Part 1 – What Am I Doing Here? | Part 2 – Learning from Other Review Styles | Part 3 – Favourite Reviews I Wrote in 2019 | Part 4 – Developing a New Review Style | Part 5 – Reading Challenges & Community
Welcome to the final part in this series of reflections! Thanks to everyone who has shared thoughts and encouragements with me so far. This post is about participating in the book blogging community via reading challenges, readalongs, and other communal activities.
My Relationship with Challenges
Historically, I’ve swayed between participating in official challenges (i.e. challenges hosted by other book bloggers) and my own personal challenges. In 2019, I had five personal goals and one blogger challenge (Newbery Reading Challenge hosted by Julie @ Smiling Shelves.) I often shy away from official challenges because I like to read whatever I want whenever I want. My mood controls my reading habits, which often fluctuate with the changing demands of my personal life. That’s why I focus on broad personal goals. I use them to push myself to read the books that I personally enjoy and value most.
My Relationship with Community
I think I have a tough time finding a place in the book blogging community for two reasons: I don’t write about high interest topics and I don’t post consistently. Though I strive to write posts that I’m happy with and to share them on a balanced scheduled, blogging is a hobby and other life responsibilities sometimes take priority. I don’t intend to make any changes regarding this. I’m not going to change what I write about. I can’t control my scheduling any more than I already do. I accept that that’s just the way I run things here. My blog, my way 😛
Balancing the Two
Therefore, I’ve been thinking about other ways I might connect with the book blogging community. I valued connection less in the past. But now I’m keen on participating in more bookish discussions, so that I can share my thoughts and learn from other readers. I realized that group activities (like reading challenges or readalongs) could be a great way to do this. I’m going to be selective about which I choose to participate in because, as I mentioned above, I’m a picky mood reader. But I’m going to try to push myself a little more. Plus, 2020 will be the first year since I started book blogging where I don’t have any big travel plans or university commitments (so far, lol, don’t hold me to that six months from now….). I will also keep some of my personal challenges (to be discussed on January 2).
So now I’m on the hunt for challenges, readalongs, or readathons that I might like to participate in! I haven’t found as many as I thought I would. I looked at the GirlXOXO list and only found a few that might interest me, and not many from bloggers I recognized. Please share any activities you think I might enjoy participating in. Here’s what I’m considering so far:
Challenges I’m Considering
- Monthly Book Award Reading Challenge 2020 – Hosted by Kim and Tanya @ GirlXOXO. One vague idea I’ve had but never set as a goal is to read more award winners from certain awards. With the month by month approach that this challenge takes, I also hope to find some awards I didn’t know about before.
- Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2020 – Hosted by Bev @ My Reader’s Block. Since I will be doing this anyway (reading plenty of books from my TBR that I don’t own), I might sign up for this one.
- Turtle Recall – Hosted by Annemieke @ A Dance with Books. A Discworld reading challenge. I haven’t read any Discworld books, but I know I have at least one on my TBR. I’ll keep it easy and aim for Level 1 (The Counterweight Continent / 1-5 Books).
- Here & Queerathon – Hosted by Mel @ Cotton Candy Book Witch. A year-long readathon for books by queer authors. Another challenge I think I might sign up for because I will be reading queer authors anyway! 😛
- Go Big or Go Home – Hosted by Annemieke @ A Dance with Books. When Annemieke announced this challenge (for books 500+ pages), I commented that it was intimidating but perhaps motivating for the reader who usually runs from chunksters yet has a few on their TBR…
- Sea of Ink and Gold Readathon – Hosted by Lili @ USOM, Fadwa @ Word Wonders, and Laura @ Green Tea & Paperbacks. One book/month from the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy by Traci Chee. This is the first activity I committed to for 2020. I already have each title on suspended hold.
Last Thoughts
Hm, it’s occurred to me I only looked for challenges and not readathons or readalongs… but this post is long enough so I’ll leave it at that. I am also considering a 52 books in 52 weeks challenge (which I would use for one middle grade novel/week) and a re-read challenge (a blogger I know hosted one a few years back but no longer does so). What reading challenges or other bookish blogging activities are you participating in 2020?
The book award one does sound really interesting.
Personally I really like Book Roasts OWls and NEWts readathons. She is over on youtube. It is hp themed but she spins everything so fun and she puts in so much work.
Ah, right, I remember seeing that one around Twitter. I haven’t looked into it before because I’m not much of an HP person, but it seems like a lot of people have fun participating. Thanks for mentioning it!
Personally, I’ve found that read-a-thons often lead to more engagement for me than reading challenges. They’re often over shorter periods, so easier to keep up with, and people are more likely to be active on twitter throughout the event. A number of youtubers I’ve found are hosting some great themed events, including the Magical Read-a-thon (Harry Potter themed, I think OWLs will be in April), the sims-a-thon, and currently the page-a-thon (seasonally themed). I mostly find read-a-thons through the twitter account @readathon_guide and by just searching twitter for the phrase ‘readathon’.
That’s a good point about readathons. I’ve participated in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon many times and always enjoyed the engagement during that. I really should have given readathons more attention. I’m starting to notice booktube seems to be where a lot of the book community is nowadays…I don’t think I’ll ever make the leap to that platform, though. (I would really rather read a post than watch a video.) Thanks for mentioning that twitter account! Apparently, I’m already following it, haha, but I will definitely take a closer look at the events they’ve listed.
I’m the same way about BookTube! I don’t enjoy watching videos nearly as much as reading posts and I’m also not thrilled about the idea of sharing video of myself. It feels much more intrusive than a blog to me.
Yes! A video of me is just too much of me online…lately I have even been thinking about changing my profile images to something that’s not a photograph.