New Year Resolutions
I expect that many of us have made new year resolutions, and some of us are already beginning to feel that we’re falling behind with carrying them through. Often resolutions are about a wish to improve ourselves, for example by getting more exercise, eating less cake, stopping smoking etc. It’s really difficult to keep up our good intentions on our own, though, however hard we might try. Joining a group often helps us maintain our resolve. And this applies no matter what the resolution.
Reading Challenges
That’s why ideas like the reading challenges you’ll find online can be a great help – you’ll feel part of a like-minded community, supporting each other and commending each other’s progress. Last time I looked at one particular challenge it had 458,891* participants with ambitions varying from wanting to read twelve books during the year to well in excess of one hundred and fifty – the average number was one book each week.
Twitter Groups
On Twitter I’ve also found friends joining not only #goodreadschallenge, but other reading groups such as #Penguinspo, #TBR20, and #emptyshelfchallenge.
The aims differ from group to group – #TBR20 is all about reading books you already own but haven’t yet read whereas #emptyshelfchallenge is about aiming to start the year with an empty shelf which you gradually fill with books you’ve bought and read during 2015. I rather think publishers will be more keen on the latter challenge than on the former!
And my own personal reading resolution? I certainly don’t have an empty shelf to fill but I did count nearly 20 books waiting to be read, ranging from social history, through biographies to modern fiction. Maybe with the help of my online friends I can do this – wish me luck!
*I just looked again, and the number had risen while I was writing this to 460,301!