Welcome to the 10th and final year of the Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge. I first created this challenge in 2016 when I was looking for a challenge that fit me. I realized that too many of the challenges I found required too many books, or didn't require enough books to satisfy me, or had topics that I knew I couldn't complete. What I needed, I thought, was a reading challenge that was flexible. Something that crazy readers who gobble down books could dig into, but that might also work for slower readers. Something that got readers thinking about different types of books and exploring different genres, but that also had some flexibility if you absolutely hated one of the topics.
And so I sat down and created a challenge that I thought fit those parameters. I had a great group of friends who encouraged me and did some proofreading. And of course my friend Good Karma jumped in and said, "You can't just post a plain PDF. You need to pretty it up a bit!" When I protested I didn't know what she meant, she jumped in and jazzed up the fonts and added some nice borders. In subsequent years, she got more creative with the design and proposed a spreadsheet that I could share so people could more easily track things.
But in the past ten years life has changed for us all. Good Karma and the amazing Karly McCutchan who did last year's art work have both had major life issues come up that meant they could no longer continue to help. I've come to realize that while I really have enjoyed doing this challenge, the truth is that I'm really not particularly good at this social media thing. Every year I start out with great intentions to regularly blog about my progress, and every year I suddenly find myself in December scrambling to finish the next year's challenge with no blogging done.
It has also become increasingly difficult for me to come up with all the different topics each year. I have tried not to copy from previous years, or to steal from other challenges, but my mind wants to go back to the same sorts of things I've done before.
I love the fact that there are folks out there who have followed me for several years. I hope that you will enjoy this year's challenge, too. Feel free to go back and revisit some of my previous challenges in the future, or to maybe mix and match a bit. But most of all, I encourage you all to keep reading and learning and exploring all the amazing books out there!
Thank you for being a part of my journey.
If you want to track your reading progress, feel free to save a copy of this spreadsheet to your own Google documents or to print this PDF.
I have enjoyed your challenge every year since I first found it. I'm sad that this will be the final year, but I do understand how difficult it can be to come up with new ideas each time. I'll be joining in again! Thank you so much for all your work on these challenges since 2016.
ReplyDeleteI only happened upon this a few years ago but I'm going to download the previous challenges and do those in the future. thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteThank you for creating this amazing challenge for the past 10 years. Also saddened it’s the last one but that’s completely understandable. Was always in awe of your work and the prompts you come up with. So excited to start this years challenge!
ReplyDeleteI only saw your challenge a few years ago. Mist it the years after and found you again now. And see it is going to be the last one. I understand it is hard to make the challenges and also giving it a go on social media. I hope everyone from your team is going to have good lucks and many joys in 2025 and I hope everything is going to be fine with you and the team. Blessings and many thanks to all of you. I also going to download the previous challenges and do them in the future.
ReplyDeleteThis has been one of my very favorite reading challenges to do ever since I discovered it. I'm sad that this will be its last year, but I understand how much work things like this take. I only found the challenge a couple of years ago, so I'll go back and do the older ones going forward. Thanks for hosting this year! I'm going to try for a "blackout" again. Wish me luck :)
ReplyDeleteI just discovered this challenge from another blog and hoping to participate for 2025. thank you for these wonderful prompts!
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ReplyDeleteDear Gregory, I want to express my gratitude for the wonderful and thoughtful reading challenges you have generously provided us over the years. These challenges have been perfect for me, when I discovered them four years ago I could hardly believe I had finally found a challenge that was exactly what I had been looking for such a long time. I am very sorry to hear that this 2025 challenge will be the last one. I want to extend an offer of help on my part, should you decide to reconsider your decision and choose to keep the reading challenge alive. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are indeed interested.
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