Bookworm badge made impossible, woe is me

[random calliope]

Just a heads up - don't get too good at the skills until you've gone through the world gathering books - if you want the bookworm badge.  Once you hit level 5 (4 in some cases) the books won't allow study because your skills are beyond what they have to teach.  This makes sense, but in my current game I hit level 5 on harvesting and cooking before ever leaving Timberwolf Mountain.  My strategy was to stay 100 days in each area before moving on.  The next stop, Pleasant Valley, had books on - you guessed it - harvesting and cooking.  By the time I left Pleasant Valley everything was at level 4 or 5 and all study books were just tinder.  

Unknowingly, the 100 day stay strategy I had set, with my eyes on the ultimate 500 day badge, knocked me out of the running for the bookworm badge.

[tentacles]

It does not seem to matter if you stop reading for whatever reason. The hours you spent reading in previous games are still taken into account for the badge. After dying and restarting a new game, I still have 58% to go for that badge; not back to 100%.

Then, you might manage to fulfill a badge's requirements in a game, but that does not mean that you can activate them in your current game. I think there are quite a few threads and answers on this forum that confirms this.

Finally I don't think that these badges are meant to be achieved in a single game; these grant you benefits that you get over time by playing multiple games/rounds.

[random calliope]

I appreciate the clarification.  This is good to know.  I've been off the forum for a year or so and came back to the game much less informed about the latest tips and tricks.

Just to stay true to the "woe is me" title, I've tried to remain ignorant of exploits and being here one time briefly to report a bug and mention the bookworm (this thread), I learned the crouch when overburdened exploit.  Ignorance is hard to maintain.  I don't know how some people do it.