In 2016 I’ll Be Reading My Own Damn Books

I’m only a few more purchases away from this.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again to reiterate: my book purchasing, especially in the last 12 months, is completely out of control. I’ve stocked up on books like a squirrel stores nuts or like a doomsdayer stores toilet paper. The only plus is that a lot of them are in digital format, so I’m still able to, you know, move around my house. And buy even more physical books.

Along with books purchased in the last month, there are loads that have been lurking around my TBR Towers for approximately three years now, which is a real travesty.

So. In 2016 I’m going to be reading my own damn books. Which is great because there’s a challenge actually called Read My Own Damn Books. How convenient! It’s being hosted by Andi over at Estella’s Revenge and it’s pretty simple: read the damn books you already have. You can set your own goals if you like. For example, Andi is aiming to read 100 of her own books that currently sit unread.  I don’t really have a numbers goal as such. I’ll just be really pleased to get rid of one of the two and half towers of books I have.

You can sign up to read your own damn books here.

Coinciding with that challenge – at least for the first three months of the year – is the Clean Your Reader Challenge, being hosted by Kerry at Entomology of a Bookworm. This challenge is also simple: read as many e-books from your e-reader as you like/can over a three-month period (January through March 2016). And that’s it. This challenge is ideal for me as I’m getting to the point that I don’t remember that I even have unread e-books because I can’t actually see them, and I’ve accumulated them just because “they were cheap”.

You can sign up to clean your reader here.

I have two allowances for myself (because I know I’m not that strong):

• There are three new releases in 2016 that I’m REALLY excited for and I have OK’d myself to purchase. The first is a new biography about Primo Levi the focuses on his time in the Italian Resistance during WWII (if you read this post you’ll know that I’m kind of a fan of Levi); another is a memoir from my favourite author/former British intelligence officer, John le Carré, which I’m stupidly excited about; and the other is a novel penned by Gary Oldman AKA George Smiley AKA Sirius Black that’s SET IN THE WEST AND IS ABOUT VAMPIRES (also stupidly excited for this).
• If I get an itch and need something new, I’m allowed to go to the library or NetGalley, or to the book exchange. The last is only allowed if I exchange one of my books for another one.

Also. I’m doing Book Riot’s 2016 Read Harder challenge, which is the guide I’ll use when I get the itch to read something I don’t already own. There are 24 tasks to complete in this challenge and while I’m sure many of them will be completed by reading the books I already own, I know there’s a few that I’ll need to do by looking beyond my own collection.

So that’s my plan and I plan to stick to it. I’ve also decided not to set a reading goal in Goodreads in 2016, as at times this year I feel like I’ve been reading for numbers and not for enjoyment, which kind of defeats the purpose of reading. So even though I’ve got three challenges this year, I don’t have a number to aim for as such, so hopefully reading will be more fun again.

Do you have any reading plans for 2016? Do you need to do one of these challenges too?