As readers, we can all agree that we love books and that within our reading we are able to fully escape the obstacles that disrupt our everyday lives. I've always felt like books were the best kind of therapy and after I lost M earlier this year I turned to books to help numb the pain of his death. I still am nursing my wounds, day by day and the stories that I have been reading have greatly helped me to move forward and to still believe that life has more in store than just the tragedies.
Books can be friends too. Friends that are easy to transport in any all formats. If you do not have the time to actually read words an audible book is a real lifesaver. Play the cd in the car of your favorite read (my favorite is "The Red Necklace narrated by the actor, Tom Hiddleston) and instantly I am in a better mood while I am out running errands in a chaotic city. Yet, at times our daily lives push back no matter how dedicated we are to our own reading. The kids are running wild, dinner needs to be on the table at a certain time, work schedules double or change without notice and by the time we get finished with the day we just want to go straight to bed.
For some reading, challenges can be beneficial to reading because well, it is a challenge after all. Web sites such as Goodreads offer a yearly challenge that allows the readers to select their own number of books to read during that time period. There is also a wide range of bloggers who offer their own challenges from historical to paranormal and to romance there is usually a challenge for everyone. I have been a participate of such challenges in the past and to be honest I never fully enjoyed being part of the competition and so I have started ignoring all of the invites that I receive for such occasions.
My love for reading runs deep and that is one of the reasons I chose to pursue professional reviewing. As a PR I am not required to fulfill any challenges and I don't. I haven't entered a challenge for over a year and I am a much happier reader. As a PR I have deadlines that reviews need to be submitted to my editors but if I want to read one book a year I can if I want to read one-hundred-books a year I can do that. There is no competition in a number of books that I am reading. It's at my pace, the books that I want to read and the best part is I do not have to be pressured into believing that reading is some sort of a challenge.
For me reading is about growing and relaxing. If I want to read three books a week fine, if I want to read one book in a week that is okay too. As readers we do not need to compete with one another. We do not need to outshine any fellow readers with the total number of books that we read. We need to only encourage one another and to share our love for stories that make us excited. These reasons are why I no longer accept any reading challenge.
To be fair there isn't anything wrong with accepting a reading challenge if that is something that you want to do. As a reader we make our own choices and you can always pull out of a challenge if you discover that the challenge itself is not what you had imagined it to be. As for me I am much more comfortable within my own reading to live without the challenges. :)
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