, but I also make the time to read.  It is important to analyze what is sucking away your time.  I bet the main culprit are your devices.  Put down your phones (unless you’re reading a book on it).  Stop scrolling through social media.  Stop playing games all of the time.

Take a moment to disconnect.


You can find time to read.  You can even listen to audio books.  I do.  At the office, I’ll put my headphones in, find a free classic on audio and listen to the book.  That counts as part of the reading challenge.

If you have some free time at the office, find an ebook on Kindle Unlimited and read up on a subject matter that can help you with your job.  Many ebooks are 50-100 pages and are very quick reads filled with so much information on how you can be better at your job.

When you’re commuting, listen to an audio book or read a book.  You can get books for free at the library, including the latest ones.  You can even download library books to your devices.

There are many ways you can indulge in reading a book every single day.  Seriously…you can listen to a book and play Candy Crush at the same time.

I would like to challenge all of you to read a book a week this year.  I’ll be sharing my resolution with you in hopes that it will inspire you to read more books.

We should never stop learning.  We should always encourage each other to become more educated, even if it is just through books.  There is always something new we can discover in books.


My Reward System

So without adieu, here’s how my resolution works.  You can use this as a guideline when you set up your own reward system.

REWARD SYSTEM

Classic = $100
Library Book (i.e.  free book) = $50
Book purchased in 2017 = cost of book x2
Review Books* = $25
Personal library + donated after reading = $50
Personal library = $30
Electronic book = $10

[*I am asked to review books by authors and publishers on a regular basis.]

You don’t have to create your own reward system exactly like mine.  Construct your chart based on the type of books you want to read and how much you can afford to save towards whatever your goal is.

I put classics at $100 because they are considered ‘smart’ books, meaning, it takes a little longer to read.  Since one of my resolutions this year is to minimize more, if I donate the book, I’m rewarded a little more than if I keep the book.


Keep track

Finally, keep track of what you read.  Keep a list of the books you’ve read in the form that is easiest for you.

I record my list in my calendar so I can see the date each book was completed.  I also write down the name of the book so that I when I look over my resolutions at the end of the year, I can see what types of books I read for the year.

I also record the name of the books read on a pretty piece of paper…like a library card.  I noticed this in the movie “Mr. Church” and thought that would be a cute idea to keep track of what I’m  reading all in one place.

Also, since I sometimes forget if I’ve read a book before, I keep a notebook of all of the books I’ve ever read.  There have been a few times when I’ll get 3/4 of the way through a book before I realize I’ve read the book before.  I am not one of those that likes to re-read books, because there are so many books out there that need to be read and so little lifetime with which to do it in.


PW’s Reading Challenge: Books Read 2017

For those wanting to follow along with my resolution, here are the books I’ve read.  I will be doing a review of each book on the site and linking to where you can purchase the book at Amazon.  [Note: When review is complete, review link will be live.]

If I am able to interview the author, I’ll also put a link to that interview as well.

So happy reading and good luck.

Currently reading: Silence by Shūsaku Endō and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

    1. Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan.
    2. Lost Horizon by James Hilton.
    3. I am Jim Henson by Brad Meltzer. Review
    4. I am Rosa Parks by Brad Meltzer. Review
    5. I am Helen Keller by Brad Meltzer. Review

Disclosure: I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. Your purchase helps support my work.




Reading Material: What I Read (May Books)

For those who are challenging yourself to read more, I wanted to share with you a few of the books I’ve read this past week.


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1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.  With the trailers coming out for the new Tim Burton movie, this story looked absolutely fascinating, so I ordered the first three books.  I finished the first one in the series last week.

I will say the first book was a little boring.  I think he spent too much time setting the story up in this first book, so I’m hoping that the next book really gets into the adventure.

I do like what the author is doing as far as these characters are concerned.  Consider the first book the background that lays the groundwork to the adventure.  The second book (so far) is starting the kids off on that journey.


[usr 5]

2.  31 Days to Radically Reduce Your Expenses: Less Stress. More Savings.  As part of a new series I’m starting here, I wanted to do some research and get some new tips on being frugal.  I always like to stay abreast of what people are saying about personal finance and how to be more frugal.  While I incorporate a lot of the author’s tips, I did learn a few things along the way.

I really liked her “Household Wish List” suggestion.  I also tend to splurge during Christmas.  While having a Christmas Savings Account is nothing new, it made me think that it’s not such a bad idea to buy Christmas gifts throughout the year, but also create a savings account for all of those big ticket purchases.

It’s definitely worth a read and FREE to read if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.


[usr 5]

3. Six Dollar Family.  What I love about this book is how it got its name.  The author started off with $6 to her name, living in a homeless shelter to now on her way to her first 6-figures.  A lot of her tips are drastic, but I was just so amazed.  I loved how she incorporated her DIY for medicine and toiletries in the book.  She takes the all natural approach to those DIYs, which end up working out so much better than the expensive stuff at the store.

I downloaded all of the apps she suggested + more.  The way I look at life is that you need to bleed every single dollar…make sure you get as much as you can out of every single dollar you spend.  Who knew that I could get double the rewards back if I use the Ibotta app and Checkout 51 to report my shopping receipts?  You didn’t know either?  That’s what I’m saying about this book!

She took being frugal to a whole new level.  I learned so much and even bookmarked her website: Six Dollar Family.

A definite must read for those looking to save money and be even more frugal than you already are.


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4. Resthaven.  I have not put up my review of this book on Amazon.com yet for a reason.  It’s because the detailed review will come from this site first.  I also want to read the other book by Erik Therme before doing an interview with him (yes, that was a teaser).  Note that I gave this book a 5/5 stars.  Why?  I got to the very last sentence of the book, flipped the page and did a “Whaaaaaatttt?”

The next page was the author page.  I flipped back to the last page and re-read the last two lines and did a “Whaaaatttt?”  Then I did an “OMG.  I need the next book!”

Yeah…that’s how good this book was.  I definitely recommend this.  It’s a thriller and mystery all wrapped up into one.  Loved it.


The Reading Challenge: 52+ Books This Year

The Reading Challenge- 52+ Books This Year
One of the resolutions I make every year is to read 52 books a year.  At the end of last year, as I started following more and more bibliophiles on Instagram, I was shocked to see that some people read over 100 books by the end of the year.  I could never imagine doing that feat.  52 books seemed doable, even though that resolution went to the wayside over these last couple of years.

This year, I wanted to make sure I didn’t just read 52 books, but that I read MORE THAN 52 books this year.

My method of attack is this:

  1.  Read 50+ pages every day.  On the weekends, read 100+ pages.
  2. While you’re at work, walking, doing dishes, getting ready for work, listen to audio books.
  3. Once a month, do a quick read that’s less than 150 pages.
  4. Finish books you started in the past, but never finished.

After seeing all of the different Instagram challenges, I thought I’d do my own to get people to challenge themselves to read more this year.

Here is how the challenge works:

  1. Choose a Reward for Yourself.  Pick out an item that you really want, that you could save for along this journey.  Be it a vacation, a luxury handbag, a pair of obscenely overpriced shoes, a class you’ve always wanted to take…pick something that would be considered a serious treat for yourself.  You should reward yourself for a job well done.  Make sure this is something you’re going to enjoy!
  2. Come up with a pricing system.  This will depend on the price of the item you are saving for and what you can afford.  For instance, I reward myself if I don’t purchase the book.  If it was free, a library book, or a gift, I put away $25 after I’ve completed the book.  If it’s a classic (a more challenging smart book), I reward myself $100.  If it’s a book for Book Club that I purchased, I allow myself $20.  If I purchased the book in order to read it, because I just had to have it, only the retail price listed on the book goes into the reward jar, and the amount I actually paid for the book comes out of the reward jar.  Taking the money out of the reward jar to pay for the book is my way of making sure I don’t spend money on unnecessary purchases.  The only exception to purchasing the book is if it is for the Book Club.  If the book is currently in my personal library, because I am making it a challenge to read what’s actually in my personal library this year, I’m rewarding myself $50 per book completed.That’s the reward system I’ve set up for myself.  As you can see, the books I really want to challenge myself to read more of, I set the prize at a higher price in order to encourage myself to read more of those books.
  3. Keep track of what you read.  I used to keep track in a journal of what I read every year, including the amount I earned.  Now, I keep track in my calendar.  I keep stickers handy so I can place a sticker on the days where I completed a book.  It’s a good way to visually see my progress and if I’m staying on track with a book a week (at the minimum).
  4. Don’t dip into the reward jar until the first day of the year.  I’m speaking from experience here.  You are doing two things for yourself…you are working hard towards a goal and you need to learn to save for the reward at the end of the journey.  It is no fun if you get to the end of the journey and realize there’s no reward money there because you spent it already.For many people (including myself), saving money can be very difficult when we live in a society where we get what we want, when we want it.  We don’t save for the future or save for something we want.  Since I started the KonMari method, I have stopped the consumer cycle.  I was literally overflowing with stuff.  I vowed that if I wanted something new, I would have to save for it using the reading challenge.  I’m not allowed to buy the item now.  I have to work towards earning the right to have that item, so that I would appreciate it more in the end because I would know how hard I worked to earn that item.Keep the money in a safe place.  Keep it safe from yourself (if you think you’re going to dip into the jar).  Earn some interest off the money while you save.  Just keep plugging at that savings and don’t touch it until January 1st.

But It’s March

Ok.  I know I started this challenge for you to join in March.  If you’re a bibliophile, you’ve probably already read at least 10 books this year already, so you are on track.  If you are starting from scratch, we can go at this in 2 different ways.  You can either: 1) fast track (and over the months I’ll tell you how) or 2) do this as a full 52-week challenge, let the challenge run through 2017 and you can access that cash on March 1, 2017.

Whichever method you decide to do, I’ll be helping you along.

For those who are Amazon Prime members, I’ll be making recommendations from the Kindle First collection.  If you choose the same book that month, I’ll have a Book Club sign up where we can discuss the book at the end of the month.  [Amazon Prime members can choose one book each month from the Kindle First collection.  These are books selected by the Amazon editors to read prior to the book’s release date.  If you’re an Amazon Prime member, this is part of your membership, no extra charge.]

For those who need to get their extra books in via audio books, I highly recommend Kindle Unlimited.  It’s around $10/month to access many books on your Kindle device or app.  Just make sure when you select the book to borrow that it says Read and Listen For Free on the tab.  If it doesn’t, you may have to pay extra for the Whispersync/Audible audio recordings.  What about Audible membership?  Audible is $14.95/month and that’s just for one audio book a month.  Kindle Unlimited with Whispersync/Audible allows you to read the book and if you need to put the book down, you can switch it to audio and listen until you can read the book again.  Audible doesn’t allow that.  It’s just the audio book.

The only reason you should have Audible is if you want a book that is not audio available on Kindle Unlimited.  I used Audible for Book Club selections when I was having problems getting back into the swing of reading books again after my surgery.  2016 is actually the first time I’ve actively been reading a lot of books since my surgery in 2013.  I didn’t want to give up Book Club, so I listened to the books until I got comfortable with reading books again.  So if you’re concerned about not being able to read as much, seriously consider audio books.  You can listen to them wherever you go when you can’t pick up the physical book.

The March Challenge

March Books

So here’s the March challenge.  We essentially have five weeks this month.  Your focus is going to read/listen to no less than five books.  Here are the five books I’ll be reading.

    1. Kindle First [TBD]
    2. Book Club Selection – A Confederacy of Dunces (falls into the Classic category)
    3. A book about the Circus – Water for Elephants: A Novel (this book is available with audio for Kindle Unlimited members, remember to look for the ‘Read and Listen for Free’ option)
    4. A short book [TBD]
    5. A book about Time Travel – Time’s Divide (The Chronos Files) (next book in the Chronos Files series, also a Kindle Unlimited book)

Anything beyond five books is a free for all.

For those not in a book club, I highly recommend joining a book club.  You can find these at your local library or bookstore.  It’s a great way for you to meet other bibliophiles such as yourself.  It gives great insight into the book that you may not have even realized while you were reading.  It’s also a good way to meet new people and make new friends.  Books are meant to be shared.

If you don’t want to join a book club, since our book club is reading a classic, you can substitute option #2 with a classic or read what we’re reading.

For the Amazon Prime members that choose the same Kindle First book as I do and want to join in our own book club, please comment below, tweet me (@MichelleDoPW or @MichelleKenneth), ping me on Facebook, or tag me on Instagram (@diaryofaperfectionistwannabe).  I’ll share the additional details in an upcoming post.

For those taking the March Challenge, ping me on social media using the hashtag #PWMarchBooks so that we can all find each other and share what we’re reading this month.  I’ll Repost/Retweet, etc. so we can all connect to each other.

* For those playing catch-up, include a short book of poetry and choose at least 2 books this month that are less than 150 pages.  If you can, try to boost your reading by listening to a couple of audio books.  You can listen to these in the car, at work, while you’re working out, walking, etc.