Month seven is coming to a close–how is your TBR Challenge going?
I have finally made some progress on mine, though I still have a long way to go. I’m up to 7 “old” (acquired before August 1, 2017) books read and 4 “new” (acquired in the past 2 months) books read for a total of 11. That gives me 25 left to go!
I’m not liking the decision to read half of my TBR books within two months of acquisition, though. Rather than reminding me to read books sooner and not let them languish on my e-reader or in a bin, it’s kind of stressing me out. Reading books is supposed to be fun, and the within-two-months stipulation made it feel more like a chore. So I’m ditching that part of my challenge 🙂 I’m sticking to my original goal of 36 books from my TBR pile, but for the rest of the year any book acquired before 2018 will count. And I’ll get to the books I bought this year as fast as I can!
And Then She Kissed Him 
I am all over the place with reading. I feel like you do, that you should be able to read for enjoyment and the goals shouldn’t take away from that. I have read 93 books so far & have a few DNF’s. I am finding myself getting in the middle of books & getting distracted by another book. Maybe I need to stay off FB. LOL. But I feel that if I am able to stop in the middle, maybe I am not loving the book. Who knows? I have a bunch of library books I am trying to finish and return before I go away Aug 17, to take my daughter back to school. All in all, I am a failure in the TBR challenge, but as long as I keep reading, I am OK with that! 🙂 Thanks for checking in, Cora!
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Don’t worry because I’m a failure too, Sharlene. I gave up setting myself targets some time ago and I’m also only reading books I really want too.
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If you’re stopping in the middle, then yeah, maybe you’re not loving the book. It took me a long time to talk myself out of finishing every book I started. If I’m not feeling it I might try it again later, but a lot of times I just stick it in the donate bin if it’s a paper book. Life’s too short to read books you don’t love 🙂
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I still have not made any headway in reducing my priority reading list. I have read 13 books since January 2018 but I have acquired 16 additional books. I’m hoping that, if I refrain from acquiring any further books, other than top favourite authors, I should make some small progress over the next few months. I still have two reviews to write before I can start reading again.
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Acquiring has been an issue for me, too, and I’ve been trying the same solution–to only buy my absolute favorite authors. It’s helping, but it’s hard to stick to that rule 🙂
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Considering everything you do for your day job, Cora, I think your progress is great. I decided before I began that I wouldn’t restrict myself from buying new books because I knew I wasn’t strong enough for that. I set my TBR challenge list count deliberately high because a.) I have such a darned big backlog of books I haven’t read yet, and b.) I knew I’d have a hard time choosing which book to read next if I didn’t have a wide range of choice.
I’m retired so I have the time to read more, so my book count is a bit higher 35. I haven’t stuck to my ideal goal which was in the beginning to only read books from this list I’d created. Fooof! This doesn’t surprise me about myself. BUT. Yes, but…..I am so glad I participated in this challenge, this being the first time for me. Because, I have read some books that have languished there for way too long and I simply can’t tell you why I hadn’t read them yet. Authors I really LIKED! Really good stories. Smack head. Why did it take so long?
I know this is strictly not part of the rules people follow for one of these challenges, but I have purchased series, one book at a time when they went on sale, deciding not to read them until I had all of the books in the series. Well, it had been so long since I’d read book one from several of these series I would’ve been completely lost jumping into book two and beyond. Believe me, the way I retain details it’s like reading a new book most times.
Lastly, my biggest personal doubt when I decided to do this was going to be not heeding the very loud call I’m always hearing to reread books I loved and just want to experience again. So I decided I just couldn’t deny myself completely and used reading several books from the challenge list as an incentive, and then rewarding myself with the ‘okay’ to do a reread. It has worked.
Good luck Cora. And good luck to your challenge readers.
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It sounds like you know your reading personality very well, and have set yourself up for success 🙂
I do the same thing with books in a series–wait until I have them all before I start reading–so I’ve got books that have been waiting to be read for years. I actually went through my bins and e-reader and made a spreadsheet with all the series I had, which books I was missing, where the books I had were located, etc. I could fill in some of the missing books by checking them out from the library, and discovered I had at least a dozen complete (or nearly complete) series. If I don’t make headway with them this year, they might be my focus next year.
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