2019 was not the best year for me in terms of reading. I spent most of the year not reading much. Then in November, I suddenly got the motivation to read more and took up a media diet plan. I quit binge-watching videos and have been reading a short story and a poem every day. This has rekindled my passion for reading and I’ve decided to sign up for the following reading challenges this year.

1) Turtle Recall Reading Challenge

This challenge is to read books set in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. You can read whichever books you want and as many as you want. Although I’d like to dedicate the whole year to read the entire series, since I’m participating in a few other challenges, I’m signing up for The Counterweight Continent level (1-5 books).

Books read as part of this challenge:

• Equal Rites

2) Book Blog Discussion Challenge

Technically this is a blogging challenge, not a reading challenge. It is hosted by Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight! and Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction. This challenge requires you to post book-related discussions on your blog and link them to the challenge pages. I’m signing up for the Discussion Dabbler Level (1-10 posts).

Blog posts written as part of this challenge:

• My Reading Slump in the Time of Corona

3) Deal Me In Short Stories Reading Challenge

This is an interesting challenge where you assign a short story to each of the 52 cards in a deck. Every week you shuffle and pick one card from the deck and read the story associated with that card. If you want to do a lesser number of stories, you can use one or two suites instead of the whole deck of cards. You can do more stories as well. Check out the challenge page for variations.

I attempted this challenge a couple of years back and failed because I signed up for too many challenges. This year, I’m planning to sign up for very few challenges and read more short stories. I’ll take part in the Deal Me In “Full Moon Fever Version”.

Here is my single suit list with collections of short stories:

A♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 1 & 2

2♦  Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 3 & 4

3♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 5 & 6

4♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 7 & 8

5♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 9 & 10

6♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 11 & 12

7♦ Complete Guy de Maupassant Short Stories – Vol 13, Selected Stories by Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald

8♦ Selected Stories by Saki and Bram Stoker

9♦ Selected Stories by O Henry, Oscar Wilde and Joseph Conrad

10♦ Selected Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens and James Joyce

J♦ Selected Stories by D.H.Lawrence, Honoré de Balzac and Jack London

Q♦ Selected Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy and W W Jacobs

K♦ The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories by Franz Kafka

The green ones are completed.