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As this year's challenge comes to an end, I find.d myself being more judgemental about the books I am choosing to fill in the weeks. I have been auditioning books by reading the first chapter or pages to decide if I wish to include it in my reading challenge. Specifically I have been doing this for the Christmas week.
Does anyone else do this or something similar? Are you more discerning about your reading material now then when you started the challenge?

I think when I started to read in the challenge, I was reading so much more than I was before that I pretty much had this "READ ALL BOOKS!" mentality. I just felt like I had the opportunity to read so many more. So I essentially figured that I could give books more of a chance since I was fitting in so many more. Now that the amount of reading is becoming more the norm, I'm back to my habit of constantly abandoning ones that I'm not enjoying.

As a side note, I also have a lot of trouble sticking to a book if I've just finished one that I really enjoyed. I guess because I've gotten so enmeshed in that atmosphere that it's hard to accept another book.

I've been trying to read books from genres I don't usually read so I've been having the "real all books" mentality too. Most of the time, I've found that even though the first half of the book can be slow to get through, the second half can get much more enjoyable. Of course, I try to pick only books with high ratings, even if they aren't my style.

:) I had that "read all books" mentality at the beginning too. Since I have never kept track of how many books I read, and my reading levels had dropped to just reading my book club book, I was worried I would not be able to complete the challenge.

Now I know that I can complete the challenge, my book club books, and side reads. This and the great reads being suggested by others in the challenge have made me more discerning about the books I am choosing. At times this has lead me to being very indecisive about which book to pick to fill each week.

So many great choices, so little time.

I'm using this challenge as a chance to expand my reading horizons. Where I used to spend hours in the bookstore reading all the summaries and maybe reading a chapter and being picky about it, I no longer do that. However, I have also challenged myself this year to not put a book down. If I don't like it, rather than put it down like I used to, I make myself read it anyways. Otherwise I fear I'll be stuck in the same genre forever and that's what made me stop reading.

I'm finding a lot of the times the books I don't like pick up and turn out ok by the end. Some of them don't but that's ok too, because then I can say for sure that I didn't like them.

So I have to admit, I think I've thrown caution to the wind and I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or not, but it's an experience. So I guess I've done the opposite, I started out really picky and am ending not so much.

I have been a serial abandoner in the past, but this year, apart from one woeful piece of crap (Ketchup Is a Vegetable: And Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves) I have stuck with everything that I've started. Granted, some of them I'm taking literally months to read (The Idiot, I'm looking at you) but I have been determined lately to finish what I've started - although this is mostly because the books I've started are those that I really feel I need to read. Classics, books appearing on multiple lists of great books and so on.

I usually just take a look at reviews and maybe a preview on a site like Amazon. I wouldn't read just the first chapter and then decide because I'm too much of a completionist and hate leaving books unfinished