A Question Becomes a (Personal) Challenge

Does anyone else ever feel this way about their books?  (See these and other cool bookends here.)

I hope it is safe to say this: anyone with a bookshelf (or bookshelves as is the case with us more prolific readers) probably has at least one book that they have no read for one reason or another.  Sadly, I have realized that I have many more unread titles than I would like.  I've gone through phases where I've bought and bought and bought some more but I have not made it a priority to read those books.  For instance, when Mockinjay came out, I finally decided that I should read The Hunger Games series.  I bought all three, put them on my shelf, and that's where they've been ever since.  This is not the type of book-owner that I want to be.  If someone takes a peek at my shelves and asks for a recommendation, I don't want to say, "I haven't read that yet, or that either...or that."


But what do about it?  How do I drag myself away from the shiny new books and read those that have been languishing on my shelf for months, or worse, years?

The Answer: I'm creating a challenge for myself.  I am going to go through all the books in my apt (I have others elsewhere) make a list of titles that I have not read, and then actually read them.  During this time, I will limit the number of books that I purchase and the number of books I borrow from the library.  I've already been working at the second half of that, but as you may have noticed with my last IMM post, I have not done a very good job at limiting my purchases.  I'll definitely have to limit it to a number of books rather than a dollar amount, because I'm way too good at finding deals.  This will not only facilitate reading the books that I own, but it means that perhaps I can actually read the books I get from the library.

If anyone else has this or a similar problem or goal feel free to join me.


Lastly, I'd like to note that Kathy of Ms. Martin Teaches Media turned my thoughts in this direction with her Book Buying Ban.  I didn't want to go that route, but reading her posts made me want to know the numbers for sure when it comes to books owned vs. books owned and read.  I'll include updates along the way.