Reading Goals/Challenges 2018

This year, I have decided not to partake in the many reading challenges I have in the past. The reason for this being that I rarely, if ever, end up linking my reviews to these challenges, nor participate in any of the other activities they may have. I have been using those challenges mainly as a way of tracking what I have been reading – How Many Books I’ve Read, Library Books, E-books, New Authors, Audio Books – and I can surely do that without the added work of updating all the challenge pages. 

This year, I’ve decided to officially join one challenge, which is more about reading goals than anything else. I am joining the #UnReadShelfProject2018where I hope to read more of the books I have already sitting on my shelf. As of Janaury 1, 2018, I had over 200 unread books sitting on my shelf…this is insane!!! And that doesn’t even take into account all the e-books and audio books I have that are unread/unlistened to. But for this year, I am solely focusing on my print books.

While there are no hard-set rules with this, I have given myself some guidelines:

  • Read more of my own books – I am not setting a specific number, because then I am destined to fail. I am just going to make more of a conscious effort to read my own books.
  • Try to limit book buying – I am not banning myself from buying new books, rather I am going to be more mindful of what I buy. 
  • Revisit my list of unread books and determine if I still want to even read them – it is quite possible that some of the books I have sitting on my shelf are no longer of interest to me…reading tastes do change after all!  

I think these guidelines will help me to be successful in this challenge. At the end of the year, if I have gotten my number down even a little bit, I’ll be happy. 

So, do you have a ton of unread books sitting on your shelf or do you read the books you buy right away?  

Let me know if you are participating in this challenge – we can cheer and motivate each other!

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3 Comments

  1. Kathryn T
    January 23, 2018 / 5:50 pm

    All the best for the challenge, it is difficult to make reading space for those books we already have on our shelves. I have a good number and usually manage somewhere about 12 or so a year off them!!

  2. Rumana Haque
    February 21, 2018 / 5:13 pm

    Great challenge! I have about 6 books that I had recently picked up from free rack outside the library. I used to have tons of books which I have read and donated to the library. I agree with Kathryn T about making space at my current place. I never counted but I believe I have read about 10 books last year.

  3. Suko
    February 28, 2018 / 12:29 am

    This is a terrific reading challenge, Kristin. I have a lot of unread books and I feel guilty about that. (And I haven't posted a new book review in ages–I hope to post one this month!)