2025 Reading Challenge discussion
ARCHIVE: Yearly Challenges
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Around the World Through Language - 2017
How to Participate
1. Post here telling the challenge leader that you'd like to join the challenge. You can choose your books for the challenge at the beginning, or add them as you go. You can join a challenge at any time, as long as the challenge is still active.
2. Whenever you finish a book for the challenge, post here and let the challenge leader know so they can update your progress.
Some members choose to update their original post with their progress to keep track of their challenge more easily, but make sure to also post a new message so the challenge leader knows to go look at your original post. You can look at how other members report their progress to find a strategy that works well for you.
For more information about how challenges work, check out this thread or ask your challenge leader.
Participants:
A. | 0/5
Adam | 0/20
Agnieszka | 0/10
Alexandra | 3/10
Alexxy | 0/5
alsmilesalot | 0/6
Amanda | 1/5
Amanda [Perrine] | 0/12
Amanda R | 5/10
Andrew | 0/10
Anita | 0/5
Anna | 5/10
Apostolos | 3/6
Berit | 10/10
Caitlin | 0/3
Candiss | 2/6
Caro | 0/10
Carol | 0/4
Carri | 0/2
Carrie | 0/2
Charity | 0/5
Chelsea | 0/5
Chema | 0/12
Cheri | 5/5
Christina | 0/10
Christina | 1/5
Cindy III | 0/8
Claire | 3/10
Claire [proud-mum] | 1/12
Clare | 1/5
cobean. | 0/5
Cosmic | 0/5
Cynthia | 0/5
Day | 3/5
Diana | 12/10
Dominique | 0/10
Ecem | 4/11
Elina | 0/8
Erika | 0/10
Erin | 0/5
Gail | 2/5
Gayatri | 0/5
Gem | 0/10
Hailey | 0/20
Harsha | 0/7
Healer | 0/7
Heather | 5/12
Imbunche | 3/5
Jae | 5/20
Jane | 4/10
Janine | 4/6
Jennifer [Bratton] | 0/21
Jennifer [Nelson] | 0/15
Jenny | 0/10
Jessica | 0/5
Kadijah Michelle | 1/5
Karen | 5/5
Karoline | 0/5
Kate | 0/5
Katherine | 0/10
KellI | 4/10
Kiwi | 8/5
Kristin | 4/5
kyla | 0/10
Lauri | 0/10
Laurie | 4/5
Ligia | 0/15
Lindsay | 3/7
Lisa [G. P.] | 3/5
Lisa (Likenbooks) | 0/12
Lulu | 0/5
Lynn | 12/10
Maaike | 10/20
Marie | 1/12
Maria | 0/5
Marina H | 2/5
Mary-Lynne | 0/10
Maureen | 0/10
Meagan | 0/10
Meaghan | 4/10
Melanie [melaniebopp] | 0/8
Melanie [twilightmama101] | 1/5
Michaela | 0/10
Mie | 7/10
Mindy | 1/10
Miriam | 1/10
Nancy | 0/5
Nicole | 0/5
Nik | 3/4
Nurai | 0/7
Olivia | 0/5
Paul | 2/5
Q | 0/5
Rowizyx | 3/20
Sam F | 0/10
Samantha | 0/5
Sheila | 1/8
Shelly | 0/3
Sherry | 0/5
Siegwalt | 0/5
Susan | 5/10
Susan C | 0/5
Tammy | 0/5
Tanya | 0/10
Tina | 0/10
Toni | 0/5
Tracye | 0/7
Tulika | ?
Veena | 0/5
Vicki | 0/10
Voracious_reader | 0/5
Wayne | 12/30
Yaara | 4/10
Zita | 0/5
I'm in for 10!
Yes, please!A couple of questions:
1. Do we choose a goal total, or does this challenge work differently?
2. Are we to read from as many different source languages as possible, or just as many translated books? For example, could I count 2 books originally written in Japanese, or does the first Japanese work fill that language's "slot"?
Sign me up for 10 in 2017!1 / 10
1. Japanese - Silence by Shūsaku Endō 1/21/17
2. German - Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier
3. Dutch - Diary of a Young Girl
4. Swedish - A Man Called Ove
5. Spanish - Blindness
6. French - Suite Francaise
7. Czech - the Unbearable Lightness of Being
I'll read 10 book for this challenge.
� Italian: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 01/28/2017 ★★★★�
German: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
� French: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 05/08/2017 ★★★★�
� Russian: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 05/30/2017 ★★★☆�
� Spanish: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 04/11/2017 ★★★★�
� Greek: The Iliad by Homer 04/03/2017 ★★★★�
� Japanese: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 09/30/2017 ★☆☆☆�
� Swedish: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 03/18/2017 ★★★★�
Portuguese: Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
Polish: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
7/10
� Italian: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 01/28/2017 ★★★★�
German: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
� French: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 05/08/2017 ★★★★�
� Russian: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 05/30/2017 ★★★☆�
� Spanish: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 04/11/2017 ★★★★�
� Greek: The Iliad by Homer 04/03/2017 ★★★★�
� Japanese: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 09/30/2017 ★☆☆☆�
� Swedish: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 03/18/2017 ★★★★�
Portuguese: Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
Polish: The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
7/10
I'm going to try for 5 books!0/5
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5.
Chinese: Death's End
Russian: The Master and Margarita
Italian: Invisible Cities
Italian: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
Polish: Solaris: The Definitive Edition
Russian: Roadside Picnic
Hungarian: The Metamorphosis
Iraqi: Iraq + 100: stories from a century after the invasion
This sounds nice, I'll try for 7 and maybe I'll increase my goal later. 0/7
Around the World Through LanguageDuration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
Russian
1. Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy Completed 6/01/17 Rating 3 stars
2. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy Completed 16/4/17 Rating 3 stars
3. The Devil by Leo Tolstoy Completed 2/7/17 Rating 3 stars
4. French
A Very Long Engagement by Sébastien Japrisot Completed 14/01/17 Rating 4 stars
5. Danish
A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen Completed 21/01/17 Rating 3 stars
German
6. The New Sufferings of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf Completed 8/3/17 Rating 3 stars
7. The Judgement by Franz Kafka Completed 21/6/17 Rating 2 stars
8. the Stoker by Franz Kafka Completed 30/9/17 Rating 3 stars
9. Czech
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera Completed 21/6/17 Rating 3 stars
10. Portuguese
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho Completed 25/6/17 Rating 3 stars
11. Japanese
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondō Completed 7/7/17 Rating 4 stars
12. Swedish
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson Completed 20/8/17 Rating 4 stars
12/12
Challenge completed
L'm gonna go for 100/10
1- Russian The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan
2- Japanese Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
3- Korean The Vegetarian by Han Kang
4- Italian The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
5- Indian Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
6- Swedish The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg
7- Danish Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen
8- Spanish Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
9- German Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
10- Chinese The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
I'm in for 5!6/5 - **CHALLENGE COMPLETE**
1. Japanese: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (4 stars). Translated by Megan Backus.
2. Icelandic: The Greenhouse by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (4 stars). Translated by Brian FitzGibbon.
3. Italian: The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri (4 stars). Translated by Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush.
4. Swedish: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (3 stars). Translated by Henning Koch.
5. Portuguese: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1 star)
6. Korean: The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-mi Hwang, translated by Chi-Young Kim (5 stars)
I will plan for 5.1. Portuguese: Blindness
2. Swedish: A Man Called Ove
3. French: Les Misérables
4. Spanish: The Shadow of the Wind
5. German: Ruby Red
0/5
I will do 5!4/5
3. German: Ruby Red
I'm in for ten. I have multiples from the Swedish and Japanese to read, but I'll try for 10 languages to start.Around the World Through Language
January 1 - December 31, 2017~~~Progress/Goal: 12/10 Languages - COMPLETE
✔Japanese - The Graveyard Apartment: A Novel -- 01/07/17
✔Spanish - The Japanese Lover -- 01/24/17
✔Swedish - Detective Inspector Huss -- 01/29/17
✔Korean - The Vegetarian -- 01/30/17
✔Norwegian - The Drowned Boy -- 02/14/17
✔Icelandic - Snowblind -- 02/18/17
✔Russian - Roadside Picnic -- 02/20/17
✔Danish - The Marco Effect -- 03/01/17
✔Italian - My Brilliant Friend -- 03/13/17
✔Polish - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen -- 03/26/17
✔French - A Climate of Fear -- 03/29/17
✔Dutch - Summer House with Swimming Pool -- 04/03/17
Edited: 04/03/17
I'm going to go for 10 write now! Thanks :)
Put me in for 15. Will work off of this list for now.Crime and Punishment
The Three Musketeers
The Little Paris Bookshop
I'm in for 7.1) Strange Weather in Tokyo - Japanese
2) Babette's Feast - Danish
3) The House of the Spirits - Spanish
4) The Little Prince - French
5) Kitchen - Japanese
6) The Summer Book - Swedish
7) A Man Called Ove - Swedish
8) The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying - Japanese
8/7 Complete
I'm in for 5.Goal 4/5
1. Norwegian: Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø 7/16/17
2. Swedish: The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson 10/22/17
3. Japanese: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami 11/24/17
4. German: Heidi by Johanna Spyri 11/27/17
5. Spanish: The House of the Spirits, Love in the Time of Cholera, or One Hundred Years of Solitude
I am joining and am in for 10!1. Swedish: Beartown
2. Spanish: The Japanese Lover
3. Danish: The Boy in the Suitcase
4. German: April in Paris
5. (French: The complete Persepolis)
6. Portuguese: The Spy
7. Norwegian: I Refuse
8. (Japanese: memoirs of a polar bear)
9. Spanish: Love in the Time of Cholera
10.
I'll try for 5.
I'll try for 10 too.Around the World Through Language
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
10/10
1. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
2. Chaos in Kabul: A Malko Linge Novel by Gérard de Villiers
3. Daniel by Henning Mankell
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
6. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
7. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
8. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson
9. Blindness by José Saramago
10. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
11. The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
12. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
13. Night by Elie Wiesel
14. Out by Natsuo Kirino
15. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
COMPLETE ✔️I will have a go at 10 languages.
Around the world through language - 10/10
Duration: 1st January - 31st December 2017
Last update: 27 Aug 2017
� 1. Swedish - Ting, min søn skal vide om verden ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 2. Japanese - The Briefcase ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 3. French - Round the Moon ⭐️⭐️
� 4. Spanish - Love in the Time of Cholera ⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 5. German - Back from Africa ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 6. Dutch - Crusade in Jeans ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 7. Portuguese - The Alchemist ⭐️⭐️
� 8. Icelandic - DNA ⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 9. English - Dracula ⭐️⭐️⭐️
� 10. Polish - The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I'm in for 5.4/5 read
1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (Spanish)
2. The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (Russian)
3. The Lover by Marguerite Duras (French)
4. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg (Danish)
5.
I'm in for 10. Hope to increase this number during the year.
I'll try for 5 to start.1.
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Lauri wrote: "Sign me up for 10 in 2017!"All Quiet On The Western Front is one of my all time favorite books. Hope you'll enjoy it!
I'll try for 10:1. Turkish Three Daughters of Eve
2. Dutch The Diary of a Young Girl
3. Korean The Vegetarian
4. Spanish Love in the Time of Cholera
5. Italian The Prince
6. German The Appointment
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I'm in for 12, one a month January: The Ice Princess SWEDISH
February: A Well-Tempered Heart GERMAN
March: Journey to the Centre of the Earth FRENCH
April: Snowblind ICELANDIC
May: Britt-Marie Was Here SWEDISH
June: The Devotion of Suspect X JAPANESE
July: The Keeper of Lost Causes DENMARK
August: Only Daughter AUSTRALIAN
September: Freeing Grace NEW ZEALAND
October: Kill the Father ITALY
November: The House by the River GREEK
December: The Alchemist PORTUGUESE
Completed, but continuingI'll try 8
Sorry I didn't do a very good job of updating, but I finished :)
1. Malayalam* - Hangwoman
3. Malay* - The Original Dream
4. Afrikaans - Devil's Peak
11. Icelandic - The Flatey Enigma
I like that idea of one a month...but then I like languages...so I am going to try to do as many as I can...currently I have a list of 21 languages...see how it goes.
Around the World Through Language1st Jan - 31st Dec 2017.
1. Japanese: Blue Exorcist, Vol. 14 20/1/17
2. Chinese: Bridge to Terabithia
3. German: Samson's Lovely Mortal 13/1/17
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Great questions, Candiss! Sorry for the delay in my response - I'm traveling for work this week.You pick the number of books! I'm pretty sure the original intent of the challenge was to pick a number of languages and read that many books, but I have no problem if you want to flip it around and just read as many translated books as possible.
Welcome to the challenge, everyone!
Thanks for the clarification, Cassandra! I was going to try to only choose books for challenges from the books I already own, but it seems I have a ton of Japanese, Chinese, and French translations. I will stick with the original intent of the challenge and read only one book per language, getting some from the library.I'll go for 6 books.
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Read: 6/6
COMPLETED!
Well, that's easy :P I don't live in a English speaking country, so most of the books I have and read are either from the States, UK, Canada, Russia, Italy, Germany, France or Spain. I also have a couple from Argentina, Chile and Australia.I'm in for 50 books and how many different languages I can find around here.
Around the World Through LanguageDuration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
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I'd like to join this challenge with 5 books from 5 languages. I hope I can read even more.
Cassandra, I need some clarification!Read books originally published in languages other than your own. => I was born in Poland, but spend more than 2/3 of my life in Germany and read mostly books in English since about five years. Would that mean I cannot choose any of those languages or should I choose books not in German / from Germany since that's the language and culture I'm most familiar with by now? And could I also count books written in/translated to Polish or English since I'm struggling with both languages pretty much or at least I'm not fluent in (any more)?
Good question, Agnieszka! Choose your native-most language (sounds like German?) and read books outside of that.
Interesting challenge. I would like to join in for 5 books.3/5
1. French - The Little Prince
2. German - Gut gegen Nordwind
3. German - Alle sieben Wellen
I would like to join for 10 books please :)1. Baho!: A Novel - Roland Rugero, originally published in Kirundi, the Bantu language of Burundi
2. Man Tiger - Eka Kurniawan, originally published in Bahasa Indonesia
3. The Queue - Basma Abdel Aziz, originally published in Arabic
4. The Trial - Franz Kafka, originally published in German
5. Wizard of the Crow - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, originally published in Gikuyu
6. The Vegetarian - Han King, originally published in Korean
7. The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin, originally published in Chinese
8. Death with Interruptions - José Saramago, originally published in Portuguese
9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami, originally published in Japanese
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez, originally published in Spanish
Put me down for 5 please! I'll work out the details later. :)1. German - The Trial (27/1/17)
2. French - Les Misérables (26/2/17)
3. Russian - War and Peace (5/12/17)
4. Japanese - Hear the Wind Sing (22/8/17)
5. Polish - The Last Wish (25/8/17)
6. Czech - Hexagrammaton (11/9/17)
6/5
This was my 2017 goal so I am definitely in! I'll start with a goal of 5!
Wonderful challenge....by this we could enjoy the writings from different languages. Thanks for sharing the idea. I would like to read 5 books for a start.1. Spanish : "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez
2. French : "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexander Dumas
3. Swedish : "The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the
Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson
4. German : "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
5. Russian : "Mother" by Maxim Gorky
I'm in for five at least. I'm still putting together my books to read list for the year. Will be attempting the following three for sure: 1. Spanish: One Hundred Years of Solitude
2. French: Les Misérables
3. Swedish: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Christuslegenden (other topics)The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (other topics)
The Rabbit Back Literature Society (other topics)
Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (other topics)
Britt-Marie Was Here (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Camilla Läckberg (other topics)Zhu Xiao-Mei (other topics)
Haruki Murakami (other topics)
John Ajvide Lindqvist (other topics)
Franz Kafka (other topics)
More...
Duration: January 1, 2017 - December 31, 2017
Read books originally published in languages other than your own. You can use listopias such as Foreign Books Translated to English, Translated Speculative Fiction, and Favorite Translated Literature to get ideas.
Examples:
Japanese: Norwegian Wood
Chinese: The Three-Body Problem
Russian: Anna Karenina
Swedish: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Member-suggested resources: