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…

I am in! Just bought five from the Kindle deals. Now have 203 unread books on my Kindle. No more now. Although I made a NY resolution to not buy any more Kindle books a couple of years ago and lasted till about 11am on NY day!

Im not sure how many unread physical books I have but I will check later.

I also have a habit of buying cookery books and books on health etc and not reading them so I need to stop that and read the ones I have.

I have also gotten out of the habit of reading and to far too much scrolling on my phone. A concerted effort to read will be needed.

I thought Still Born was really interesting @ÚlldemoShúl although the bird analogy became a bit laboured.

Only 2 in the deals for me, and my 2 book club books. Have nearly finished my first The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

Actually, it's a good idea to start off with a baseline of how many unread books I have, @Peridot1

Ignoring library books, I have 94 unread physical books - and there are some I'm not even that keen on reading, so I could let go of them. On kindle, I have 315 unread. Yikes, I really do need this challenge. As a first goal, let's see if I can get under 90 physical and under 300 kindle.

@bibliomania Ignoring the physical books completely, I have 464 unread on Kindle

I can’t even begin to count! Physical is around 200. Audio 180. Kindle is around 800. You can see why I need this challenge. My aim is to read/ listen to at least 50 before buying any more (apart from Booker). I do read about 150-200 books a year so it is possible to clear this if I only read what I own for about 6 years. That is unlikely to happen though…

👀

Some of you are making me feel a lot better about my 203 unread on Kindle!

I don’t really do audio books so don’t have any there. I do have a full bookcase of unread books and books I think I might read again. It also has quite a few I have been meaning to pass on to my neighbour or the charity shop. Might start with a clear out of those.

I am too lazy to work my way through the monthly deals so daily deals are my downfall. I had 107 unread books on my kindle yesterday. Since then I have bought one today in the daily deals (but only part of a series I M reading) and read two:

Some Tame Gazelle - bought May 2024
Learning to Swim - bought July 2021

I wondered why so many were tempted by the daily deals as there's never anything of interest to me. My downfall is ereaderIQ. You can watch favourite writers and they email you if the price drops.

Forgot about the Agatha Christie challenge monthly book so have now bought two books and read two books. Not making much headway....

I set myself a similar challenge last summer - to choose a book from my bookshelf with a title beginning with A, then work my way through the alphabet.

I made exceptions to also read book club books, library books of authors I'd seen at events, and Christmas books in December.

I'm almost at the end of my challenge (just between reading You Are Here by David Nicholls and Zoya by Danielle Steel) and then I might start the alphabet again!

That’s an interesting approach @OlympicOwl 🙂

@OlympicOwl you are like the park run enthusiasts doing their A-Z of park runs- love the different way to go about it.
I’ve finished my first RWYO- Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel. Okay but didn’t go where I wanted it to. My review is on the 50 Bookers thread.

you are like the park run enthusiasts doing their A-Z of park run

Ha, I could bore on about my parkrun A-Z - got 'em all except Z, as I'd need to go to the Netherlands or Poland.

I accidentally bought a book today 🤦‍♀️ I went into Oxfam trying to find the one I need for book group and they didn’t have that but I did get another one.

Just finished my first. It was bought yesterday so a bit of a cop out. All my reviews will be on 50 Book but the book I’ve read was I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

That would be making quite the journey!

I’ll join. I think I have approx 200 unready books

can my exception be book club books please? Not that I often finish them…

I've finished my first The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

Also DNF my second The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble which has been on my Kindle since 2014! I read 25% and it felt good just to say, I really don't need to read any more of this.

Oh lord, I've failed already and bought one today's Kindle deals 🙄

Well I haven't added any to the pile, but I haven't cleared any either! I'm in a bit of slump I think. Struggling to really get into anything and had a bit of a full on week which hasn't helped. I currently have one classic on the go, one poetry book, a kindle book and two fiction (I started a second as was struggling with the first and not sure if me or the book) which I think is making things worse as not settled into one read.
Technically I also have a non fiction on the go but I have decided to leave that until I've finished the poetry.
But they are all from my shelf so once I finish them I'm laughing 🙈🤣

Just finished a Kindle book - Hack Your Hormones by Davinia Taylor. Started it on 22 May. And haven’t read anything else in that time. My reading has slipped so much. I used to get through so many books.

Next book is a “proper” book - Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. I actually started it a while ago but only got a few pages in before getting distracted.

Ah well, if your worst failure costs you 99p, you're not doing too badly, @ObtuseMoose .

I have reduced my tbr by two by the simple expedient of putting them on a "free books" shelf and - crucially - not picking up replacements.

Obviously have a problem , nearly 700 titles of unread downloaded books be them kindle or NetGalley .
Just had a cull of ones that didn't seem to do it for me anymore , but still way , way too many . Not counted the actual physical books yet .

May I join? Coincidentally I'd already started doing this end June, with a view of not only reducing TBR, but letting stuff go which I don't want to read again. This may mean re-reading to be certain...

No space for more bookcases, need to reduce the piles elsewhere! Also may need to downsize house in a while. I don't have Kindle or similar.

My rules for me are:

Focus on TBR, or ones I can't remember (yes, I am that not young!)
Only buy another if part of a series I really like - don't go looking...
One out does not mean another in...
Make a definite decision after reading/re-reading, to keep and find space for it, or rehome it

I'd like to have sorted 31 by 1st August, six so far but only two out...