Read What You Own Challenge

[ÚlldemoShúl]

I’m going to start a Read What You Own Challenge on the 1st of July to try and reduce down my ridiculously huge TBR both physical and kindle.
My rules for me are-

• No buying any new books after midday on July 1st
• Unsubscribe from the kindle daily deals email
• I am allowed to break it for the Booker Prize longlist when it’s announced, but must check my library for the books first.
• Keep going until August 21st as my first goal. (Maybe until 2026 in total)

These rules are specific to me and anyone who wants to join me is free to make their own set of rules for their challenge. I’m going to log each book I read here to keep me accountable. Anyone else up for it? I know some 50 Bookers are considering it…

Just finished The Names by Florence Knapp. Quite enjoyed it.

About to start the Mysterious Bakery on the Rue de Paris by Evie Woods.

Need to up my game or I’ll miss my target for the year on my Good Reads challenge of 52 books. Currently 8 behind schedule which isn’t good.

Finished Missing Person : Alice - Simon Mason which I thought was a cut above the average police procedural. Unfortunately, I have weakened again and made another purchase. Really hoping to get my Kindle unread list down to 90 by the end of the year. Pretending not to see my physical pile.....

Hags - Victoria Smith
Bought in 2023, will review properly on 50B thread in the morning, but worth reading.

And now finished the final book in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy: The Cross - Sigrid Undset. Need to update on 50B and readalong threads.

I have finished The Bee Keeper of Aleppo on Audible. It was very moving. My next Audible from my massive library is Carry On, Jeeves. Such fun!

I’ve finished The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy - cosy crime, easy to read.

Heartstone - CJ Sansom.

5th in the Shardlake series, which I bought in 2020 but inexplicably did not read then! They have been the best of my RWYOs.

Audiobook The Second Cut by Louise Welsh and Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. First I really liked, second just okay.

DNF Caitlin Moran 'How To Build A Girl' (fiction, though the 14 year old girl in question is growing up in poverty in a large family in Wolverhampton and likes to write...)

I have finished and enjoyed The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson

Well done. I read that in the 1970s I think, hardback copy. It's probably the one and only proper history book I've read.

Just finished Stranded by Rosalind Tate
That's three weeks I'm never getting back. I nearly gave up half way but kept hoping it would get better.
It's a time travel and the reason I stuck with it was that the premise was so original. Protagonist goes back to the 1920s and can't find the way back, or is it the 1920s or a parallel universe because history is slightly different.
Lots of potential there but a very tedious and annoying main character and she had a dog with her. The dog features on every page and I was sick of reading Charlotte (the dog) wagged her tail.
Anyway I bought the whole series so the other two are now filed in DNF

I have been struggling to concentrate on reading, but I just read a Josephine Pullein Thompson book for adults ( a horsey related whodunnit) which I thoroughly enjoyed. Now I have gone off piste and bought a couple of pony books (a Ruby Ferguson and a Christine P-T) Now they are downloaded I own them 🙃 and I hope they will get me back reading properly.
I also dug out the Malory Towers books. Not highbrow I know, but I want to read for pleasure again and I'm hoping they will get me going. I always had my nose in a book as a child.

Lamentation - C J Sansom (Shardlake 6)

The last of my RWYO Shardlakes (have just bought the final one, book 7, which probably wasn’t written when I got the first 6!)

Shardlake helps Catherine Parr and drags Barak into trouble, again. As ever, a good read.

I have read The Impossible Horse by Christine Pullein-Thompson. And I've finished the first three in the Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton. I feel like I did at prep school!
Lovely to really enjoy reading again, and hopefully will graduate to adult fiction again in time...

Well done @WinterFrogs

Another RWYO read in one day for me- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day- great read. Also started (but not sure I’ll finish) The Hearts Invidible Furies by John Boyne.
Congrats @WinterFrogs spunds like you e got the bug again- you’ll be joining us on the 50 bookers in no time!

• Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse - David Mitchell

Bought this in 2015, now slogged through it. As a collection of DM’s newspaper columns from 2009-ish, it was a lot of DM in one go.

Read a couple more - A Blind Eye by Marion Todd on audio- meh. Old Gods Time by Sebastian Barry. Masterful. Loved it.

I finished The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris.

Then started The Christmas Train by David Baldicci. Have read it before years ago.

I keep meaning to read the Shardlake series @SheilaFentiman. I started the first one at one point. Must hunt it out again.

@WinterFrogs - I loved all the Malory Towers too as child.

I really need to stop scrolling and concentrate on reading. Am about 9 books behind my target of 52 for the year.

Hey readers,
Do you think we should
(a) continue this thread
(b) start a shiny fresh one for 2026
(c) give up on reading what we own?
Let me know what you think.

Please continue in some way @ÚlldemoShúl, it’s a great thread which I was planning on joining as soon as I’d got through my library haul (which should coincide nicely with new year).

I would like to have a 2026 thread. I’m at about 34% RWYO this year which is better than 2024 and this thread helps

I’ve found this thread really useful & hope it continues in some form - I’m only on my third RWYI but all 3 books have been really worth reading. They were all books that take a bit more motivation / effort that I probably wouldn’t have summoned up without the thread. The calibre of my reading has vastly improved this year thanks to this thread & the 50 books one.

I am finding it really helpful (even though I haven't finished anything for ages!).