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Hello all! Holly and I are so glad that this group has attracted so many members who love to read such a wide variety of literature! Hopefully we'll all have a wonderful reading year together in 2014. :)

We know that it can be hard sometimes to get your bearings in a new group, and on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ in general for those of you who have recently become members or who haven't tried out the site's many wonderful features before, so we thought a post offering helpful hints for getting started was just what we needed to help you get the most out of your experience in this group.

So, without further ado, here are a few of the things you'll need to know in order to fully participate in The 2014 Reading Challenge Group -

1. Introduce yourself! We'd like to know who you are, what part of the world you're from, what kind of literature you love, and anything else about yourself that you feel like sharing. We're a friendly group, and we love to chat and share our love of books with one another. Jump right in and join us! The introduction thread is here.

2. Set yourself a reading goal. Members have set personal reading goals for 2014 ranging from 5 books to 365 books! The number of books that you read depends entirely on you. This isn't a contest to see who can read the most - it's a community full of people who are challenging themselves to read as much as their schedules, circumstances, and personal preferences will allow. We're here to encourage each other and share our love of great books, not compete with each other or put each other down. So set whatever goal feels right for you. There are a few different ways that you can do this -

a. Set a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Reading Challenge goal. You can do this by going here and typing into the widget how many books you hope to read in 2014. Once you have that number set, the widget will appear on your personal Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ page. Every time you finish a book within 2014 and declare it "read", simply go to the Edit Review page and under "date I finished this book" select the day, month, and year 2014. Once you save the review with that date on it, the book will automatically be counted towards your 2014 goal.

b. Set a 2014 reading goal with this group. This one is a little different. On this group's main page, you'll see at the top that there are 2 separate widgets for 2014 reading goals. The first is The Genre Challenge, which I'll talk about under "c". The second is The 2014 Reading Challenge. Type into that widget the amount of books you hope to read in 2014, and follow the instructions to create a shelf on your Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ page just for that challenge. Then, every time you complete a book in 2014, remember to add it to that shelf when you edit your review. Once it's on that shelf, it will automatically be counted towards your goal, and we'll be able to see it here on this group's challenge page.

c. Set a Genre Challenge goal with this group. One of the features on this group is our Monthly Genre Challenge, where we challenge each member (only if you want to) to read at least one book each month in that month's chosen genre. The monthly schedule is as follows -

January - Historical
February - Romance/Chick-Lit
March - Young Adult
April - Humour
May - Fantasy/Science-Fiction
June - Contemporary
July - Utopian/Dystopian
August - Crime/Mystery
September - Classic/Literary
October - Horror
November - Non-Fiction
December - Adventure

We're doing this in the interests of helping members to broaden their literary horizons, perhaps to step out of their comfort zone a little bit, and see what these different genres have to offer. Each month we'll have threads set up for people to recommend and discuss their favourite books in the genre-of-the-month, as well as having a group read of a book from that genre that members have voted on to read together and discuss at length.

To set yourself a goal for this challenge, use the Genre Challenge widget on the group's main page. Type in the amount of books you hope to read for this challenge, then follow the instructions to create a shelf for your personal Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ page to store the monthly genre books as you read them. Each time you finish a book that fits the category of the genre-of-the-month, add it to that shelf when you edit your review. It will automatically be counted towards your Genre Challenge goal.

3. Set up your own Personal Challenge thread. This is not a requirement, but a lot of members are finding it useful and fun to create their own thread in the Personal Challenges folder. You can find the folder here. To create your own thread, click the "new topic" link on the top right of the list of topics. Call it anything you want, but preferably include your name in the title so that you can find it easily amongst the multitude. That thread is then your own - you can keep track of the books you read throughout the year, post your own goals or challenges as you go along, even post or link to your reviews if you feel like sharing. Others will no doubt stop in to cheer you on or discuss the things you post, and we encourage you to peek into other people's personal challenge threads as well to offer encouragement and show some interest in your fellow members.

4. Join in on Group Reads. We will have 3 main group reads each month, as voted on by our members. One will be a classic, one will be of the Young Adult genre, and one will fall under the genre-of-the-month. For instance, the group reads for January are as follows -

Genre-of-the-Month (Historical) - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Classic - Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
YA - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Throughout the month we will be reading and discussing these books. Feel free to join in with one, two, or even all three of these group reads. The more the merrier! Towards the middle of the month we'll be setting up nomination threads for the next month's group reads, again to be voted on by the group members. I'm sure we'll be reading some great literature together throughout the year!

5. Suggest a Buddy Read. As well as the official Group Reads, we also allow Buddy Reads here, which are unofficial group reads that the members set up on their own terms. If you see that another member will be reading something that you're planning to read yourself, feel free to ask that person if they would like to make it a buddy read. If that person is willing, take the discussion over to the Want to start a buddy read? thread and ask if anyone else would like to participate. Once you have a few interested parties, set up a thread for the book in the Buddy Reads folder, arrange a start and end date amongst yourselves, and off you go! You can also suggest a buddy read on your own, even if you haven't seen anyone else with that book listed in their reading plans.

6. Be kind to your fellow members. Everyone here loves to read, and that's probably more than you have in common with a lot of people you meet in your daily life! We're a community, even a family of sorts, but we're also a very diverse group with very different opinions, tastes, and beliefs. It's possible to disagree without arguing or belittling another, so we would ask that you please keep discussions friendly and be as open-minded as you can. As I said before, we're here to encourage each other and share our love of books, not to compete with each other or make one opinion out to be superior to the rest. It takes all kinds to make a world, as the saying goes, so please bring your best "live and let live" attitude to this group so that it remains fun and uplifting for all.

7. Have fun! If there's a topic you feel like talking about, feel free to open a discussion thread in the appropriate folder. If you'd like to talk about a book that doesn't have a thread yet, feel free to open one. If you're struggling with meeting your goal, let us know and we'll encourage you. If you're on a roll and feel like doing a happy dance, go right ahead and we'll join in! We're all in this together. Let's have a great reading year, everyone! :D

If you have any more questions or comments or suggestions, you can contact myself or Holly anytime just by clicking on our picture and the "send message" link on our profile page. We're here to help. :)

Sandy wrote: "Thank you for this terrific summary, Faye. It is very helpful. I personally appreciate point 2(b); it took me ages to figure this out (with reference to books I have read for other challenges)."

Thanks, Sandy, I'm glad to have helped! :)

Faye wrote: "...create a shelf on your Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ page just for that challenge. Then, every time you complete a book in 2014, remember to add it to that shelf when you edit your review. Once it's on that shelf, it will automatically be counted towards your goal, and we'll be able to see it here on this group's challenge page."

This challenge that's on a personalized shelf, does it count all books or only books of the month. RSVP.

Mod, please RSVP, else I'm stuck.

Luffy wrote: "This challenge that's on a personalized shelf, does it count all books or only books of the month. ..."

It counts all the books you will read in 2014. In order to be count you must add a date read and also add it to that shelf.

dely wrote: "It counts all the books you will read in 2014. In order to be count you must add a date read and also add it to that shelf. "

Thanks. I understand, I think.

Please bear with me. I decided not to fill in the fields. I don't want to create a personalized bookshelf. Never have. Will that hamper me? What's the difference between the fields here and the official goodreads challenge?

Luffy wrote: "Please bear with me. I decided not to fill in the fields. I don't want to create a personalized bookshelf. Never have. Will that hamper me? What's the difference between the fields here and the off..."

Sorry, Luffy, I didn't mean to leave you hanging!

You don't have to use the challenge widgets on the group's page. It's just a fun way to keep track of what you're reading and how many books you've read in a way that the whole group can see. If you want to use a challenge widget but don't want to create a personal bookshelf, you can still use the main Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ widget here. When you use that one, you don't need a personal bookshelf for it - as long as you include the date you finished the book when you mark the book as "read" (or even just that you finished it in 2014), it will count towards that challenge.

I hope that cleared things up for you. :)

Luffy wrote: "Please bear with me. I decided not to fill in the fields. I don't want to create a personalized bookshelf. Never have. Will that hamper me? What's the difference between the fields here and the off..."

I understand what you mean. At the beginning I had some refrains too but now I like my personalized bookshelves.

I add the link to my profile and on the left side you can see all my shelves, perhaps you will change idea about personalized bookshelves, I find them useful.
At the bottom of the list you can see the shelves I have made only for group challenges (they all start with "z"): /review/list...

Don't know, perhaps this can help you ;)

Thanks Faye and dely, you've been very patient and helpful.

Luffy wrote: "Thanks Faye and dely, you've been very patient and helpful."

No problem, Luffy. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. :)

Well since you ask...I'd like to know when is the deadline day for reading The Goldfinch...I know reading begins on Jan 10, but ends?

Hi Luffy,

I can't seem to see The Goldfinch within our group. Where are you seeing the information from?

Oops sorry my bad.

Hi, I've just joined. I'm going to pass on The Great Gatsby since I've never been able to like this book. I didn't like it in high school & didn't make myself finish it when I tried it last year. Plus, I just joined in April. However, I look forward to seeing other challenges. I'm of an age where I no longer feel the compulsion to finish every book I start & where I usually read the ending before I get there (things I would never have thought could ever be the case for me.) However, it's also fun to discuss books & not have to all like the same books :).

Karin wrote: "Hi, I've just joined. I'm going to pass on The Great Gatsby since I've never been able to like this book. I didn't like it in high school & didn't make myself finish it when I tried it last year. P..."

Welcome, Karin! We don't expect everyone to join in with every group read, so no worries. That's why we have multiple group reads going on at the same time - hopefully there's something for everyone! Feel free to jump into any conversation you like. :)

Thank you so much; this is great info. Thank you!

hi everyone, i am new to this group and would love to hear all your feedbacks to how to use this group.i have been reading the books i have been getting on here and have found that there are some wonderful ones out there.my lastest one was We only weep in dreams,which is a book of poems.i am trying to reach my goal of 25 books this year but hopfully more.would love to know which books you are all reading.thanks for letting me join and wish you all luck in your reading...

Welcome, Jennifer! Feel free to join in on any of the conversations here. The books we are reading together this month are A Great and Terrible Beauty, Dune, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. If you click on those links, you'll find the conversations about those books.

Let us know if you have any questions about the group. :)

Ok - So, I am MaryAnn. I like to get lost in a good book, unfortunately time poses a problem. I have written my own book, and have always found literature enticing. Needless to say, I want to read more. This looked like a good place to start. I said 4 book, but I will make it 12 for the year. Sept to Sept.
From New Jersey, USA :)

This is really informative but is it out of date or am I missing something. It doesn't seem to relate to any of the informaion I've read elsewhere on the site? SO confused

Debs-
We did a major overhaul/update going for 2015, so lairs if things have changed, but we haven't updated everything yet. I think you've already introduced yourself. There are three Group Goals (genre, nonfiction, world lit) now, a group points challenge, and several mini-challenges for anyone who cares to participate. We also do 5 Group Reads a month, plus there are always BuddyReads going on the side. Feel free to ask any questions in the questions folder. It's a friendly group.