read what you own

I watch a lot of Youtube videos, or more accurately, BookTube videos - BT being the corner of YT where people discuss books (naturally); what they own, what they've read, what they intend to read. It's full of reviews, recommendations, warnings (sometimes), encouragement, and interesting, fun people that I enjoy spending time with. It also has a broad timetable of monthly events that viewers can choose to join. I've spoken previously about the short story theme in September, and the Victorian literature in October or, so called, Victober, both of which I chose to take part in this year. The upcoming event for December is Remember December, during which viewers/readers are encouraged to re-read a book they once read and can't recall anything about. I have a long list of those. I'm not sure I'll take part in this event, other than incidentally, firstly because I want to get festive and read some Christmas stories in December, as I also like to get festive by watching some cheesy Hallmark Christmas films, but secondly because November saw the start of an event called Read What You Own (RWYO) and I've committed myself to that. This isn't so much an event that lasts for the month as an event that lasts as long as you need it to in order to get the job done. What is RWYO? Simple really, readers commit to reading a set amount of books, of their own choosing, that they already own and have on their shelves, or eReader, before buying any more books to add to their collection. Luckily for me I have a number of Christmas titles already on my Kindle, so I can tick both boxes here.

When my interest was first piqued by this event, I began to mull over how many books I thought I could reasonably commit to reading. I'm generally wary of being tied to any reading rules which is why I won't join a book club, though I have found BT's monthly events to be a fun way to 'join-in' without ever having to be answerable to anyone if I stray off course. I randomly decided on reading 25 titles, but I soon upgraded to 30 after a quick scan of my physical shelves, and I could easily have gone higher (just to note here, some BT'ers have committed to read 100 books for their own challenge, and I could easily pluck the same number of unread books from my own shelves). I then turned my attention to my Kindle shelves to see how many unread titles reside there. I hope you're sitting down, I'm glad I was. My Kindle tells me I have 517 unread titles. 517. More books than I will ever be able to read in what's left of my lifetime. Once I was over the shock I collected into a folder 79 that I wouldn't want to die without having read. This was no easy task. I felt like Meryl Streep choosing between children. But I got the job done. My TBR (To Be Read) list was now up to 109 books, which I decided needed rounding up, rather than down, so another short while later, after further shelf and soul searching, my list had reached 120. I have chosen to read 120 of the unread books I already own before I will allow myself to buy another new/secondhand book. I should point out at this stage that I'm a slow reader. Four books read per month is my average, and by choosing to read even the initial 30 I was also committing myself to buying no new books for over seven months. Ouch. However, after living with the whole concept of RWYO for the past week or so, I've become really excited by the prospect of reading the books that I already own, because I do own some fantastic titles. And while you non-bookish sorts out there may be non-plussed by my propensity to buy books and then not actually read them immediately, I should make it quite clear that buying books and reading books are two very distinct and separate hobbies. The Japanese even have a word for this phenomenon, Tsundoku (積ん読); that is, the act of buying books and allowing them to accumulate and remain unread. I'm have always been guilty of this, and hope to remain so going forward. However, if my will power remains strong, it'll be a jolly long time before I break the self imposed rules of my challenge and rush out to a book shop.

So there you have it. This is what I'll be doing, this is what will be keeping me busy for the next 2.5 years. Reading a selection of books that I already own - and to save you doing the maths, if I'd committed to reading all the unread books on my Kindle, at my average monthly rate, it would take me over ten years.

For those who might be interested, here is a list of the top ten titles that I'm most looking forward to finally reading. I will intersperse them throughout the long-list of books I'll be reading, in order to keep my interest and excitement high over the coming year and beyond.

In no particular order:

1) Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

2) Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

3) The New Life by Tom Crewe

4) To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

5) Still Life by Sarah Winman

6) Women Vs Hollywood by Helen O'Hara

7) The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

8) Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

9) Middlemarch by George Elliot

10) East of Eden by John Steinbeck