🎉I Did It! 2024 Reading Challenge

by K.C.
A young, white woman with reddish blonde hair sits at a picnic table reading a book. There are flowers and grapes around her on the table, as well as a straw hat.

Featured image by Daka on Pexels.com.

I participated in The Calm Scribe’s Reading Challenge for 2024. Today I’m looking back to see how I did.

The Goal

Last year I didn’t hit my goal of reading 26 books, with more of them being off the original planned list. So I reused that as my goal this year.

From the List

With a few substitutions and one trade, I read ALL of the books on the list, including the two bonus books.

The Substitutions

  • Instead of The Forging of the American Empire by Sidney Lens (which was a carryover from previous years, which I did pick up again, but still have not finished), I read Postcolonizing the International: Working to Change the Way We Are edited by Phillip Darby.
  • Instead of How Will Capitalism End? by Woolfgang Streeck, I read Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America by Lawrence B. Glickman.
  • Instead of finishing Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi as my “won an award” book, I read Death with Interruptions by José Saramago. (He won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I hope that’s close enough. I was never going to get my other planned book read in time.)

The trade was counting Stamped as my “over 500 pages” book (as it was originally), instead of trying to read all of American Gods in just three days.

A Few Notes

I’m getting more comfortable with purposeful DNF’ing. I hadn’t read Stephen King’s Dark Tower trilogy in years, so I thought it would be nice to revisit it. I finished The Gunslinger, but had to DNF The Drawing of the Three when I hit a flurry of n-words I hadn’t recalled were there. If that is King’s introduction to the Black character, I am not interested to read the rest of what he has to say about her.

The book I chose by the cover, Time Trap by Micah Caida, was the first in a trilogy. I was intrigued by the story, so I finished all three books. Before diving in, though, beware that there is racism and sanism throughout, getting steadily worse in each book.

Also, Ghost River by Chad Ryan (“debut novel,” chosen during the year) is another very interesting story. It gets pretty gory though, and contains anti-Indigenous language.

The other TBD book, “received as a gift,” ended up being a book I was lent, The Includers: The 7 Traits of Culturally Savvy, Anti-Racist Leaders by Colette A.M. Phillips.

My Additions

I have a lot this year. In addition to The Gunslinger and the other two Micah Caida books (Time Return and Time Lost), I also read:

  • Pirates’ Gold by H. Bedford-Jones (audiobook),
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (audiobook),
  • Orlando by Virginia Woolf (audiobook),
  • Consumer Boycotts: Effecting Change Through the Marketplace and the Media by Monroe Friedman,
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair,
  • As Long as Grass Grows by Dina Gilio-Whitaker,
  • The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (another loaner),
  • The End of White Politics by Zerlina Maxwell, and
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. (I’ve read this a couple times before, but I read it again for some writing research.)

I still have not finished The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

How I Did

Challenge books: 26, plus the two bonus books.

Additions: 12.

I read: 40!

My reading slowed over the summer as usual, but I was determined to hit my goal this year, so I was able to push through. Listening to audiobooks before bed helped not only with reaching the goal but also with falling asleep!

I also finally crossed eight carryovers off the list! I’ll be starting 2025 with an almost fresh slate. (And no excuse not to finish Malcolm X!)

Did you have reading goals this year? How did you do? HMU @kcotenti on Twitter to share!