Reading Challenges 2010

Some challenges I met with ease, while others I failed miserably.  Since I don't anticipate adding anything new to my challenge lists, I thought I'd wrap it up for the year and share how I did.

Work in Progress...  The 1% Challenge wrapped up in March.  Finishing 13 books didn't happen, but here are the reviews I manged: 

1.   The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan (One of my favorite reviews in my opinion!)
2. Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai
3. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Completed.  The Audiobook Challenge was a no-brainer for me.  Because I listen to books while I drive to and from work, this was by far the easiest challenge to meet!

1.  The Actor and the Housewife
2.  The secret History of the Pink Carnation
3.  The Masque of the Black Tulip
4.  The History of Love
5.  The Deception of the Emerald Ring
6.  The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

Completed.  The Books I Won Challenge was easy as well, but only because I had a small number to reach.

1.  The Brightest Star in the Sky
2.  The 19th Wife
3.  Love's First Light

Completed.  The E-Book Challenge is also a fairly easy one for me to accomplish.  I love my Kindle and it is easy to fit books into this challenge!

1.  Just the Sexiest Man Alive
2.  Dead as a Doornail
3.  New Moon
4.  Eclipse
5.  Definitely Dead
6.  Holly's Inbox  

Incomplete.   The Harry Potter Challenge was a little trickier.  Since I was teaching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in my Popular Fiction class, this challenge was meant to prepare me.  By the time the challenge ended though, I still had only read the first few in the series.  Since then, I've knocked more of them out.  Too bad I didn't do it before the challenge ended!

1.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Incomplete.  Of all the challenges I joined, The Reading Resolutions Challenge was the one I repeatedly forgot about!  Sadly, I only met one of the goals.


1.  Finish the Princess Diaries Series 

Incomplete.  To be honest, I think if I were to look back through my reads over this past year, I bet I met this challenge, The To Be Read Challenge.  My problem was that I kept forgetting to label it.  Here's what I did accomplish.

1.  Pillars of the Earth
2.  Jude the Obscure
3.  The Lace Maker's of Glenmarra
4.  Bones of Faerie 
5.  Frangipani
6.  Dear Julia 
7.  The Hourglass Door  

Completed.  Thanks to a goal to finish up The Princess Diaries series, the Young Adult Challenge was also as easy one to wrap up.

1.  Princess Mia
2.  Forever Princess
3.  Calamity Jack
4.  Scones and Sensibility
5.  Lockdown
6.  Forever
7.  The Hunger Games
8.  Catching Fire
9.  New Moon
10.  Eclipse
11.  The Dead Tossed Waves
12.  Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me 

Now that the year is coming to a close, I'm still up in the air about joining challenges again.  I know that people put a lot of time and energy into putting these challenges together, and I want to honor that.  Sometimes when I join a challenge, I tend to then let that dictate my reading, which prevents me from either succeeding or at picking up books I'd like to read.  I still have a little time to decide what I'd like to do, but I'm wondering if Read-A-Longs might be a better deal for me?  If making reading goals and giving yourself  a push is what a challenge is about, I might need to tweak the way I'm doing it and fit my goals to my reading style.  We'll see!

What about you?  Do reading challenges help you meet reading goals that you wouldn't have met otherwise?  How do you use them?