Reading challenge

This month my local library service has launched a reading challenge for adults that has me intrigued. Now, I've always struggled with reading books because I have to - prize winners and the latest "best-thing-since-... " tend to pass me by until all the hype dies down and unlike many librarians I've never felt comfortable with joining a reading group for personal reading although I've helped launch and pick books for many in my time and know they bring a lot of joy and satisfaction to many people.

It's probably my own control freak tendencies kicking in but I also tend to think - so many books, so little time, why force yourself to finish something just because? Having said that, contrary creature that I am, I do like a recommendation, a "have you tried" or an "I like this and thought it might appeal". In fact some of my favourite reads of the year have come via your blogs, twitter recommendations and the like - so thank you to everyone who takes the time to list what they've read, review it or even just add a picture of their bookshelves to their posts.

So what's intriguing about this challenge? It doesn't give you a list of specific books but of themes or starting points - a book set somewhere you have never been, a book you've lied about reading, a book that starts with a crime and so on for 25 different possibilities including the super-odd, a book the cat would approve of!  As a down-side it looks like a lot of the chatty activity will be going on on Facebook and I don't play with Facebook but they have a blog and twitter too. So, as I seem to be reading a lot anyway at the moment I think I'm going to have a play. I'll keep track on here using the label "Library reading challenge 2019"and post links to anything shared on their site that I think others might like.

Watch this space....