The only race I could ever imagine myself competing in would be the Book Reading Olympics, if it existed. My main event would be: How many books can you read before you stop ignoring chores?

In fact, readers already have many “events” or “challenges” they take part in (ones that have nothing to do with chores, thankfully).

A popular one is My Book Pledge, by Savvy Reader, managed by Harper Collins. Since 2013, this is an annual goal each reader sets for themselves on the number of books they will read in an upcoming year. 

One of my close Twitter friends is already at 51 books! Her pledge was to make it to 100, and she’s on track to overcome that by 8 books read in 2021. 

Unfortunately, this will be the last year for this popular tournament, where you can not only keep track of all the books you’ve read, but also earn various badges for your accomplishments. The highest recorded books read in 12 months through #MyBookPledge is 503! YES —THAT’S FIVE HUNDRED AND THREE BOOKS READ FROM JANUARY TO DECEMBER.

Not to worry, though, because there are other similar programs on different platforms: The Annual Goodreads Reading Challenge is comparable to the above, and also has the benefit of following other readers and authors, as well as belonging to various book clubs and groups that recommend titles for related interests. The Goodreads Reading Challenge boasts over 4.5 million participants, with 200 million books pledged. 

Another site where readers can track their reading achievements is Amazon-owned StoryGraph, which is purely for recording book titles and finding new reads according to mood, topics, themes, etc. On StoryGraph, a reader can also join other challenges, like a Non-Fiction Challenge, and a Translation Challenge, where you, the creator of the challenge, gives different prompts for translated books to read (e.g: translated fantasy books, books translated from French, etc.). When signing up, you can also create your own challenge for fellow readers to join, or just do it to enjoy yourself!

I signed up for a pledge one year but buckled under the pressure. All I could think about when I was reading is how many more books I have until I make my pledge (which was the suggested 50 books a year), and calculate how long it would take to read each book to reach this goal. I quit after book #17. Quit counting that is, but I didn’t quit reading. 

A year is a long time to be counting books, so I’ve participated in shorter time pledges, like 24in48, where the goal is to read for a total of 24 hours (not consecutive), in a two-day period. My brain felt like I ran a marathon that weekend, and no chores were completed. 

Readers who don’t like to count or pledge can also take advantage of smaller and quicker little reading games, which can be found online, especially on apps like Instagram and TikTok. One such idea is Book Bingo, where you share a bingo card with different genres or themes in each box, and attempt to read corresponding books to make a line or fill in the card in whole. 

Or there’s the A-Z Challenge, where you read books according to the first letter in the title and see how many you can amass.

There is an abundance of reading challenges online. Book Riot even created a list (which you can find here) of 50 different ideas to try.

Not all readers like these challenges, though. Unlike the Olympics, let's say, these are mostly personal goals and bests to see how far you can go. Some people just want to read! Without time limits or goals or boundaries of any kind. And that’s more than okay.

After a discussion about this on Facebook, it was clear that readers are equally divided through all of the examples above: Some take a yearly pledge, some follow fun games, and others couldn’t be bothered.

Whether you challenge yourself to meet a reading objective or not, the action of reading is what’s important in the long run — and fun, too.

I believe that challenging oneself to meet goals of any kind contributes to a healthy lifestyle, but so is having the choice to decide where and when to implement said goals. My goal today is to read after I do the dishes. 

xo,

Maya B.