The Official TBR Challenge, hosted by the Roof Beam Reader.
We’re nearing the end of December now and I don’t anticipate reading the rest of the books on my official TBR challenge list before the 31st, so here’s the wrap-up. I read 9.5 books out of the fourteen (twelve and two alternates) that I chose at the beginning of the year.
Of those that I read, Graceling was far and away my favorite, but I also enjoyed (and would recommend) Kitchen Confidential, God’s Hotel, The Art of Fielding, The Starboard Sea, and Between Shades of Gray (not to be confused with Fifty Shades…).
I haven’t decided definitely not to read the remaining books, but I’m clearly not that excited about them or I would have read them already. I may pick up Quiet before the end of the month, but we’ll see. Sometimes, a book loses its appeal the longer a book sits on the shelf, through no fault of its own. Part of the reason I did this challenge this year was to read or get rid of books I owned that I hadn’t yet read – a way of pushing them to the front of the queue, ahead of library books, which have due dates.
While I didn’t read all twelve of my original choices, I did get to read several books this year that were on my unofficial TBR list, i.e. books I’d been wanting to read for some time but hadn’t gotten around to until this year. I enjoyed all of the following:
- And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass
- Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
- A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
- Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
- Breasts by Florence Williams
- Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Howards End by E.M. Forster
What did you read this year that you loved? What are you looking forward to reading next year? Will you be signing up for a challenge, inventing your own, or letting serendipity be your guide? Do you have a TBR list, in your mind or on paper (or Goodreads or LibraryThing)? Maybe this will be the year that I finally pare down my TBR list…or scrap it altogether.
Jenny Arch 
I keep a massive TBR list, even though it’s clear I will never read them all 🙂 I highly recommend Quiet – it turned out to be one of my favorite books that I read this past year!! Graceling has been on my TBR list for some time now, and I think it’s time to bump it up to the top of the queue based on your recommendation
I’m thinking of signing up for a Shakespeare challenge next year, which feels insane because I hate Shakespeare, but I think my hatred is unjustified (it is based entirely on Romeo & Juliet and Antony & Cleopatra, which is basically the same story with different names.) It would involve reading just 4 Shakespeare plays all year, which I think I can handle.
Try audiobooks, or watching the plays! Shakespeare is meant to be spoken/listened to, not read silently.