It’s almost that time again! For the past few years I’ve been playing a kind of sort of game: a Game of Books! This year, I’m already set up to do a third year of it, alongside my sister (third year) and my wife (freshman). Basically: read books, earn points, stay on track.
The idea is to encourage me to meet not an arbitrary deadline of x books per year (which could be 200 really short books) but to give me a way of earning equal credit for each book, depending on effort and a few other factors.
So here’s the points system (for me):
Points Acquisition Length Joy Factor Series How long did it take to read? Bonus
1 2019 Comic book, sub-150 pages GIMME IT None / Gave up Two days or less Book club book read on time
2 2017-2018 200+ pages I'm pretty excited First book of a series A week or less ARC (2018 onwards)
3 2015-2016 300+ pages It can wait Mid-series A fortnight or less Read within a week of purchase or borrowing
4 2013-2014 400+ pages Bit reluctant Last book of a trilogy A month or less Read in a day (if 300 pages+)
5 2011-2012 500+ pages Why am I doing this? Last book of a series O shit, what? ARC from backlog (pre-2018)
So let’s take the book I just finished, Rattle His Bones. I bought it in 2018, so it’d earn me two points for that; it has around 250 pages, so another two points for that; I was pretty eager to read it, so two for that as well. It’s from the middle of a series (three points) and took me more than two days but less than a week to read (two points). It doesn’t fit any of my bonus criteria, so that’s 11 points in total.
How do I pick my yearly goal? I pick an average sort of book, calculate the points, and then multiply that by the number of books I’d like to read this year. That way, I get plenty of credit for books that are a big time investment, one way or the other, or more important for me to read — and I don’t get tempted to hit an arbitrary goal of 150 books this year by just reading a ton of comics (though comics have their place).
Why am I blathering on about this? Well, you’re all invited to join in! The spreadsheet is here. To join in, just claim yourself a sheet, lock it so no one else can edit it, and set yourself up. Feel free to copy/paste from my formatting, edit the points system yourself (you’ll see both my wife and my sister have different point systems to me, and that’s fine — the point is self-motivation), and generally play around with it.
See you in the spreadsheet?
I like the idea of somehow compensating for longer/more demanding stuff – I’m considering setting something up.
I find it really useful for reminding myself that it doesn’t matter if I ‘only’ read 240 books — I got what I meant to read done!
Half that in a year would be amazing! I just can’t read that fast.
Oooh, I like!!!
I always enjoy doing it. And it’s so satisfying to enter the points for a monster I’ve been reading for a month. XD
This is such a cool system!! I just might have to set up something similar for myself 😉
Good luck if you do! 😀
I’m in again! I love the Game of Books – it’s the best way for reminding me that it’s absolutely fine to spend several weeks reading nothing but novellas, because those hefty tomes more than balance them out across the year. I’ll signal boost and get my targets/scoring system sorted over the next week 😀
imyril recently posted…Dancing with Fantasy and SciFi 2019 Reading Challenge
Hurrah! I was wondering if you’d be in again. 😀
All set and raring to go 🙂 Now I just need to do some reading – I’m off to a very slow start this year.
I’ve done some reading, but I don’t think I’ll ever recapture the world where I’d read two or three books in the first days of the year! Maybe when I retire…
How does one “lock the sheet”?
There’s a little down arrow by the name of each sheet: click on that, and then “Protect sheet”, then on the next thing click “set permissions” and set it to just yourself. 🙂
Ok, that’s done, thanks. I think I’ll wait until I’m more awake to try to figure out how I’m going to customise it.
Right! That’s done. Could you check whether you can see it, please? Length definitions are deliberately vague. If a volume contains multiple books or plays I’ll be counting each separately e.g. in The Books of Earthsea, each book as originally published counts separately. I’m considering a “difficulty” catagory with bonuses for Middle English or tough maths, maybe…