This is that time of the year where you look back and cringe at all the failures, swallow it silently and tell the world how successful this year has been. This is that time of the year, where you talk about your Goodreads Reading Challenge.
I posted about by Goodreads Reading Challenge – 2019 last year. I surpassed the challenge with flying colours. And then this year, I set myself a conservative target of 18 books. And I barely finished one-third of it. I completed only 6 books. Add in another 3 mini books that would qualify more as a flyer than a book and 2 physical books that didn’t show up on Goodreads. And many half-read books. This year, I was distracted from reading partly because of work and mostly because of Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar. Yes, excuses.
I had also mentioned about my daughter reading about 100 books in 2019 in my post about Kindle Unlimited. Naturally, I was curious this year also to check her count for this year. This is the breakup for 2020, thanks to the lockdown.
| Physical Books | 30 |
| Kindle Books | 189 |
| Magazines/Comics | 71 |
| Total Books Read | 290 |
I am not joking. She has completed close to 300 books including some magazines. But 200+ actual decent sized books is just nuts. I am incredibly proud. At the same time, I am beginning to wonder if too much reading is a distraction in itself. We have seen only positive side effects so far but this is something that we have to keep an eye on.
The feature image above is the stack of physical books that my daughter had read or has been reading in the past 2 years. I haven’t read that many in my whole life.
Now that I got rid of Netflix and YouTube Premium in the middle of this year, I hope to pick up my slack on reading in 2021.
Happy New year to you and your family!
Pointless & Prosaic 
Wow, your daughter is a serious Reader! My thoughts (as a lifelong reader) on whether this is a good thing: it’s great because you’re never bored, you accumulate a lot of knowledge – some useful, some not, your imagination is developed a lot, and with it empathy towards others. In the other hand, readers may tend to live in their own dream world and lose touch with reality, especially if we read mainly fantasy and fiction from cultures other than our own. This certainly happened to me. But if your daughter, is reading a good number of Indian books, plus non fiction like science, history, etc, she should be ok. Based on the experience of my own daughters.
I can’t believe. I have heard a similar story where one of my friend finished all the books in the library near her home and looking for bigger better library. Till now I thought that’s a joke. But may be not.
She reads mostly America based books because that’s available more in Amazon. However, I try to buy few books related to Indian culture/mythology. She has read Sudha Murthy, Ramayan and Mahabharatha by Rajaji, Immortals of Meluha, Secret of Nagas from Shiva Trilogy, Scion of ikshvaku, Sita from Ramachandra series both by Amish Tripathi. Non-fiction is yet to be explored. Do you have any recommendations for a 11 year old?
It may not be a joke. Looks like there are many many people who read many many books each year. You can find many such on Goodreads platform.
Try this list: https://indianexpress.com/article/parenting/learning/kids-fiction-non-fiction-ya-books-indian-authors-2018-yearender-5513882/lite/
There are also lists of Indian middle grade books on Goodreads. Btw, I’ve also written a couple of books for this age group, and would be happy to send e-copies to your email address.
That’s great. Didn’t know you published books Please do send the links. I would be happy to buy them if they are available on kindle.