Read What You Own 2026

Great stuff!!

OK my hatchet job is complete and I’m down from 1207 to 1021 kindle books TBR! They are just in another kindle folder so if I did want to resuscitate them I could. But to be honest I am very much ‘out of sight out of mind’.

Oh dear I’m not doing very well on the kindle front! I’ve had Cider With Rosie on there forever, tried that but I just can’t get on with the style. Am sure it’s a classic for a reason but I’m not in the right headspace for that lyrical, meandering type of style.

Thought I’d try The Children’s Book AS Byatt but reading the description again just seems to heavy and hard going for right now.

Got about a third of the way into Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh but the joke goes rather over my head - you had to be there I guess.

So that’s 3 false starts this evening and my eyes are closing before I’ve managed to find my next read. I just want a good story really, and something fairly light as my brain isn’t quite in gear post-Christmas!

It was purchased in 2021 , currently reading on Kindle The Postscript Murder by Elly, Griffiths .

Yesssss 💪

Exactly same here..

You’ve all convinced me. After all I didn’t think I’d like the two that were DNFs yesterday and I was right. I could have spent that time reading something good. I’m going in with a metaphorical hatchet!

@MamaNewtNewt you could create a “possible deletion” folder and move stuff there for a bit then take a view after 6 months? I also do this!

I see 99p (say) paid for a book bought but never read as nothing compared to the value of my time reading a book I no longer like the look of. My tastes have changed in the 14 years I have owned the Kindle too and that’s fine.

I did , they'd been sat there , always being overlooked for another title so I ruthlessly got rid . It was quite cathartic .

That’s a good idea, I might do that.

Also @SheilaFentiman i should do that too! In fact I’ll make a start now.

I have actually just deleted a couple - I’m not even sure why they were there in the first place as they looked so far from my sort of thing. And I don’t mean ‘potentially great read just not my usual genre’, I mean ‘they looked dreadful and are also in a genre I don’t usually read’ - I can only assume they were free ages ago I remember they used to do a certain of number of free books you could just have, outwith prime reading and unlimited etc. There was one ‘from around the world’ I remember and some of them look to be from that, but they don’t look good so far better to just get rid and start from the ones I at least chose for myself!

I rarely buy new books and instead am constantly re-reading what I already own (several hundred in multiple bookcases so not as boring as it sounds!).
Was bought two new books for Christmas (already made inroads into one) and have another on my shopping list when it is published later in the year but otherwise I am unlikely (but not definitely) to buy any more.

All real books, no Kindle here.

I have my kindle organised into collections - sort of. Read, uncollected, and a few other categories of non fiction ones I have. Have just deleted a load of diet ones. I also have a Christmas category as I like reading some Christmas ones coming up to Christmas.

I move any books I have read into the Read category.

@SheilaFentiman - I got a refund for the full priced The Hallmarked Man. Pleased about that!

I’ll take a look but I’m a bit worried I’ll inadvertently miss out on a great read. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve been able to bring myself to not finish books that I’m not enjoying.

I had a Kindle calla couple of months ago..
I might have another look...

I didn’t even think of doing a cull. Did you just get rid of books you didn’t think you’d like?

Amazing culling @FrostyFlo

@AliasGrape a few years back, I did a big trawl of my kindle to mark things as read when I knew they were. It was quite soothing!

After my cull ( and aside from physical books I own ) my aim to get down my Kindle books is to read the oldest book and then my most recent .
With the eldest something has obviously held me back from reading them so I will have no qualms about dnf and delete them .
Lol I've declared war on my Kindle this year !

@AliasGrapeI saw a suggestion to do a ‘next/shortlist’ collection on your Kindle to help with targeting your next read. I have deleted some very old purchases, but need to do another purge.

I’ve finished 2 books I already owned yesterday -
1 The Christmas Appeal - Janice Hallett
2 The Book of Christmas- Jane Struthers

To be fair I only owned both since last month though - the first I bought as a festive/ seasonal read and planned to read in the run up to Christmas but didn’t get round to. It only took me a few hours on a lazy NYD though. The second I picked up on the 23rd in a second hand book shop when we’d gone to a national trust place. I was obviously in a headspace for anything festive, but then things got busy and I didn’t really look at it again so rather than put it away unread with the Christmas things (including several similar books acquired over the years) I decided to plough through it last night so I can pack away guilt free.

My target was 3 in Jan, I’d like to extend that to 4 now. I’ll aim to read one more physical one which I’ve already decided will be one I received for my birthday back in October. The Lost Bookshop - Evie Woods. I don’t think it’s completely my sort of thing but the giver has asked a few times if I’ve got round to it/ liked it so I want to get it out of the way and then I can pass it on.

There’s absolutely hundreds on my kindle - I can’t sort them very well since I upgraded my kindle and I think I did something wrong in the setting up process so everything just became ‘unread’ even stuff I had finished. But there’s definitely some really old stuff there from the days of first having a kindle (2012 for me I think) it would be good to clear at least one off.

Wonderful Anne Tyler - I loved Breathing Lessons. I think Ladder Of Years was my favourite of hers.

I am feeling pretty good about my decision never to read on a Kindle as I read this thread - hundreds and hundreds of unread books would freak me out, I think. I'm a physical books only kind of reader.

When I was in my 30s and early 40s I was like@FrostyFlo and bought lots of new books that I didn't read. I had a kind of epiphany around 45 that I never have to read a book that I'm not enjoying, never have to read one because I feel I ought to or because it was being talked about everywhere. It's been rather liberating!

I don't let myself but a novel if I have three or more novels unread. This is an extension of the House IKEA Rule (that we can't go to IKEA unless we hav build/hung up/installed whatever we bought last time we were there). It's hard to stick to sometimes but it's definitely reduced my impulse buys!

(Nonfiction doesn't count, I rarely finish those. They are for dipping in and out of.)

My variant on RWYO, inspired by this thread, is to only read the books I have plus library or second hand books for the first 3 months of the year. Thanks for in inspiration, @ÚlldemoShúl !

Checking in & thanks to @ÚlldemoShúlfor the new thread!

RWYO is my reading conscience as I really don’t want to give up buying the deals. Reading has become immensely more enjoyable for me since joining the 50 books thread due to the recommendations (which means I’m no longer running out of interesting books to read which is an unusual position for me). I also really like that lots of people pick up the recommendations & the posts about whether or not a book is any good.

But… lots of the deals are the fun books that are easy to read in the evening (which is when I always read). I also have books on my Kindle & bookcases that I ought to read as I bought them for a reason. These tend to be books that are hard to read at night as I need to use my brain a bit more to engage with them. RWYO targets help with that.

So I have 2 goals:

1. Keep count of RWYO as I do for 50 Books - I would like to get into double figures this year (& ideally much higher).
2. Sort out my bookcases - I need to send a haul books to charity as my bookcases are too full (so I’m banned from buying new books with a few exceptions such as the odd cookery book or a guidebook for a holiday). Inevitably, that’s going to involve some RWYO as there’s some I want to read before getting rid of them.

Les Mis is actually an RWYO for me as it has sat on my Kindle for ages - so as I’m up-to-date with my 2 chapters I feel I have made a promising start!

Finished an audiobook of Al Pacino’s memoirs but not really counting audiobooks. My audiobook stash is not excessive

This is me @VikingNorthUtsirebuying a kindle book or browsing the lovely local Oxfam book shops for more books I don’t need!!! My 12yo son has got me hooked on collecting Pokemon cards (don’t ask!) so aim to get my quick fix there instead 😂.

Joining this thread, as I have a terrible TBR pile, both on kindle and on various bookshelves. Happy to report I’ve joined a reading group last year, focused specifically on ‘All the books you wanted to read but haven’t got around to’ and have chipped off a couple that way too.

Plan to do a shortlist of a few ‘next reads’ and do a clearout as well.