ShelfLove challenge

So last year’s ShelfLove challenge went really well and I finished up the year by meeting pretty much all my goals on not buying books. In fact, this is the first year since 2011 that I kept the average under buying a book a day. I am seriously addicted to books — for one thing, when I’m sad, I want new books — so this was pretty good. And I kept it quite a ways under that average, too, with only around 240 books bought or acquired before my Christmas presents, vouchers, etc, joined the list.

My goals this year? Beat this year’s buying average, stick to the budget I maintained in 2015 (no more than 10% of my income on books in any given month), and read 200 books acquired before 2016. I know, I know — the actual highest number suggested by the challenge is 51+. But I’m ambitious. I have no idea how attainable this is as a goal, but I usually read 300+ books a year, so I think it’s doable if I can just keep focused.

Another side-goal is getting my Netgalley ratio to 100%, after finally reaching that coveted 80% juuust at the end of December. Obviously I’m okay with this being via finally reading and reviewing the books, or accepting that it’s not going to happen: that’s how I got to 80%, after all. I also want to finish series that I’m partway through — like Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher books — and get on top of my library addiction a bit. I currently have 30+ books out of the library and a special shelf to keep them on. I like having them there to look at, but I’m not keeping up with them properly. Time to fix that!

Ready? Let’s get reading!

This month’s prompt is a bit of a retrospective already — do you feel thankful for doing the challenge, has it changed your habits? Yes, I think it’s helped. It’s certainly made me keep a close track of it. I’m trying to close out the challenge by not buying any books in December (other than paying for a couple of pre-orders, which I’ve just realised I already placed and don’t really want to cancel, since first day sales are important). Or, rather, from now until the end of December! I’ve already gone a couple of weeks now…

Here’s my general updates on the #ShelfLove challenge and my New Year’s Resolutions.

• 52/51+ already owned books read from prior to 2015 (last one recorded: Moon-Flash, 25/10)
• Spent: £21 out of ~£30 budget (budget is 10% of my income) for January
• Spent: £20 out of ~£25 budget for February
• Spent: £22 out of ~£25 budget for March
• Spent: £15 out of ~£16 budget for April
• Spent: £45 out of ~£30 budget for May
• Spent: £18 out of ~£40 budget for June, plus stuck within holiday budget
• Spent: £45 out of ~£50 budget for July
• Spent £51 out of ~£60 for August
  
• Spent £30 out of £40 for September
• Spent £20 out of £20 for October
• Spent £36 out of £50 for November

Here’s my more general progress on resolutions:

• No books impulse-bought 
• Read every day 
• Bed before midnight
• Up before ten every day
• Only bought one book from a series at a time
• Posted to the blog every day
• Commented on at least one other blog every day
• Tithed 10% in every month so far
• Done 8o hours volunteering total
• Reading/reviewing books from NG/etc (76% ratio)

Not bad at all, right? One thing I’m not going to make is my volunteering commitment, unless I go back and count online volunteering. It’s disappointing, but things have come up, unfortunately.

I keep almost forgetting to do this post! Here’s October’s one. This month’s prompt is about how you organise your shelves. Well, right now I have permanent shelves with books I’m keeping at my parents, while I have books I haven’t read yet mostly at my grandmother’s, since I’ve been here the last couple months for healthcare and now to take care of her. In both places they’re sorted by genre — poetry, non-fiction, SF/F, crime/mystery, historical, general. Within that, they’re sorted by author’s last name and within that, by order of publication.

I enjoy occasionally overhauling that and shaking everything up, though.

Here’s my general updates on the #ShelfLove challenge and my New Year’s Resolutions. The colour scheme should be familiar by now…

• 49/51+ already owned books read from prior to 2015 (last one recorded: Moon-Flash, 25/10)
• Spent: £21 out of ~£30 budget (budget is 10% of my income) for January
• Spent: £20 out of ~£25 budget for February
• Spent: £22 out of ~£25 budget for March
• Spent: £15 out of ~£16 budget for April
• Spent: £45 out of ~£30 budget for May
• Spent: £18 out of ~£40 budget for June, plus stuck within holiday budget
• Spent: £45 out of ~£50 budget for July
• Spent £51 out of ~£60 for August
  
• Spent £30 out of £40 for September
• Spent ~£20 out of £20 for October

Not good pay at all this month — somehow the billing cycle means I barely earn anything this month. Sigh.

Here’s my more general progress on resolutions:

• No books impulse-bought 
• Read every day 
• Bed before midnight
• Up before ten every day
• Only bought one book from a series at a time
• Posted to the blog every day
• Commented on at least one other blog every day
• Tithed 10% in every month so far
• Done 8o hours volunteering total
• Reading/reviewing books from NG/etc (70%!)

Not bad at all, right?

This month’s prompt is all about the perils of being a book hoarder. And, well, I happen to know some things about that. Coincidentally, this month I’ve actually made a big effort to get rid of books I didn’t actually intend to read — books I read years ago and won’t reread, books I own multiple copies of, unsolicited ARCs that are just not genres I enjoy — and all that hauling around of book boxes did pull a muscle in my shoulder…

But also, there’s the whole issue that I have literally about a thousand books owned and unread. Someone counted them a while back, I’m not kidding you. I get stressed, I buy books for comfort… and then I reread books I already own because it’s more comforting to know the plot and characters ahead of time! And it’s actually a little bit stressful having such a big, big pool of books to choose from. I already have problems making decisions, and now. Well. It’s at peak levels.

One thing I am doing to get over it is monthly TBR lists — picked somewhat randomly from my backlogs. Usually I’ll pick a category (like, “oh, I’ll tackle some of my unread comics”) and find some books to fit it, and try to use that as motivation, to cut down on the problem of choice. It’s working reasonably well in September, but I gave myself August as a month off because I’m fickle and sticking to a list stresses me out… And I can be pretty enthusiastic about the set-up in the last week of the month, and then go off it on the first. I have a list drafted now for October, but I don’t know how the actual list is going to resemble it.

(You can, uh, see the problem with the fact that I keep masses of lists about books.)

Anyway, rambling done, here’s my general updates on the #ShelfLove challenge and my New Year’s Resolutions. The colour scheme should be familiar by now…

• 47/51+ already owned books read from prior to 2015 (last one recorded: The Martian, 21/09)
• Spent: £21 out of ~£30 budget (budget is 10% of my income) for January
• Spent: £20 out of ~£25 budget for February
• Spent: £22 out of ~£25 budget for March
• Spent: £15 out of ~£16 budget for April
• Spent: £45 out of ~£30 budget for May
• Spent: £18 out of ~£40 budget for June, plus stuck within holiday budget
• Spent: £45 out of ~£50 budget for July
• Spent £51 out of ~£60 for August
  
• Spent £30 out of £40 for September

Not such good pay so far this month, alas, but the total might go up.

Here’s my more general progress on resolutions:

• No books impulse-bought (I’ve made a couple of impulse purchases)
• Read every day 
• Bed before midnight
• Up before ten every day
• Only bought one book from a series at a time
• Posted to the blog every day
• Commented on at least one other blog every day
• Tithed 10% in every month so far
• Done 6o hours volunteering total
• Reading/reviewing books from NG/etc (67% ratio; steady progress)

So not so bad! Especially that leap of eleven books from last month’s check-in, when it comes to reading books I’d previously bought.