I’ve talked before about the dilemma of whether or not to count graphic novels and audiobooks as part of my reading challenge, but recently I’ve come across another slightly tricky dilemma: how do you count something which contains potentially more than one book?
For example:
– Graphic novels/Comics in trade paperback form: eg Infinity Volume 1 contains Infinity #1-3, Avengers #18-20, New Avengers 9-10. Theoretically, this could either be one book on your Goodreads challenge, or 8, depending on how you count them.
– Collections of multiple books in one volume: eg This edition contains all three Lord of The Rings books – is that one book or three for challenge purposes?
This isn’t something I’ve given a lot of thought to before, since it’s only really come up with graphic novels for me so far. I read graphic novels almost exclusively in trade paperback form, and that’s the way I count them – it means I can track my progress on Goodreads properly, and I only have to have one edition on my goodreads shelves. Counting them this way also means each is a bit longer, and a single 200 page book alters my numbers of books read/average pagecount a lot less than reading 7 or 8 short books of only 25 pages or so, so my reading challenge doesn’t get artificially inflated.
For the first time though, I’m considering a book which runs the other way around: the Definitive Sherlock Holmes collection narrated by Stephen Fry contains 71 hours of listening time, more than 1500 pages, 9 separate books. Given my average book length of 365 pages, to read all of these in one audiobook and just count it as a single book would be a big setback for my goodreads challenge. I’m not sure what the alternative would be though – to list each volume separately on goodreads as I get to them? Which of course isn’t TRULY an accurate reflection because the edition I’ve read won’t be the one listed on goodreads. But otherwise, with a goal of 75 books, reading 9 and counting it as 1 is pretty much ensuring I won’t hit my goal. I’m currently thinking of listing them as separate books, because otherwise I’m worried I’ll never want to start the book – 71 hours of audiobook is a pretty intimidating prospect, especially without a nice inspiring boost to my challenge as a result. It feels like cheating on the one hand, but on the other – it’s my challenge, and if it’s the difference between reading the books or not, surely the option that makes me want to pick them up is the right one?!
