52 books in 52 weeks
Those following me on Twitter may already have noticed mentions of it, but this year I intend to re-attempt the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.
The clue is in the title, really. A participant has to read 52 books over the course of a year, trying to average a book a week.
I first attempted it in 2016, and managed to read my way through 24 books in around 25 weeks before I got bogged down in reading huge non-fiction tomes. Before I gave up the ghost, though, I managed to accrue the following data:
24 books
7294 pages
13 days per book average
20 books were by authors I'd not read before
Of the 24, 10 were historical, and 6 of those were non-fiction. 6 were science fiction, and only 1 was set in the modern day.
It took me until July to finally give up. Looking back, it's a shame I did so, as I was making good time.
So, on to 2018's attempt. I'm going to try and switch things up a bit by reading two books at the same time - one via Amazon Kindle and one in physical form. The physical copy I'll read at home, at work and before bed, while the digital copy will be read on the Tube and in quiet moments during the day.
To make things easier, audio books will count towards my total.
So, what books am I kicking off with? I was gifted a superb set of Terry Pratchett hardcovers for Christmas, so there's only one place to start:
Men at Arms will be the first hardback I tackle, while Dan Jones's The Templars (another historical non-fiction, I know... It's an obsession) is the first via Kindle. Hopefully I'll be able to write some short reviews of each book as I finish it and publish them to this site.
Here we go then, wish me luck!