Well, I wasn't really active here on booklikes in the last couple of months, but I swear I will do better this year :-)

 

Even though I didn't read as much in the last couple of months as I did in the first half of 2014, I managed to complete the fifty fifty challenge and I'm really proud that I succeeded twice in a row now. I managed to read 50 for me new books and watch 50 films I've never seen before. But to be honest, I didn't read exactly 50 books, because I counted those books that were longer than 600 pages as two. So, not really 50. but the rules allow it, so I did it :) 

 

I also took part in a challenge called "Read me" where all participants had to read at least one book every month according to a specific topic. And here are my results:

 

January: read a book from a new author

- J. J. Abrams & Doug Dorst - S

- Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven Boys

- Peter S. Beagle - The Last Unicorn

 

February: read a book with a white cover or snow/ice on the cover/in the title

- Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

- Brandon Sanderson - The Final Empire

- Brandon Sanderson - The Well of Ascension

 

March: read a book with an antihero/villain protagonist

- Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns

- Umberto Eco - The Prague Cemetery

 

April: read a book with religious symbols on the cover or in the title/story

- Sebastian Fitzek - Noah

- Walter M. Miller Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz

- Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita

- Hubert Knoblauch - Qualitative Religionsforschung

 

May: read a book that takes place under the sea, or has a cover with this theme

- Neil Gaiman - The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

- Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

 

June: read a book with animals as protagonists

- Richard Adams - Watership Down

- Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon

 

July: read a book that takes place in an exotic place

- Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl (place: Bangkok)

- Haruki Murakami - Kafka am Strand (place: Japan) (engl. title: Kafka on the shore)

 

August: read a book about classic time travel or alternative history/past

- Philip K. Dick - The Man In The High Castle (alternative history)

 

September: read a book that won an award (joker)

- Alice Munro - Zu Viel Glück (engl. title: too much luck)

 

October: read a book with elements (fire, earth, water, wind) or horoscopes on the cover or in the title/story

- Jim Butcher - Small Favor

 

November: read a non fiction book

- Bud Spencer - Mein Leben, meine Filme. Die Autobiografie (engl. title: my life, my movies)

 

December: read a Christmas themed book

- Terry Pratchett - Hogfather

 

As you can see I didn't read as much since August, but I managed to choose one book for every month. It was a really fun challenge, especially the months with the "literature award" and "non fiction" topic. I definitely need to read more non fiction in the future - while researching which book I should read in November I found a lot of interesting stuff.

 

Last but not least two resolutions from last year: More Science Fiction and less Young Adult. Let's see how I did with those two:

I only read ONE young adult book last year --> The Raven Boys by Meggie Stiefvater and I finished six science fiction books. Some of them were really great, others not so much. Especially with the science fiction classics I had a lot of problems. E.g. The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr. or Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe. But, as mentioned before, there were others I quite enjoyed: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (maybe even the best book I read last year) and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

 

This year I won't participate in any challenge at all. I loved all of them last year and it was a lot of fun, but I want to just pick books because they are interesting and not because I need to read something for a specific topic. And I'm definitely sure I won't manage to read 50 books this year, so I won't take part in the fifty fifty challenge again. Maybe my challenge this year is to not take part in any challenges ;) other than the one here on booklikes where I set a goal to read about 20 books, of course ;) but I chose a low number of books, so it won't be a challenge at all - it's just a way to track the number of books I've read.