Stephen Theaker's Book Challenge

[Stephen]

I haven't got a fixed number that I'd like to read this year, but having just joined Goodreads and built up my list I've realised that I've got way too many unread books on my shelves. So my challenge is to not buy another book (comics aside) until I get my total of unread books down below a thousand. Next year I'd like to get that total down below 900, and so on.

Current total: 68 currently-reading + 1035 to-read = 1103

[Stephen]

After finding a couple more boxes of books I'm now up to 72 currently-reading + 1077 to-read = 1149

So a step back, but I think that's more or less the last of them.

[Stephen]

After finding a hidden shelf of books I'm up to 1171 books outstanding... So I'm going to rethink my challenge, and not buy any new books unless I get below 1100 this year (instead of 1000).

[Stephen]

1162 outstanding (162 to go before I can buy any new books).

I read a few books and removed a few duplicates from the list.

Forget what I said about rethinking my challenge - I forgot that I had actually made a vow not to buy any more books, and I can't break a vow...

[Stephen]

1160

[Stephen]

1159 (159 till I can buy new books). It would have been much lower but a few pre-ordered books arrived. I'm not going to let myself buy any comics now either, otherwise I'll just keep buying those and not getting my overall number down. I'm loving this challenge - it's making me focus on books as things that you read rather than things that you collect.

[Stephen]

Back up to 1161 - I'm feeling a bit like Sisyphus. As many books as I read, more come out of the woodwork - literally...

[Stephen]

My challenge is over. I failed, abysmally. I've been buying new books left, right and centre.

But the challenge was still good for me, weak as I was. It got me going to the library again, for one thing, which has been brilliant.