Happy Halloween, fellow readers! Are you making progress on your TBR Challenge?

I am, but at a snail’s pace. I did finish listening to William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope (it was as fantastic as I expected such a mash-up to be!), and I flew through Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastion (which was *such* a lovely story!).

Ye Olde Chronic Fatigue has been rearing its ugly head, though, so my previous plan of reading in the evenings hasn’t been sustainable lately–I’m just too tired most days. I’ve also got crochet projects lined up to make as gifts for Christmas, which I talked about last month, and I’m writing As Long As You Love Me So, both of which sap my remaining energy (though if I’m going to expend my limited energy on things, crocheting and writing are at the top of the list 🙂 ).

In light of all that, I’ve decided to do something I’ve never done in a TBR Challenge: modify the terms. I’ve dropped my Goodreads challenge from 36 books to 24, and I’m rolling back my TBR Challenge goal from 24 books to 14. That relieves some of the stress I’ve been feeling about making these goals, which helps make reading more fun again and knocks back my overall stress level. It’s always good to re-evaluate your goals and how you plan to achieve them–I think that should apply to reading challenges, too 🙂

Four months to go, fellow readers! How goes your TBR Challenge?

I’m making some progress 🙂  It’s not a lot, but I’ve finished two more books for the TBR challenge and am nearly through another. I’m also trying to carve out time to read on a regular basis–lately it’s been right before I go to bed–and I think that’s what’s been making the difference this past month. I may only read for an hour before I get too tired to continue, but an hour a day gets me through a novel by the end of the week. And if I can squeeze out more than an hour I can read more (or longer) books, which makes me happy. I get grumpy when I can’t/don’t read for more than a few days in a row!

We’re halfway through the year, fellow readers! Are you halfway through your TBR challenge?

As usual, I’m not. But I seem to be getting back on track. After judging in the first round of the RITAs, dealing with a busy period at the day job, taking a history class in a condensed semester (History of Modern India–very interesting, but a lot of work in 6 weeks!), and taking a literary detour to read about dog training (new dog, Bo, came home nearly two months ago, but he’s big and strong and has almost no training), I’m finally getting back to my TBR books.

After several attempts, I’ve finished The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde in audiobook, read by Richard Armitage. I started it six months ago, and though it isn’t a long book, I kept getting sidetracked by other things (and, if I’m honest, by Richard Armitage’s voice  😉 ). It was good, as I’d expected, and the narration was fantastic!

Unfortunately, Jekyll & Hyde was only the third TBR book I’ve read this year, out of the 24 I set as my goal, so I have a way to go in the second half of the year. Perhaps this is the year when I learn to balance my reading time with my writing time (and my Bo-training time!), and manage not to run right up on my deadlines  🙂

Bo, my new furkid, pretending that he hadn’t just disemboweled a squeaky hedgehog toy.

So it took me slightly longer than I anticipated to get my TBR Challenge stuff organized for this year. I lost Max to cancer a couple of weeks ago, much sooner than his medical team or I expected, and I’ve been trying to cope with that without letting everything else fall by the wayside. I’ve been more successful with some tasks (feeding myself, going to the day job) than with others (doing fun stuff, putting away Max’s things).

But now I think I’m ready for books again, and better late than never (though I hope these past few weeks aren’t an indicator of how the rest of the year is going to go).

1. How many books from your TBR pile will you read? I tried setting two numbers last year: one for books I’ve had for a while, and one for new books. A major reason my TBR pile is out of control is because I procure books faster than I can read them, and so many of my new books end up collecting dust on a shelf or languishing on my e-reader. But the 2-month rule ended up making the whole thing stressful, and reading should be fun. So I’m going back to one number: 24 books from my TBR pile this year.

2. How long have your books been waiting? For the purposes of this challenge, the books I read must have been acquired by me or placed on my library TBR list before January 1, 2019. This means I can’t buy new books in January and count them toward my TBR Challenge come September–which I found myself doing at least once during the first year, and kind of defeats the purpose of the challenge. But using this date lets me include everything I’ve acquired up until the new year began, meaning everything but my newest books will count toward my total.

3. How will you hold yourself accountable? Like years past, I’ll post here once a month to share my progress and see how you all are doing. I found that creating a Goodreads shelf and the dedicated page on this website to be enormously helpful, too, so I’ll do both again. I’m a very visual person and being able to see the collection of books that I’ve read gives me a nice sense of accomplishment, which makes me want to read more TBR books.

4. What about adding more books to the pile? Like previous years, I’m going to keep track of how many books I purchase with another Goodreads shelf. Numbers are powerful (especially to me, with my background in math), and it will be good to have a new total to compare with 2017 and 2018.

So not a lot of changes from previous years, but that’s because this setup has been working nicely for me so far. We’ll see if that continues for 2019.

Who else is committing to whittle down their TBR piles with me this year? What’s your goal for getting those old books off your shelves and apps and e-readers?