For the last few years, one of my besties has been doing the Unread Shelf challenge. The idea is (in part – it’s a bigger challenge than it looks) to use prompt to help a reader work through the Unread Titles on their shelves.
This years prompts were as follows:
Here are the all-new 2021 Reading Challenges:
- January – A book with high expectations
- February – A book you got for free
- March – A book you bought on a trip
- April – A book bought from a used bookstore
- May – A book you bought as a new release
- June – A book bought in a spending spree
- July – A book bought for the cover
- August – A book bought from an independent bookstore
- September – A book you want to learn from
- October – A book you’re secretly afraid of
- November – A book published before 2000
- December – A book that reminds you of childhood.
While I wasn’t so invested in the prompts – I read at least two books a month that I don’t choose (courtesy of LeedsBookClub), I did like the idea of signing up and doing something about my book shelves – bursting with books that I haven’t read/have little interest anymore/don’t remember picking up. But not immediately, maybe next year.
Still, I decided to at least try and work my way through some of my unread titles this year. So I started a shelf on GoodReads and slowly built up to 20 books! That’s more than one a month!
Hooray!
And the vast majority of them weren’t returned to my shelves – instead they headed off to find forever homes somewhere new. 🙂
Emboldened by my success, I decided to actually catalogue my four and a half bookshelves and see exactly how many ‘aspirational’ reads there were.
Just fictional books – not including poetry, factual or eddyumacational books – ONLY fiction, you get me?
There’s 128 books.
That’s…that’s a bit much really. Turns out I’ve been getting rid of books to charity shops etc once I read them as my shelves are full. Full with books, half of which I can’t even remember getting!
It’s HORRIFYING. So if you’re a book clubber and can’t think of a book to suggest, do have a look here for an option.
Still, it’s nice to have a reading plan for 2022 😀
LeedsBookClub 