It’s time to pick a new challenge TBR, and after a month of mostly romance reading, I’m ready to tackle some fantasy and sci fi! This month’s theme is ‘A is for August’, by which I mean I’ve chosen twelve books from the TBR with titles that start with A. Let’s see what’s on the list!
Can you hear the exasperation in that title?! As you’ll have no doubt seen if you read my May Wrap Up post yesterday, I’ve really been struggling to get my TBR down in the last few months. I’ve been so hectically busy with other projects that my reading rate has fallen below my books-in rate, so this month I’ve decided to focus on a few books that feel like they’re looming large on my to-do list – not necessarily long books, but just things I keep thinking about. I’m also dropping the number to just nine books, as the last couple of months I haven’t managed to finish longer TBRs, and I can always add more later if I need to!
No theme, no overarching reasoning this month – just fifteen books I kind of fancy reading! My reading in April was pretty slow for me, and I can feel a bit of a slump coming on, so I think the best thing to do is let myself read anything I’m excited for…
This might seem a little bit strange, but my TBR challenge for April is to read books that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy that much. Like most people, when the sunshine returns I get the itch to tidy up, so it seems like a good time to filter through my bookshelves and try to leave only the books I really do love – plus, with my birthday at the end of the month, it’s always a good idea to make some space in case I get any new books!
I’ve chosen twelve books that I’ve either been putting off reading because my tastes have changed, or I suspect I’ll have fun with but not want to reread. Some might surprise me and make the cut, but there might also be a few DNFs if I really don’t click with them. Please don’t be angry with me if you spot a favourite here: everyone’s tastes are personal and this list is not meant to be things I think are bad books in themselves, just things I’m no longer sure I’ll love personally!
After the success of January’s Duology Do-Overs, I thought March would be a great time to try and tackle some of the unfinished trilogies on my TBR. As with the duologies, these are series where I’ve read the first book, but never made it further than that – in most cases, I’ll need to reread the first book to remember what’s going on before pressing ahead. I haven’t included trilogies where all three books are new to me, or series where I don’t own all three books already, or I’d be here for years!
As it is, there are seven trilogies here, which is 21 books to read this month on top of my other commitments – I’ll consider finishing three of them a success. Some of these are very beloved series, so it might be a bit of a shock to discover I’ve yet to finish them!
February is here and with it comes the start of #Februwitchy! This is my second year running this very casual witchy readathon, and I’m really excited to show you my TBR – if you need more details about the readathon itself, you can find the introductory post here.
I’ve picked out thirteen books that meet the witchy requirements – this is a dual-purpose TBR that works for both #Februwitchy and my general monthly TBR challenge, so let’s see what’s on the cards this month!
I love the beginning of the new year. There’s no real reason this one change of date should be more important than any other, but it’s so nice to have a fixed point to reflect on your goals and adjust how you’re going to go about things.
On that note, it’s time to set myself some new reading goals for 2022…
Books read:
I am giving up on Goodreads! I’ll still copy my reviews across, but I no longer find it useful as a way to store the books I’ve read; my own list worked fine for me last year. This section of my goals will now just be called ‘Books Read’, and the number I’m aiming for is 400.
In 2021 I read 510 books, as you may have seen in my wrap up post, but I wanted to set my goal a little lower this year as I think that was a bit of a fluke. I am now officially the mother of a toddler, not a baby, and I’m very aware that every new stage of development brings a chance that it could knock me off course with reading time, so I think 400 is a relatively safe number to aim for; it’s around 33 books per month, which is within my normal range. That means my first goal is 100 books by April 1st.
My Owned TBR:
I made a huge amount of progress with this last year, getting it down from 505 books to 299, and I’d like to make similar progress this year. I found that monthly goals worked best for me last year, so I’m going to aim to be down to 275 TBR books by February 1st.
I’m determined to get this down to under 100 eventually – maybe not this year, but someday. While I love having a lot of books to choose from, I can categorically say that 650 (my highest peak!) is absolutely too many, a totally overwhelming number that stressed me out enormously. Even 299 is almost a whole year’s worth of reading for me, which given how quickly I have books come in, is totally unnecessary. I’d love to be able to use the library and services like Kindle Unlimited again!
Backlist/Frontlist balance:
One thing my December Decimation challenge showed me is that it’s important to make time for older books as well as new ones. Sometimes my tastes have changed, so it allows me to make space on the shelves; sometimes I’ll discover a favourite in a book that’s been languishing. But I also want to keep up with review copies and new releases to support authors! So, this year I’d like to keep track of the balance of books that are published before and during 2022, so that I can make sure I’m not neglecting one section or the other.
Reading Challenges:
This isn’t a goal so much as just something I’m going to do – I loved doing my December Decimation so much that I’m going to carry on with similar challenges throughout the year. Each month I’ll pick a section of my TBR to focus on, whether that’s duologies I stopped in the middle of (which is January’s challenge – see tomorrow’s post!), or review copies, or books on a particular theme. I’ll aim for these TBRs to be between 12 and 20 books, so I still have time for some mood reading, but I’m looking forward to making myself pick up some things that have been languishing.
Blog posts:
I’m going to try to stay consistent throughout the year with a new post every weekday, as this worked well for me in 2021, apart from a few off weeks. My monthly wrap up posts will now include the full list of books I’ve read each month, as well as noting my favourite and least favourite read, and I’d also like to start keeping track of books in each month here, as well.
What are your reading goals for 2022? Wish me luck with these!
The third week of December is finished, so it’s time to check in with my decimation TBR – so far I’m at 21/30 books! Let’s take a look at what I managed to read this week.
Two weeks of my December challenge are done! I keep feeling like I should be further through the list, but I’m actually making perfectly good progress. And I have to remind myself I have been reading some things from outside the list too! Anyway, let’s take a look at what I read this week…
I thought for the time being I’d replace my Monday TBR Spotlight posts with a little recap of how I’m getting on with my December Decimation project and some mini-reviews of each book. Hopefully it will keep me accountable! If you missed the introduction post, you can catch up here.
I feel like I’m off to a good start, especially the first week of December wasn’t quite a whole week. So far I’ve read six books, and made progress on a seventh:
A Cat, A Book, and A Cup of Tea 