nrmay aims to read 25 of her own books in 2014

Reading goal is 100 bks in 2014 and I'm on target with 60+ so far. Trouble is - I keep bringing home armloads of library books that I have to read and return. I never get to my 800+ to-be-read on my own shelves! I have way too many books; many of them I intend to give away . . . just as soon as I read them! It would also help if I quit bringing more home to add to the collection. I'm some kind of book magnet - they just follow me home.

My plan: make every other book I read be off my shelf. So, I'll alternate library book, then one of my own, for the rest of the year.

That's a good policy! I have the same problem .....

Good luck! Let us know how you get on...

Well I figure, if you're reading library books at least that's a book you didn't add to your pile.

I did fairly well the first half of this year. More than half of the 59 books I read through June were off the TBR shelves.
I kept only 4 of those and gave away most of the rest. A few I sold back at the used book store for store credit!

If I finish 50 TBR books per year, in 16 years I will have depleted the stash . . . if I don't acquire any more. (Highly unlikely)

I got a late start, beginning in July, I'll need to read 4 or more per month for the rest of the year to reach the target of 25 (hopefully more!)

Finished one so far -

1. The Meanest Doll in the World by Ann Martin. To give away to my doll-collecting friend for her Toy and Doll Museum.

If it makes you feel any better, I have 1411 unread books in my house and still bring more home. You are in good company around here!

Finished another -

2. Devil's Food by Kerry Greenwood.
Quirky Australian mystery; numerous personable felines.

another one read and off the TBR shelf. 800-plus to go . . . Brought a few more home from the used bookstore today

3. Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon.
She says it takes 4 years to write these big fat installments. I'll be waiting for the next one.

4. Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson - finished and off the shelf!

I need to read faster or read some skinny books. To read 22 more by end of 2014 means 4+ books off the shelf each month. And there are all those library books too . . .

5. City of Ink Drinkers by Eric Sanvoisin - read and off the shelf

If I read all my TBR books I can get my library down to a more reasonable size of 1500 books.

6. Ludie's Life by Cynthia Rylant. Lovely narrative poetry.

19 more TBR books to reach my goal...

7. Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman. YA, very good.

A variation of recent adult sci fi novel The Humans by Matt Haig.

8. Charles Dickens, The Man Who Had Great Expectations by Diane Stanley. J biography

Well done; beautifully illustrated. I love Dickens and this was a treat.
I was a children's librarian for most of my career and I still enjoy children's books.
J non-fiction can give you a good and useful general overview of a subject that you know little about.
And if you're familiar with the topic you'll still learn something new!

>7 Yells:: Well, it makes _me_ feel better. I have 900 books tagged "unread" but I'm nowhere near done with entering all my books into LT so I suspect I'm very close your number. And yes, I keep buying books ... But no matter, soon I will win the lottery and can finally do nothing but read all day.

Yeah, I try to do the "every other book read must already be in the house" system, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I also own a bookstore with around 50,000 used books in it. That adds a little to the conundrum, you bet! Not a bad problem to have, though, all in all.

2 more off the shelf!

9. Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat. Classic adventure/survival in the Canadian northlands
10. Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer. mystery set in post-WWII London, late 1940s

15 to go by the end of the year.

Also off the shelf and in the pile to sell back to the used book store. I confess I didn't like it and didn't finish it...

11. Murder of a Bookstore Babe by Denise Swanson

14 books to go. I'm currently reading 3 off the shelf-
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Case of the Missing Books
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Highly recommended by another LT member.

Finished

12. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie a clever mystery, with an exceptionally smart 11- year-old girl as the amateur sleuth.

Now reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

13. Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy) by Jeff VanderMeer

This was a strange one. Not sure if I'll read the others in the trilogy... not quite yet anyway

14. Vasalisa and Her Magic Doll by Rita Grauer. A beautifully illustrated Russian folktale.

>21 nrmay: I found Annihilation stayed with me, but having read the full trilogy I've got to say I think I'd have been just as happy stopping after the first one. I enjoyed Authority and Acceptance, but I liked the way Annihilation was positioned and still feel it works really well as a stand-alone. They don't get any less strange :)

15. Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber

Read this one because the author will be at a public library fund-raiser this fall. Not my usual cup of tea but pleasant enough. Included recipes!

I'm on tract to reach my goal of 50 books off the shelf this year BUT I see a wrinkle - of the 6 books read from the TBR shelves this month, 2 were old ones but 4 were books I acquired in September! I need to read faster or quit bringing more home if I ever want to reduce the TBR collection. And I do want to; I'm supposed to be down-sizing...

16. The Big Wave by Pearl S Buck.
A Japanese boy and his family live on the mountainside above a small fishing village in this classic story.
Pearl Buck won both a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize

One more off the shelf! 9 to go.

17. Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs, read and off the shelf.

8 books to go...

I read 3 more of my own books -

18. The Exiles by Hilary McKay
19. Dog Friday Hilary McKay
20. Mistress Amanda Quick

The 2 by McKay have to go back on the shelf. They are among my very favorite children's books

Finished another -

21. Family of Man by Edward Steichen. This one was quick and easy - a photographic essay.

21. Family of Man by Edward Steichen, finished.

Now reading -
Storm Riders Craig Lesley and
Elephants and Golden Thrones: Inside China's Forbidden City by Trish Marx

I have some varied and obscure books on my TBR shelves!

finished 1 more -

22. Elephants and Golden Thrones: Inside China's Forbidden City by Trish Marx

This was also my 100th book for 2014!

23. In the Wet Nevil Shute.

Two stories, one set in Queensland Australia and the other in England, have a fantastical/ethereal/spiritual connection.
Written in 1952, it supposes an alternate political future for the British Commonwealth thirty years hence in the 1980s.

I should now give this away, BUT it's an interesting, 60 cent (!) Bantam paperback from 1953 in good condition.
I think I'll have to keep it for a while . . .

#31> I would keep that book, too.

24. Star Bright: a Christmas Story by Andrew Greeley

Finished today. My first Christmas novel of the season!

25. An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor

With this one I've met my goal of reading 50 books off my shelves for this year.
But I still have more books than ever in my TBR list!

also finished this one today -
26. The Fur Person by May Sarton

last of the year -

27. Silent Night Mary Higgins Clark
28. Christmas Mourning Margaret Maron