One of my reading challenges this year is to read more of the books on my shelves. I set myself a goal to read 75 percent of the books that I buy between December 2016 and December 2017. In order to win, I really should be limiting the number of books I acquire but instead, I’ve been expanding my personal library like all the books are about to be banned.
I had 9 books that I bought before December 1st that I wanted to include, plus another 60 (yep, 60) books that I got in the six months between December and May. And if that wasn’t enough, in June, I bought or acquired 14 more books in these categories:
science
- The Physics of Everyday Things/ James Kakalios
business
- The Icarus Deception /Seth Godin
- Meatball Sundae /Seth Godin
- All Marketers Are Liars /Seth Godin
Short Stories
- Can’t And Won’t /Lydia Davis
- The Thing Around Your Neck /Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- New York 1 Tel Aviv 0 /Shelly Oria
Novels
- Small Great Things /Jodi Picoult
- The Sympathizer /Viet Thanh Nguyen
- The Master /Colm Toibin
- Brooklyn /Colm Toibin
- The Interestings /Meg Wolitzer
- The Circle /Dave Eggers
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves /Karen Joy Fowler
Fourteen books in a month looks good on my shelf but it makes my reading challenge that much harder. I have to go get reading now before I become overwhelmed by my TBR. Watch my YouTube video if you want to know a little more about the books and why I chose them
Below, I’ll list all the books I’ve acquired so far during the challenge and whether I’ve read them. You’ll notice the list includes the books I got in June. I’ve also removed the books that I received for review purposes so all those wonderful books I got from Blogging for Books and read as soon as I got them, unfortunately, they don’t count towards my total.
This is a little tedious but I have to post my list for accounting (!) purposes so I understand if you don’t want to scroll through 78 titles so I’ll say bye here and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Books I bought (red means I’ve read it)
- Everything Is Illuminated /Jonathan Safran Foer
- The Road /Cormac McCarthy
- The Perks of Being A Wallflower
- The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Nighttime /Mark Haddon
- And The Mountains Echoed /Khaleid Hosseini
- A Thousand Splendid Suns /Khaleid Hosseini
- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings /Maya Angelou
- Daring Greatly /Brene Brown
- Made In America /Sam Walton
- A People’s History of the United States /Howard Zinn
- American Slavery
- The 80/20 Principle
- Travels With Epicurus
- The Book Thief /Markus Zusak
- The Time Travelers Wife /Audrey Niffenegger
- Reading Lolita In Tehran / Azar Nafisi
- The Goldfinch /Donna Tartt
- Ghana Must Go /Taiye Selasi
- The Corpse Exhibition And Other Stories Of Iraq /Hassan Blasin
- Purple Cow /Seth Godin
- The Da Vinci Code /Dan Brown
- Little Bee /Chris Cleave
- Then We Came To The End /Joshua Ferris
- The Good Luck of Right Now /Matthew Quick
- The Bees /Laline Paul
- We Need New Names /NoViolet Bulawayo
- Us /David Nicholls
- The Husband’s Secret /Liane Moriarty
- A Visit From The Goon Squad /Jennifer Egan
- Bird By Bird /Anne Lamont
- The Dinner /Herman Koch
- The Vegetarian /Han Kang
- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close /Jonathan Safran Foer
- Anna And The French Kiss /Stephanie Perkins
- The Luminaries /Elizabeth Catton
- I Am Malala /Malala Yousafzai
- Bel Canto /Ann Patchett
- What The Dog Saw /Malcolm Gladwell
- The Sun Is Also A Star /Nicola Yoon
- The Four Agreements / Don Miguel Ruiz
- Breakfast At Tiffany’s /Truman Capote
- Not That Kind Of Girl /Lena Dunham
- A Brief History Of Seven Killings /Marlon James
- Boy, Snow, Bird /Helen Oyeyemi
- Go Set A Watchman /Harper Lee
- Diabetes for Owls /David Sedaris
- The Little Red Book of Selling /Jeffrey Gitomer
- Linchpin /Seth Godin
- Man’s Search for Meaning /Viktor Frankl
- The Prophet /Khalil Gibran
- Think and Grow Rich /Napoleon Hill
- Hagseed /Margaret Atwood
- The Girl On The Train /Paula Hawkins
- The Fault In Our Stars /John Green
- Run /Ann Patchett
- Born To Run
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- The Longevity Book
- The Casual Vacancy
- The Sympathizer /Viet Than Nguyen
- The Interestings /Meg Wolitzer
- Can’t and Won’t Stories /Lydia Davis
- The Circle /Dave Eggers
- The Master /Colm Toibin
- The Icarus Deception /Seth Godin
- All Marketers Are Liars /Seth Godin
- Meatball Sundae /Seth Godin
- Can’t And Won’t /Lydia Davis
- The Thing Around Your Neck /Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- New York 1 Tel Aviv 0 /Shelly Oria
- Small Great Things /Jodi Picoult
- The Sympathizer /Viet Thanh Nguyen
- The Master /Colm Toibin
- Brooklyn /Colm Toibin
- The Interestings /Meg Wolitzer
- The Circle /Dave Eggers
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves /Karen Joy Fowler
And my results…. of the 78 books, I’ve read a grand total of 22. Yikes! According to the challenge, that’s “Money Sitting on the Shelf”. What I plan to do differently in the second half of the year, is just to read more of the books I buy. I haven’t reserved anything new from the library in a while and I’m trying to read the stack that I am really interested in, then it’s time to start focusing on my own shelves. I have lots here to keep me busy.
If you’re interested in any of these titles, click here to shop my shelves at Book Depository and support my book buying fund.
Linkup: Bookdate
I have so many unread books on my shelf and I just bought one today (that I plan to read now). Clearly I needed to be doing this challenge haha. 22 isn’t bad you’ll get there!
LikeLiked by 1 person
lol. you too, huh? What did you buy today? Let’s commiserate with each other
LikeLike
Twenty two isn’t so bad, that’s a good amount time put in toward your goal! I see some great titles there, enjoy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Rachel. I hope to improve that number soon
LikeLiked by 1 person
Right on! You are inspiring me!
LikeLike
You sure have bought yourself up a whole library there! All the best with the reading of them. In May I bought quite a few books but managed to put the brake on after that!
LikeLike
Much admiration Karen of all the books you are able to read. I read a fair bit (news articles, blogposts etc.) but with actual books I might read maybe 2 books a year. My family usually gets me books for birthdays and Christmas and I have had to graciously say no to more books. At the rate I am going it will be 30 years by the time I read what is on my shelf! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Carl. I’ve had some books lying around unread for a long time too. No worries but I can’t imagine turning down books for gifts 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! I tend to keep less than 10 I’ve gotten without reading. Especially now with my new book bucket list plan. I am also doing more arcs so I don’t have to buy as much. Great feedback here. Like this post a lot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Since I started my Booktube channel, my book buying got a little out of hand. I used to read mostly from the library and not keep lots of books around that I hadn’t yet read. I figure as I pick up the pace during the summer, I will get a handle on this TBR. I’ve also canceled most of my library reserves for now just so I can read through what I already have.
Thanks for reading.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s so hard… I totally understand!
LikeLike