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…

[bows modestly]

In less successful news, I have added two new books to the pile, but they were birthday books so do they count?! I have also been given a lot of book tokens, which I am looking forward to spending, so not sure how well I'll do on this challenge now.....

I've also bought birthday books, I think it's OK because they're gifts.

I agree about birthday books- anyway we all have our own rules for this- the Booker longlist comes out on Tuesday and I fully intend to buy whichever ones I don’t have or can’t get from the library.

If you are bartering, does it even count? 🤔

I have some successes and some failures. I've finished 3 that I owned -
Real Tigers -:Mick Herron
I Hope This Finds You Well - Natalie Sue
Aerth - Deborah Tompkins.

Although I owned all of these before the challenge started, they were all bought in the last 6 months so not sure how well I'm doing. I have moved on to one I bought in 2021.

But my failure was buying the new Elaine Feeny book which is in the Kindle deals today. In a not very good defense, it has been listed in a few Booker predictions lists, so if it does get picked I'll be happy to have got it for 99p.... If it doesn't, it'll be destined to join the 40 odd "nearly prize picked" books languishing in my "literary" folder.

@Stowickthevast (whisper- I’ve just bought it too for the same reason)

I can’t justify buying the new Elaine Feeney because I still have How To Build A Boat on TBR

Just finished 1 of 3 Abby Jimenez romance novels and will likely read the other two even though romance is not really my scene they came strongly recommended on BookTube and are hitting the spot at the moment

I've got a silly amount of unread books on my kindle but try as I might , I can't get into them . It could be a reading slump , but I'm now eyeing up my ( several towers ) of books to start working my way through .

I have a set list of books I plan to read for the rest of the year, which includes quite a few of my own books but I'll be taking a break from that when the Booker longlist is announced next week. Am a bit ahead of the game (maybe, maybe not as it's guesswork) and have reserved multiple books from the library which are predicted by a couple of booktubers to make the longlist.

I've finished my next book, The Cheerleader by Caroline B. Cooney and yes, its a Point Horror so didn't take long to read!

@InTheCludgie Caroline B Cooney! The memories! Freeze Tag was her best and Twins was pretty good.

The Survivors - Robert Palmer - a RWYO from 2016. Considered shunting it to soft DNF but persevered. Cal Henderson is a therapist in Washington and one day, an old friend Scottie turns up at his practice under a false name. It’s 25 years since Cal’s mum shot and killed his father, two brothers, shot at Scottie then killed herself. But as the two go digging, the FBI, US attorney general candidate and all sorts of unlikely people get drawn into the conspiracy.

Well, I won’t be saving this one for a re read 😀

have been lurking on this thread admiring everyone’s achievements and am trying hard to be good and not buy books. Have finished one book so far this week and not bought another one to replace it so I will take that win. It was Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch and I enjoyed it, been meaning to read it for years. But now a friend has offered to lend me the other 15 or so in the series 🤣

Congrats @owenjonescleanerreturns and welcome aboard!

I finished 3 books this week but one was a library book, one an audiobook (which I don't count in my TBR pile) so only one off the kindle mountain! Was very good though - The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov.

Finished Ripper (library book) for book club so now back to my own pile and starting with Village Diary by Miss Read which was a present from my DD for Christmas and on the kindle I am ploughing through One August Night by Victoria Hislop

Now read Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively. Bought at beginning of year so not been languishing on my Kindle for too long.

I’ve just finished The Women by Kristin Hannah - a very powerful and thought provoking read. A recent purchase though. Now I need to read one of my older TBR books.

Just read 2nd of 3 Abby Jimenez on the pile, Yours Truly. A good romcom

Too much horrible shit happened to Frankie for my liking. It was overkill.

I enjoyed The Women too but yes @EineReiseDurchDieZeit too much happened! I do like Kristin Hannah books generally.

i finally started a new book on my Kindle today. Not long bought unfortunately but have been wanting to read for a while - Long Island by Colm Toibin.

I’m going to ignore all Booker Prize talk. Definitely don’t want to be adding anything new.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I get where you are coming from, and without giving away any spoilers, I thought that there was a lot of negative stuff, and like @Peridot1says, a lot happened to her. But overall I found it readable and educational at the same time.

I find Kristen Hannah (granted I’ve only read two) good reads not great reads tbh

I finished another one - Dreamland by Rosa Rankin Gee, bought in 2021 and set in a near future dystopian Margate. I thought this was very good if rather depressing.

I would love to join in with the caveat that I've just been given a very generous book token and have already dreamed what to spend it on. But once that book pile is in, I will stop.

I have liked all the Kristen Hannah books I’ve read @EineReiseDurchDieZeit - all fairly different subject matters but a bit formulaic in some ways I suppose. But the world would be a boring place if we all likes the same things!