Additional Reading Challenges

So it's obvious to anyone who visits this blog that I read a lot. This is my fourth year participating in the       Cannonball Read, I do the 24-hour Readathons, I took part in the R.I.P read last autumn. I like reading challenges. Thanks to one of my main Cannonball rivals, Jen K (seriously, she reads so much, and so fast, I don't think I'll be first to 52 this year, to put it that way), whose blog I follow, I discovered three very interesting looking ones, that I've now signed up for.

The Mount TBR Reading Challenge is basically doing what I'd set out to do anyway - trying to reduce my To Be Read list a little bit. The rule is that you can only read books bought before 2013, and there are a number of different levels to the challenge, from 12 to 150+. As I'd promised myself I was going to read at least two books a month from my ever growing TBR pile, I've signed up for the Mt. Blanc challenge, which is at least 24 books over the course of the year. It's ok to upgrade, but not to downgrade. It wouldn't be a challenge if you didn't have to work a bit for it. It would be fun if I could manage more, I'd certainly feel less guilty about all the books I buy.

The Monthly Key Word Challenge  gives you a list of ten key words every month, and the challenge is trying to read at least one book with that word in the title (or closely related words) that month. The key words for January are winter, snow, silver, white, cold, shiver, smoke, fire, freeze and breath. I've already made a list of potential titles I can read, and at least three of them are on my TBR shelf. It's a win win situation, really.

The third challenge should be a doozy, considering how much historical romance I read in any given year. I've signed up for the Medieval, which is 15 books, but considering I've already read one book this year which qualifies as historical (although what exact time period it's set in is not entirely clear), I may well upgrade to Ancient History, which is 25+ books, as the year progresses.

Now, the real challenge will be trying to combine all three. Reading historical fiction books with the monthly key word in the title which is also on my TBR shelf. I'm pretty sure I can do it for at least one month, but it'll be fun to see if I can manage more.