Reading challenge: tackle the book that you have owned the longest

[bibliomania]

Its time has finally come - pick up the book that has accompanied you through the last umpteen house moves, or the one that has languished longest in the depths of your kindle. The challenge is simple: to read it between now and the end of June.

If you start it and it's not for you, maybe it's time to let it go to a new home.

With physical books, you won't always know which you've owned the longest, but go on - pick one!

I'm going with Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford. It was published in 2004 and acquired by me in December 2015. Its time has come!

I am 40% into Confessions of a GP and contemplating binning it off. It’s a bit… meh. Like a “weird patient of the week” blog where you might idly read a couple of entries…except page after page of it.

Sod it, I’m going to DNF and read At Home by Bill Bryson which I bought in Sept 2011. At least BB can string a narrative together!

I enjoyed At Home, @SheilaFentiman

Apparently my earliest unread Kindle book is The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood which I bought in June 2012. No idea on which is my oldest unread physical book. Probably a Dickens - I bought a set of the complete works a while ago which I am gradually working through (thanks to the Mumsnet readalongs) but it’s going to be a long time before I get through them all. I will be starting Dombey & Son soon for the latest readalong so I’ll count that for this challenge!

Every so often I do have a cull of my unread books but I still do have a lot that have been hanging around for ages - because I really do want to read them one day! I just need to stop buying more…

Thanks, @bibliomania - glad I started the oldest one as I really should DNF books that aren’t me anymore too 😀

Well, according to my Amazon my oldest unread book is In the Ghost Country: a Lifetime Spent on the Edge by Peter Hillary and John Elder. Mountaineering obviously! Bought in June 2004. I always meant to get round to reading it but somehow didn't!

I'm in for this, my oldest book is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Booktuber Benreadsgood has a year long challenge where each month has a theme and June is 'reading shame forgiveness' month. This could be an unread or unfinished book so I'll be reading mine next month to tie in with the challenge

Satisfying to knock off two challenges in one, @InTheCludgie !

I'm racing through the Genghis Khan book like Mongol warriors across the steppe - my long-ago purchase has been justified at last.

I can date mine reasonably accurately as DM worked for a book wholesaler when I left for uni and I ended up the recipient of a fair few seconds she thought I would be interested in.

So, this must be the year for Proust and John Julius Norwich: The Normans in the South, both of which have followed me round since 1996.

Strangely, I still have no desire to read either.

Maybe it's time to let go of them, @abnerbrownsdressinggown?

There's a bit in At Home where I laughed out loud; probably the hardest I've ever laughed when reading. And then all over again when I listened to the audiobook some time later.

Oh dear, Ulysses.

I think my copy was bought for me by my mother in Dublin in the 1980s. It’s certainly got an Easons (famous Dublin bookshop) price sticker on the back - £10.00 - so before the introduction of the Euro.

I can imagine a pile of these then most recently published editions all piled up on display in tribute to one of Dublin’s most famous writers, and my mother thinking that would be a good present for her bookworm daughter.

The pages have now turned brown and when I picked it out of the TBR pile a letter (a real one on paper) from a friend written in 1985 fell out of the back. I think it’s survived four house moves and escaped countless book culls. It certainly seems to have been lurking reproachfully forever.

I have tried to read it before several times. I even know someone who wrote a dissertation on it and raves about it. I think his praise encouraged me to get about ten pages in last time before I ran away back to Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey - Maturin novels.

I may, just possibly, finally manage it because DD has to read it this summer for a course she is doing for fun(!) and I promised I would see if 10 pages a day was achievable without one’s brain melting.

My copy doesn’t even have all of its pages uncut so I’ll need to remember to keep a paper knife of some kind handy.

Now thirty-five pages in and a fair bit of Googling because this edition has no footnotes. Latin, Greek, French, Roman Catholic theology and ritual, Irish history…I think the end of June might be a bridge too far…

I've heard people say Ulysses works well as an audiobook, @CatChant . You mention Patrick O'Brian - I have to let all the naval jargon wash over me and have a fairly hazy idea of what is happening a lot of the time - and I think you need to do the same with Joyce. (I speak from ignorance as I haven't made my way through the book either).

This is the audiobook I use, from the 1982 RTÉ Radio Bloomsday event.

I'm about halfway through At Home. I am enjoying it but I definitely get more distracted reading non-fiction than fiction.

@bibliomania and @Sgtmajormummy Thank you both! I’ve also heard good things about the Jim Norton (Bishop Brennan from Father Ted) narration so I think an audiobook might well be on the cards at some point for DD and me.

Naval jargon is nothing to Joyce in an obfuscatory mood but I’ve got past the choppy waters of part 1 to page 65 now - Bloom’s given the cat breakfast and burnt the kidney he was frying - and this stretch seems quite smooth sailing by comparison with the earlier Dedalus pages. I have no doubt there’s a lee shore ahead as Jack Aubrey would say.

Happy sailing, shipmate!

I’m sure I set myself a challenge at the beginning of the year to read as many of these as I could during 2025. Four months in and I haven’t picked up a single one! I’ve no idea which physical books I’ve had the longest but I started tracking on Goodreads in 2016 and these were the first books I added. Think I’ll try Americanah and a Marquez - should I try One hundred years of solitude or love in the time of cholera first?

As an aside, I’ve only been using a kindle for just over 2 years and I’ve bought 323 books in that time!! You 50 Bookers are a bad influence.

Oh goodness @ÚlldemoShúl – I have anxiety on your behalf! Lol. I haven’t counted my physical books as I have the fear, but actually, we are probably talking about 50/60 or so. Nothing that I couldn’t tackle over the next year or so. I just need to knuckle down with a plan and that means counting (and logging for me)

The Names of the Dead – Kevin Wignall. My longest, languishing Kindle book. I thought that this was set in the 1960s, but it is contemporary and was a new release when I bought it in 2020. James Wesley (Wes) is a former CIA operative and is in prison in France, having been scapegoated for a terrible crime. He is released from prison on compassionate grounds and seek vengeance on those who have wronged him. I enjoyed this, however, there was a lot of bible passages which could be annoying for some. I'm now moving onto Skagboys by Irvine Welsh, which was also a 99p Kindle special.

As an aside, I’ve only been using a kindle for just over 2 years and I’ve bought 323 books in that time!! You 50 Bookers are a bad influence.

Yes, yes, we are :>

Don’t feel too bad @TattiePantsI have 1,207 total, unread 433 over a 15 year period of using the Kindle App

This is a great challenge and I spotted this thread while dithering about which book to read next.
The two oldest (been there the longest) on my TBR shelf are Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
I've gone with Rivers. Thank you!

That’s a great book @RolandOnTheRopes

I don’t entirely trust Kindle numbers as it thinks I have 1312 books of which 406 are read; however, the collection that I made of Read books totals 599. Still, it’s A Lot

Kindle acquired in 2011.

Do most people know the book they've owned the longest? I sure don't.