Read What You Own 2026

[ÚlldemoShúl]

This is a brand shiny new thread for those of us who want to continue reading what we own in 2026.
My aims for 2026 are:

• At least half my reading will be from books I already own on 1st January 2026
• I will buy less than a quarter of my reading new including kindle deals😱 and book club books
• I will wait when prize lists are released to see if the books appear in the library within a week. I will not read full longlists unless I love the sound of each and every book on it.
• For the first two months I will only read what I own- focusing on the older books on my kindle while allowing myself to read newer (but already owned) physical books

What are your RWYO aims for 2026?

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 !

@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!

Amazing culling @FrostyFlo

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

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

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 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 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.

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

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.

@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!

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!

Exactly same here..

Yesssss 💪

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

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!

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’.

Great stuff!!

@AliasGrape I LOVED The Children’s Book it wasn’t hard going at all

First one of the year completed - The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Well worth reading & I will add my review to the 50 books thread later.

@AliasGrape I have made several attempts on Cider with Rosie as my DM lovees it but honestly, it's not for me. So there are two of us at least now.

DH has read it and thinks you have to be a young person with wanderlust, which is a phase that my DM had in spades but totally passed me by.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - yes my friend loved it too I remember that was why I purchased it, despite not particularly enjoying Possession. I’ve not deleted I do still want to read it.

@AnnaMagnani oh glad it’s not just me, I want to love it. It’s just a bit lyrical and poetic when I’m after a gripping yarn I think, again not deleted I may yet come back to it, just not in current mood.

@AliasGrape I also really didn’t like Possession they are the only 2 of hers I’ve read so quite the contrast

Think I will follow the example on here and make a ‘maybe delete’ folder- if I don’t look at any of the books on it for 6 months then I can actually start deleting them. My kindle is currently at 1228- I’m going to aim to take it down to 1000 by putting books into that folder