tbr-reading-challenge discussion

Hi there! I've decided to join this group - even though I'm hoping to read more than six of my unread books in the next six months - as I'm sure it'll motivate me to read more and buy less!

Previously I've been posting a list of six books which I'd like to read each month on another website, so if no one minds, I'll just add my six books to this thread at the start of each month. (Interesting how it's the same number, hmm?) I don't read all of the books which I plan to read as the library will always distract me! But I'm starting to become more strict as I really don't want to go away to Uni in autumn 2009 and still have unread books from three years ago sitting on my shelves!

November's Six Books

1. Studentdom by Matt Stuart READ
2. Blood Red Horse by K. M. Grant READ
3. Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott READ - Finished in December
4. Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock READ
5. Orphans of the Storm by Katie Flynn READ
6. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer READ

December's Six Books
1. Rachel's Tears: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott by Beth Nimmo READ
2. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff READ
3. A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope READ - Finished in January
4. White Boots by Noel Streatfeild READ
5. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton READ
6. Digging to America by Anne Tyler READ

January's Six Books
1. Rough Crossing by Simon Schama
2. The Gift of Christmas Present by Melody Carlson READ
3. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
4. No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barlcay READ
5. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld READ
6. Nancy's Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene READ

February's Six Books
1. The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah READ
2. Ya-Yas in Bloom by Rebecca Wells READ
3. The Sign of the Twisted Candles by Carolyn Keene READ
4. The Heavens Before by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow READ
5. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein
6. The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde (library book) READ

Since I gave up on Emma Eliza I'm now adding New Moon by Stephenie Meyer as my replacement for 5.

Added December's books! I still have to finish Jo's Boys but I have a couple of days left :)

Still working through Jo's Boys but have finished one of my December books already - How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.

Okay, now that I've finished with Digging to America I'm going to focus on finishing Jo's Boys!

Got Jo's Boys finished yesterday and The House at Riverton today so I'm very pleased with my reading this week! :)

I really want to read Jo's Boys now!

Did you also like her books as a child? After finishing Jo's Boys I really want to go and watch the Little Women film again :)

Finished White Boots - such a lovely story!

You are definitely a motivator!! As I see you flying through these books, I realize how slow and undedicated I am. Thanks for the inspiration.

Thanks Kris! I've always been a big reader so I hope I don't intimidate you. Different people read books differently, and I think I just read very fast. I guess it also depends on what's going on in your personal life - back in April I only read 4 books because I was studying for my exams, but during the summer I read 19 books one month (a LOT of them were short kids books though!)

I'm glad I inspire you - that's pretty cool :) My current motivater is my very full bookcase. I seriously can't buy any more books because I've ran out of space. (And yet I still have two German books coming from BookMooch sometime in the next few months!) We're all motivated by different things! :P

I get so easily distracted. I had a strategy over the summer that when I made my Sunday trip to the beach, I could read for a solid uninterrupted hour or more.But at the house, there are just so many tasks to accomplish that reading becomes a guilty pleasure that I deny myself repeatedly. But since finding this site, I am turning over a new leaf. I just love conversing with all you different readers and seeing your selections.
And I absolutely love children's books!!! Especially if they have beautifully artistic illustrations! DOn and Audrey Wood are great authors. But I also have a lot of YA books that I ran across when my kids were in school. They are sitting right there on my shelf. The Giver, some AVI selections, Brian Jacques, etc
What is BookMooch? Anything like paperbackswap.com?
Thanks for the chat.

I get distracted too. I spend far too much time on the internet or daydreaming, so I know how you feel! I also have a habit of rereading teen books which although may be quick and easy reads for when I can't be bothered reading anything new, doesn't help my TBR to go down!

GoodReads is excellent for talking to other people who love books. None of my friends from school are particularily big fans of reading. My best friend does love reading books, but she's only just started to read books in English this year as English is her second language. She has got hooked on Jodi Picoult, though, so soon we'll have something to talk about, book-wise! :) So yeah, I like chatting to people on here as, other than my mum and her friends, I don't know many people who love to read as much as me.

My mum is doing a creative writing course for children so we always have a pile of kids books somewhere in our livingroom, some of which look pretty cute. I tend to read kids chapter books, like Nancy Drew and the Babysitters Club, which I adored as a child and am starting to wish I'd kept to pass on to my kids. I've also read a few Sweet Valley University books recently which are...well, not the kind of books I'd want to pass on to my kids! But they're quick reads :) I still like quite a few YA authors too - Jaclyn Moriarty is a favourite of mine.

I think BookMooch is a little like PaperbackSwap, but I don't use the latter as I think it's restricted to the US (?) so I might be wrong... It works on a point system. You post someone in your country a book and you get 1 point, and it costs 1 point to "mooch" a book for yourself. So the more books you send to other people, the more books you can get for yourself! If you send a book outside your country (which you don't have to do) you get 3 points because postage is higher. It costs 2 points to get a book from another country for yourself. I hope that makes sense! I quite like it as some of my books aren't popular in the UK, but are in the US, so I can pass them on to new homes AND get more books! It also means that I can get German books without asking Johanna to buy them for me.

No problem about the chat, I like talking about books! :)

Yay, finished Rachel's Tears - will I managed to read A Village Affair in the next two days? I've never read anything by Joanna Trollope before and had the book dumped on me by my grandparents so I don't even know if I'll like it! I will attempt it, though.

A Village Affair seems to be a quick read, so I may finish it by tomorrow :) In the meantime, I've added my January books.

Second of January and I've read one book of my list - yay! I'm sure this will change when I go back to school on Monday, but meh. Also, changed one of my books. I really didn't think much of the first Joanna Trollope I read so I'm going to give her books back to my grandad - me and my mum both agreed that they're quite depressing. So I'm going to read one of the Christms books my mum's friend Lynne leant us.

Well, I finished the Nancy Drew book and it is most definitely the original 1932 text. The Nancy in the revised British editions would not have been too busy buying a hat in Emerson colours to wear to Ned's game to go and solve a mystery!

The Melody Carlson was a very quick read - only 204 pages - so I finished that today. It was a kind of sweet book, but not the kind of thing I'd choose to read. It can go back to my mum's bookpile now!

Took me a while to read (as I'm still trudging through 'Great Expectations' for English class) but I finished 'The Interpretation of Murder' yesterday. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected!

I never managed all of the books for last month but I've added another six anyway, and hope to finish the leftovers from last month AND this month's books. Already read 'The Point of Rescue' so it looks possible!