The 2024 TBR Challenge

The good news is that I’m reading (and buying) lots of good books. I’ve read 82 books so far this year. I’ve also added 125 books.

The bad news is that I’m behind on my targets for reading books from my TBR pile and I’m buying more books than I can read. Year to date the net growth of my TBR pile is 43 books (almost 9 a month).

I think it’s clear that I’m not going to meet my TBR Challenge Goals. Still, the books I’ve added a very interesting books and I’m reading more books than ever before and enjoying almost all of them so I’m happy enough.

2024 TBR Challenge Check by goal

1. Read all books added to my library in 2024
   • Year to date I’ve added 123 books of which I’ve read 44 (36%).
2. Read 90 books from my TBR pile that were added in 2023
   • Year to date I’ve read 22 of the 90 books, which means I’m 15 books behind plan.
3. Read 30 books selected from my 2012-2022 TBR shelf
   • I’ve read 11 of the 30 which means I’m 2 books behind plan.
4. Move some TBR books to the Unlikely To Read shelf
   • This is complete. I’ve selected 24 books.

What I read in May

I read 14 books in May. I rated half of them as four-star reads or better. One was outstanding and three of them I set aside. My best read was Katie Williams’ ‘My Murder‘, an original, surprising, beautifully written and often unsettling speculative fiction novel that used a near-future murder mystery to tell the story of a cloned woman who is trying to discover?/build? her own identity and gain agency in a world in which male violence against women is so ubiquitous it seems elemental. 

I was fortunate in having six four-star reads in May. So far I’ve only had time to write reviews for two of them, ‘Outback‘ an Australian thriller and ‘You Like it Darker‘, Stephen King’s latest short story collection. The reviews for the rest will appear this month.

What I added in May

I added 23 books in May. I know it’s a lot but it’s 12 less than in April, so that’s an improvement, right?