2014 TBR Pile Challenge FAIL – and Let’s Try This Again

We’ve hit the middle of December, and I’m ready to concede defeat. Around this time last year, I made the leap and joined a reading challenge beyond my usual 50 (which was once again a success!): I joined Roof Beam Reader’s 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. The goal was to read 10 books that had been on my TBR pile for at least a year (with two just-in-case alternates).

I totally failed.

Here’s the partially completed list:

• The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov)
• Under the Net (Murdoch)
• The Shadow of the Wind (Zafón)
• The Children of Men (P.D. James)
• The Ambassadors (Henry James)
• The Slynx (Tolstaya)
• Still Life with Woodpecker (Robbins)
• Pedro Páramo (Rulfo)
• Demons (Dostoyevsky)
• Ragtime (Doctorow)
• Wicked (Maguire)
• The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories (Clarke)

And the alternates:

• Warlock (Hall)
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Riggs)

That’s 7 out of 10. Not too bad, really. I started off well: I read most of them at the beginning of the year when they were still kind of interesting to me, but then I hit a point where I didn’t want to read any of them, and that didn’t change. So here we are. At some point, I still want to read Warlock, Wicked, Ragtime, Demons, and The Children of Men, but those will happen when they happen. I’m just going to read books when I want to read them.

So why am I attempting another challenge? Because it might be interesting. I’ve chosen POPSUGAR’s 2015 Ultimate Reading Challenge. This one is more open-ended, and it might expand my reading horizons, which is always a good thing.

It’s fifty-two books if I read one for every checkbox, but I’m going to try to complete a loose version of it and check off whatever boxes fit the book I happen to be reading. That’ll have me reading a play and a romance, neither of which is usually on my radar. We’ll see what happens. After last year’s performance, I’m not sure what to expect.