My goal for this year will also be about reading. A few months ago, I realized I am reading only from a very limited list of cultures. Earlier (a few years ago), I actually already thought I would like to read from some new cultures (specific direction was defined a bit differently at that point) but because it was a vague wish, nothing happened on that front – literally 0 books were read.
So I decided to make this a formalized year-long challenge. I identified a list of countries from which I have read something (relatively modern), which ended up around 34. Then I made a list of potential texts from countries from which I had not read anything yet, making sure they are reasonably spread among the continents. If I were to read 1 such book a month, I decided it will be 3 from Asia and Africa each, 2 from Europe and South America, and 1 from North America and Ocenia.
This was in late September. I envisioned one huge problem with the feasibility of this challenge: I have an issue with translations, so I didn’t want to commit to the year-long thing knowing this might be an issue. Hence, I decided to use the remaining 3 months of 2025, add three slots, and start immediately. Since you see me having arrived at this point where I am committing to the entire year, you can already guess that the trial period was successful. But it actually started pretty badly, and the first two takes were DNF’s partly because of the translation, so I am very glad I am past that trial-and-error phase and have more certainty at this point when I am committing to the entire year. I actually have done 7 countries (including one dependent territory) so far - plus read an eighth title to sub one of the DNF’s, so I am starting the year with a bit of buffer.
The actual parameters of the goal (tbr_world) are as follows:
-
10 pages/day, for the entire year. This was calculated based on the average number of books in a preliminary list, which was ~300, so the idea was that I will total 12 (15 with the added months) over the challenge. But the idea is just to continue at 10 pages/day for the entire year, regardless of how many titles that will be.
-
What counts: books written during the past 50 years from countries I don’t consciously remember reading anything from (from this recent period). I should try to switch between continents but it’s okay to count one after another from the same continent if I had an external reason to choose that as the next title (e.g. it was an ARC with a deadline).
-
I should be only tracking one book at a time - i.e. I might be reading the next one in parallel, but only one is counted towards the goal at a time, I should finish or formally DNF it before I can get credit for the pages read in the next book.
-
In case one of the titles is a graphic format (I already had one picturebook and one graphic novel in the trial run), I am strongly recommended to ratchet the road by the number of pages, but I am free to decide when to ratchet — e.g. if I need buffer asap ahead of a trip to reduce overwhelm, I may use a quicker-to-read format for that and only ratchet later when I am past that stressful period. But otherwise all formats count: long fiction, short stories, children’s books, graphic formats, memoirs, essays, (poetry, drama — yes, but I don’t currently have any on the list of options and it’s not something I read often).
-
I don’t have to stick to the original list; adding new ARCs, newly published translations etc. is totally acceptable. Just when adding, I should strive for the spread between the continents — at least the original numbers listed above for the continents should be achieved by the end of the year.
-
If I DNF, I count the number of pages I actually read and move on. I may count another title from the country from which I DNF’d something, but I don’t have to. I may not count another title from a country from which I read a full book (e.g. sequels, if I choose to read them, do not count toward the challenge).
-
I attempted not to include outwardly diasporic authors as representatives of their countries of origin, but this is a heuristic criterion, not a strict no-no if an author dared to spend any time outside of their country of birth
-
I may include some still colonized territories as entries if the voice is distinctively non-metropolitan and strongly associated with that place, because it would be awful to exclude a culture based on their lack of success in gaining independence. But if all goes well, I am already thinking about another challenge for reading from stateless cultures for 2027.
-
Type of challenge: No derailments. That is, no changes to the road allowed other than ratcheting to cut some of the accrued buffer.
I am also throwing in my 30 Euros into the cauldron for the draw! (And let me think if I have another in mind where the no-excuses challenge will make sense.)