I’m the sort of person that loves goals. Truly, if I did not set regular goals for myself, I feel very confident I would never complete anything at all, including books. I have a fear of commitment, don’t judge. Thanks to my love of goal setting, I love New Years. I’m not a subscriber to the “new year, new me” philosophy; however, I do love what feels like a time of opportunity.
One of my main focuses this year is to read more of my own books. As in the books I already own, not books that I’m planning to purchase. As I’ve discussed on the podcast, I’m a big library user. Buying a book feels like I’m saving a book, oftentimes, and then I go back to the library hunting for the books I haven’t saved at my house. Given this problem, and the fact that this doesn’t deter me in the slightest from buying new books, I have far too many unread books on my shelf.
So! With all that in mind, I peer pressured five people who came to my house in the past month into picking a set of 10 books I am going to read. They could pick any of my books, without my input. They had to arrange them in order, and they had to take a picture of them.
The goal is that over the course of the next year, or so, I will read all these books. I have to read them in order, but I don’t have to read one stack at a time. When I’m done, I’ll take the average star rating of all the books and offer the highest-rated stack-picker a prize of some sort.
- Eric’s Stack
Eric, as the person who lives with me, got first dibs on the stack. He also slightly cheated in that two of these books, Cloud Atlas and From the Corner of His Eye, were his books.
He chose four books I’ve read before (Feed, Beloved, The Eternity Code, and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), which I believe makes his stack the one with the most re-reads. He also chose a book by Ernest Hemingway, who I kind of hate, so we’ll see how that goes.
Eric’s Picks, Ratings and Reviews:- From the Corner of His Eye – Dean Koontz, 3 out of 5 stars
- Sara’s Stack
I think Sara deserves points for picking the stack that I find most visually pleasing. I have not fully completed any of the books she chose, and there are several in this stack that I’ve been excited to read for a while. - Tyler’s Stack
Tyler chose, unsurprisingly, the heftiest stack. He is single-handedly the reason why I might need two years to complete this task. Two of these books, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Ready Player One, I have read before. We actually covered Ready Player One for the podcast, which I believe makes this book the one I have read most recently out of any of the stacks. I’m also not sure that I’m looking forward to reading a Tucker Max book now that I’m not in college.
Tyler specifically picked Les Miserables because it’s the biggest looking book on my self, so we shun him a little. However, it’s a book that I know I should read in life, so power to him. - Rayanne’s Stack
Rayanne also curated a hefty stack, though I don’t think that was her main focus. I’m really excited about some of the books she chose, particularly The City of Brass, which I started reading a while back, was legitimately enjoying, but did not commit to finishing. Out of all the books she chose, I haven’t finished any of these. - Kelsey’s Stack
Lastly, we have Kelsey’s stack! I’m kind of impressed because, as we talked about on the podcast today, this stack has so many adult books! Kelsey and I both tend to spend a fair bit of time in YA-land, which only three of these are. I’ve read two books in this stack (The Joy Luck Club and Water for Elephants), but I read them both in high school and am very rusty on their story lines.
As I go through and read each book, my plan is to come back here and post a little review. I’m excited to get started on this project and make some progress on my many unread books. I’ll also be lurking around the “unread shelf challenge” on instagram, so as always, come check us out there!
Full Spoilers Ahead 