The 2015 Book Challenges Wrap-Up

Amazingly, among all the busyness of last year, I got some reading done. Granted, it came in spurts and hardly anything would have been read if it hadn't been for children's books and audiobooks on the 10,000+ miles I drove. Still, I read. And I was WAY under goals. But if it hadn't been for my splurge of December reading, I would have only been at 50% of my main reading goal. As a reminder, here was our points system for the S-n-H Challenge:

1. Each book must be at least 100 pages to count. (Under 100 equals .5 points.)
2. The first book in a category is worth 10 points. The rest are worth 5.
3. Any book you own is worth 25 points.
4. Any books on your goodreads "to-read" list previous to 2015 is worth 25 points.

This past year we piggy-backed on another's challenge, and worked on 51 categories. 51!!! Again, I am amazed that I finished all but 2. There wasn't really a strategy. Periodically I'd look at what I read and fit them in a category somewhere. It wasn't until December that I actually started to pick books to fill a category. And there may have been a couple of categories that I tweaked a bit to fit more of something that would actually interest me.

So, here are the spreadsheets of the 51 categories, as well as my 2 "other" books, my Pic bks, and my Total Points. There is also my random A to Z Scrabble Challenge--because I just can't stop myself. This year I was interested to see how many letters I could cover, not so much the points. Scoring goes as follows:

 1 point: A, E, I, L, N, O, R, S, T, U
 2 points: D, G
 3 points: B, C, M, P
 4 points: F, H, V, W, Y
 5 points: K
 8 points: J, X
 10 points: Q, Z

 Can only count an author once. (Which is always to my disservice in my liking series.) For my name's letters (H and T), I get to add 1 point on for each time that letter was read.
 

And the comparisons!

2013 Total Books: 287
2014 Total Books: 299.5
2015 Total Books: 182

2013 Total Pages: 29,584
2014 Total Pages: 24,656
2015 Total Pages: 15,766

2013 Points: 1152.6
2014 Points: 1429.9
2015 Points: 1043.2 (not bad, considering!!!)

For A to Z:
2012 Titles: 246
2013 Titles: 223
2014 Titles: 79
2015 Titles: 51

2012 Title Letters not read: Q, X, Y, Z
2013 Title Letters not read: G, J, K, N, Q, X, Y, Z
2014 Title Letters not read: K,Q, U, V, X, Z
2015 Title Letters not read: J, K, N, U, V, X, Y, Z

2012 Highest Scoring Title letter: H (30 points)
2013 Highest Scoring Title letter: H (35 points)
2014 Highest Scoring Title letter: B (27 points)
2015 Highest Scoring Title letter: W (24 points)

2012 Authors: 210
2013 Authors: 254 (whoa! Go me!!)
2014 Authors: 64
2015 Authors: 39

2012 Author Letters not read: N, Q, U, X, Z
2013 Author Letters not read: E, I, Q, U, X, Y
2014 Author Letters not read: I, N, Q, R, U, X, Y, Z
2015 Author Letters not read: G, I, K, L, O, Q, R, X, Y

2012 Highest Scoring Author letter: W (28 points)
2013 Highest Scoring Author letter: Tie! B & H (30 points)
2014 Highest Scoring Author letter: H (35 points)
2015 Highest Scoring Author letter: J (16 points)

2012 Grand Total: 456

2013 Grand Total: 477 (wow. higher even with reading less.)

2014 Grand Total: 346

2015 Grand Total: 233

Oh. My. Wow. Seeing the final numbers--I really didn't read much at all!!!!

For 2016: I'm not going to set a goal with the intention to read less like I've done the last ~5 years. I'm setting a goal, and I'm going to aim for that goal. Aim high, but not too out of reach. Hey, a single girl has to do what she needs to do to get married! And work well at her job and Church calling...