2016 Reading Challenges

I thought I should update my 2016 Reading Challenges List and information, since I haven't posted about them since early this year. I've made some progress on a few of them, and others have lagged quite a bit. More detailed information below. (Here is the link for my earlier post on the challenges). And I'd love to hear how you all are doing on your own challenges this year!

Foodies Read 2016
The purpose of this challenge is to read books with a focus on food. They can be fiction or non-fiction, novels or cookbooks, et cetera, as long as food plays a significant role in the book. My plan was to achieve the Pastry Chef Level of 4-8 books, but I haven't read any that qualify yet this year! There's still time, but I kind of doubt I'll reach this goal.

(picture taken from imdb.com)

Shakespeare 400: The 2016 Bardathon Challenge
My challenge for Shakespeare 400 was the Mix-and-match Shakespearean Level, 5 books and/or adaptations. So far, I've only finished two movie adaptations. Granted, there is still plenty of time to accomplish this goal, and the adaptations that I watched are probably two of my new favorites.

(picture taken from imdb.com)

6th Annual Deal Me In Short Story Challenge
Deal Me In is a short story challenge where each participant makes a list of 52 short stories, one for each week of the year, and assigns each one to a card in a deck of playing cards. I've been reading quite a few short stories, but not as many as I should have by now, and not all the ones I had planned. Moving put a big monkey wrench in my card selection process, as well as limiting my choices of books to keep on hand at a time. I may not stay true to my original list of stories to read, but there's a chance I can still catch up on this one if I read a couple of books of short stories before the end of the year.

2016 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge
For this challenge, I try to fill a list of the alphabet with titles that I read as the year goes on. I'm mostly finished with this challenge, and it's actually been pretty easy for me to just fill in the books I happen to be reading. There are a few letters (such as X and Z) that I'm having some trouble with, but hopefully it will all work out.

(picture taken from hogwartsrunningclub.org)

Charity Reading Challenge
The idea behind this challenge is to motivate people to give back in little ways connected to our reading habits. So far, I gave away a few boxes of books when I moved and bought some recently at a local nonprofit sale. I've featured one book-themed charity on this blog and have a few more lined up to write about. I also still plan to count the number of books I read this year in any format and donate $1 per book read to a charity in January of next year. So far, I'm at 45 books, which is great for me!

(picture taken from nolastorycon.com)

NoLA StoryCon
I'll be attending NoLA StoryCon at the end of September in New Orleans, Louisiana. I can't believe it's almost time to go! Speaking of which, if any of you have suggestions of bookstores/restaurants/anything to visit, see, or try while I'm there, please let me know! This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me! I challenged myself to read more books by some of the authors who will be in attendance and to read books about New Orleans or related to the city through the setting or the author. I've done fairly well with this challenge so far--better than I expected, anyway--so I'll post a list soon of what I've read for this!

I hope you all enjoyed hearing where I am with my challenges right now! Keep an eye out for more specific posts about each one soon!