Sunday, February 26, 2012

Today I join my first challenge(s): To Be Read Challenges

 Bev at My Reader's Block is hosting the 2012 Mt. TBR Challenge.  I am signing up at the Mt. Vancouver level: Read 25 books from your TBR pile/s.

I think that I can easily reach this amount in the next 10 months. I am curious to know if  I can count books that I have read between Jan. 1, 2012 and today, since I have read several of my TBR books since the beginning of the year. Doesn't matter really, because I really want to get through my own books and not buy a lot of new ones this year.

I am also joining the 2012 Read Your Own Books Reading Challenge at Tales From the Crypt.

I am partial to images of skulls or skeletons, and I love this image.

For this challenge I will attempt Level 4, 21 or more books. 

At the post where Bev describes her motivation for setting up the blog, she mentions that she read Susan Hill's book, Howard's End is on the Landing, where she describes reading only her own books for a year. I am currently reading that book, at a leisurely pace. A chapter at a time in between other reading.  I am a fan of Susan Hill's Simon Serailler series, which I devour as soon as the novels are available in the US.

I have no idea how many books I have in my TBR stacks, bookshelves, and boxes in the garage. I do have all of my fiction cataloged, but not all of the books have been accurately marked as read. If I read them many years ago and plan to read again, I don't mark as read. So it would take a while to get an accurate count (or even an estimate). But it is a lot. 

My goal this year (until September) is to only buy books written by authors that I have read previously. In other words, don't buy books for new authors (and preferably not new series, even by authors I have read). That still leaves a lot of books I could buy, but the preference is to work down the TBR piles.  In September I go to a yearly book sale where I can get books really cheap, and I don't plan to limit myself there.


Books I have read (with links to reviews):
  1. Do One Thing Different by Bill O'Hanlon (03/01/2012)
  2. Winter by Len Deighton (03/05/2012)
  3. The Company of Strangers by Robert Wilson
  4. Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand 
  5. Green for Danger by Christianna Brand 
  6. Bluffing Mr. Churchill by John Lawton
  7. Second Violin by John Lawton (04/04/2012)
  8. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 
  9. Dying Light by Stuart MacBride
  10. A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
  11. The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep by Lawrence Block
  12. Cop Hater by Ed McBain
  13. In the Woods by Tana French
  14. A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
  15. Political Suicide by Robert Barnard
  16. The Guards by Ken Bruen 
  17. The Light of Day by Eric Ambler 
  18. A Fall from Grace by Robert Barnard 
  19. Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street by William S. Baring-Gould 
  20. Spy Hook by Len Deighton 
  21. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 
  22. An Empty Death by Laura Wilson 
  23. Whiskey Sour by J. A. Konrath
  24. The Information Officer by Mark Mills
  25. The Sleeping-Car Murders by Sebastien Japrisot 
  26. Flesh Wounds by John Lawton 
  27. Death of a Russian Priest by Stuart Kaminsky
  28. The Suspect by L. R. Wright 
  29. Under World by Reginald Hill 
  30. Bullet for a Star by Stuart Kaminsky 
  31. A Lily of the Field by John Lawton
  32. Night at the Vulcan by Ngaio Marsh
  33. The Property of a Lady by Anthony Oliver
  34. Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
  35. Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
  36. The One from the Other by Philip Kerr
  37. A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr
  38. Lament for the Bride by Helen Reilly 
  39. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley 
  40. A Touch of Frost by R. D. Wingfield
  41. Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb
  42. Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb
  43. The Affair of the Mutilated Mink by James Anderson
  44. To Play the Fool by Laurie R. King
  45. With Child by Laurie R. King
  46. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
  47. The Judas Sheep by Stuart Pawson
  48. The Cape Code Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
  49. Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson
  50. The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell

Completion of Challenge: I completed this challenge on July 4, 2012, when I finished reading The Sleeping-Car Murders by Sebastien Japrisot. I will continue recording novels I have read this year from my To Be Read stacks on this post.

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