2025 Reading Challenge discussion

I used to love reading, but kind of replaced it with other hobbies when I went to university. This year however, I rediscovered reading, and I have read 107 books this year already since September!!! Now, a lot of these were slightly smaller books for a different challenge here on Goodreads, but I would love to challenge myself even more by reading 200+ books in 2019!

Books I definitely want to read in 2019:
01. A Game of Thrones - George RR Martin
02. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
03 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
04. Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull
05. De acht bergen - Paolo Cognetti
06. De mooie voedselmachine - Giulia Enders
07. Een goede raad - JK Rowling
08. Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
09. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
10. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
11. Gastrophysics - Charles Spence
12. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
13. Heroes - Stephen Fry
14. Hippie - Paulo Coelho
15. Hot Milk - Deborah Levy
16. Into the Water - Paula Hawkins
17. Kleine brandjes overal - Celeste Ng
18. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
19. Origin - Dan Brown
20. Other Minds - Peter Godfrey-Smith
21. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
22. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee
23. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
24. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
25. Quiet - Susan Cain
26. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
27. Salt, Sugar, Fat - Michael Moss
28. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
29. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight
30. Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel
31. Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
32. Swimming Home - Deborah Levy
33. Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding - Paulien Cornelisse
34. The American - Martin Booth
35. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
36. The China Study - Colin Campbell
37. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
38. The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
39. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
40. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
41. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
42. The Water Cure - Sophie Mackintosh
43. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
44. Wees onzichtbaar - Murat Isik
3 of 44 books read from my TBR

Books read in January 2019:
001. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - J.K. Rowling (3*)
002. Gastrophysics - Charles Spence (DNF at 77%; 1*)
003. Best in Travel 2019 - Lonely Planet (4*)
004. I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes (reread; 5*)
005. Whiskey in a Teacup - Reese Witherspoon (2*)
006. Best of New York City 2019 - Lonely Planet (3*)
007. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell (3*)
008. Origin - Dan Brown (2*)
009. Fear: Trump in the White House - Bob Woodward (DNF at 24%; no rating)
010. Elevation - Stephen King (4*)
10 of 17 books read this month

Scroll down or go to my profile for reviews! Apart from reading loads of books, writing reviews is also one of my goals for this year :)

Good luck Emma!!

Wow, impressive Emma! You can really say you rediscovered reading! Wishing you the best of luck with your goal & happy reading!

Thank you Jessica!

Yeah I totally rediscovered it! So happy to get back into it :)

Good luck Emma and enjoy your challenge!

Thank you Carmen! :)

I have also decided to write (short!) reviews for each book I read this year, and I will post them here too. Hope you guys enjoy, and feel free to add me on GR if my taste in books is similar to yours!

Thanks Catherine!! It is quite a challenge indeed but I’ll see how far I’ll come :) Which books did you enjoy the most and/or the least?

Emma, I feel your pain with the other hobbies taking up your reading time. For me, it's always a battle between books and hooks (I am a master crocheter). And then I started taking classes again at the local community college...

I love your reading list, and I can't wait to see how it goes.

Your rediscovery reminds me of this booktuber called Books and Lala. She went crazy reading and buying books when her son was a little more grown up.

I'd love to add more hobbies to my reading. What were those other hobbies you were doing?

@kadijah michelle Thank you! Did you make a list with books you want to read for this year too?

@adriana I have not heard about that booktuber before, but I will definitely check her out, thank you for the recommendation :) Other hobbies I was spending time on were watching tv series and movies, baking and gaming. I still do all three altough a lot less than I used to, but I don’t mind. There is a time for every hobby to come and go and come back again, or at least that’s how it works for me!

Emma wrote: "@kadijah michelle Thank you! Did you make a list with books you want to read for this year too?"

I'm still working on it.

Okay, this update is a little late, but so far I have read 10 books in January. Apart from reading 200 books, I also wanted to write (short!) reviews for each book read this year, so I will post those here too. Hope you guys enjoy! Feel free to add me as a friend on GR if my reading taste is similar to yours :)

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay

3 stars, read between 01-01-2019 and 02-01-2019

I thought this was very interesting to read after having watched the movie a few weeks ago. However, reading the screenplay instead of watching the movie made me realize that some things just do not add up, and that - in my opinion - there are way too many storylines in the book. This results in every storyline being highlighted a tiny bit, and none are really satisfying. Nevertheless, I liked learning more about everyones backstory, even if it did raise more questions than it answered. Hopefully the next few movies/screenplays make up for this one!

1/200 books read

Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating

1 star, read between 09-10-2018 and 03-01-2019

[DNF at 77%]

This was such a huge disappointment! On paper, this book should have been right up my alley: food, science, flavor and psychology all wrapped up into one. In reality however, I thought it was absolutely horrible.

The book is just plain boring! Reading it felt like reading multiple essays that had no real connection with each other / storyline that connected them, which made the book incoherent and hard to follow. In my opinion, even non-fiction books like this one should have a storyline or logical order to their chapters, and this book just did not have that.

Furthermore, I got VERY tired of reading on and on about Heston Blumenthal this, and his restaurant The Fat Duck that. We get it, Charles. You are a super cool guy who is friends with numerous Michelin-star chefs. Now please cut the BS and give us some interesting (pop)science instead of anecdotes about famous restaurants and the “experiments” you performed there.

Also, can we please talk about the fact that physics has nothing to do with the science that is talked about in this book?! Sensory science is the accurate term for this field, so please don’t make it seem more impressive by calling it gastrophysics.

All in all, I gave this book my best shot by picking it up multiple times between November 2017 (when it first came out) and now, but it is just not worth my or anyone else’s time.

2/200 books read

Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2019

4 stars, read between 09-12-2018 and 06-01-2019

It’s always interesting to read what the Lonely Planet editors have selected as top destinations for the year. On my to-go list is Jordan, Egypt, Peru and some city trips to Eastern Europe: Poland, Albania, Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia hopefully. I will probably not visit all these places this year, but I love reading and dreaming about it.

3/200 books read

I Am Pilgrim

5 stars, read between 03-01-2019 and 07-01-2019

This was a reread for me, but yes I still love it!

The beginning is quite slow, but after the first part it really picks up. I feel like it gets better the closer you get to the ending, which is great in my opinion. It doesn’t leave you with a million questions, but also leaves enough of an opening for perhaps a second book.

4/200 books read

Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love & Baking Biscuits

2 stars, read between 07-01-2019 and 08-01-2019

This book gave a small peek into what it is like to grow up in the South, but it was definitely a bit too fluffy for me. I would have liked to get a bit more information on the various topics she discussed, because it felt that everything was now quickly skimmed over.

All in all, it was entertaining, but I would not recommend it.

5/200 books read

Lonely Planet Best of New York City 2019

3 stars, read between 06-01-2019 and 09-01-2019

This guidebook was supposed to be full of the hottest and newest places to go, eat, shop and see, but I was a bit disappointed. I don’t feel like this guidebook captures the really new hotspots, even though it is a yearly edition that is updated each fall for the upcoming year. Furthermore, I also feel like a lot of sights have been left out of the book, so I am contemplating if I should pick up another guidebook before I go to NYC. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the more modern layout compared to the classic Lonely Planet guidebooks.

Although I won’t pick up another ‘Best of ... yearly edition’ in favor of its original, it definitely managed to excite me to go ASAP!

6/200 books read

Fangirl

3 stars, read between 08-01-2019 and 11-01-2019

I really enjoyed reading about the family dynamics, but that romance... cringe cringe cringe! Also, the ending was quite unsatisfying to me, as it felt very rushed.

7/200 books read

Origin

2 stars, read between 11-01-2019 and 14-01-2019

Ugh, this was such a disappointment!!! I saw the ending coming from miles away, and honestly the ending as a whole was not as satisfying as I would have liked, since it still left me with quite some questions. Also, what about Inferno???? It was never mentioned, even though the ending of that book had a really big impact on the world? There was a perfect moment to mention it, but alas, it wasn’t.

I guess I am a lot older and wiser (lol) than when I read his first couple of books, which is why I can now see all the negative aspects of Dan Brown books. Same formula for every book; pretty bad writing; and way too much focus on making to book easily adaptable to the silver screen rather than writing a good book.

Would not recommend, unless you’re into disappointing thrillers that have some ‘interesting’ facts about science, religion, symbolism and art.

8/200 books read

Fear: Trump in the White House

No rating, read between 02-12-2018 and 15-01-2019

[DNF at 24%]

Ugh, my dislike for Trump is too much, I cannot motivate myself to read a book about him, which is why I decided to place this on my DNF pile.

The book itself is not bad at all though! The writing is good and everything seems to be properly researched as far as I could tell by reading only ¼ of it.

9/200 books read

Elevation

4 stars, read between 15-01-2019 and 16-01-2019

This was a really nice short story. I usually dislike books in which certain things are not explained, but for this one I didn’t mind the open ending.

10/200 books read

It looks like you are off to a great start Emma.

Thank you Kadijah!! How is your reading challenge going?

Terribly. My college classes have taken over my life and I have no time to read for pleasure, but this week I learned what the parts of a cell do, so it's not all for nothing.