I started writing a reflection of 2024 back in January, and if I’m honest, I was in a little bit of a reading slump – so it’s been interesting to revisit those words for this post in April.
At the start of 2024 I challenged myself to stop buying books as my hobby and start reading them instead. Sounds simple, and in theory it was – although, anyone who has felt the lure of a bookshop knows it’s not always easy to walk away empty handed.
Challenge24 focused on reading what I already owned, and limiting the number of incoming books – I originally intended to buy no books at all, but soon realised that was unrealistic for me. At the end of each month, I challenged myself to be ruthless in getting rid of those books I didn’t think I would revisit and pass them on to new owners.
In total in 2024 I read 105 physical books, and 64 kindle books. I explored genres I’d never read before, revisited books that were no longer favourites, fell into fanfic and discovered a love of Japanese translations. Honestly, I doubt I’ll keep that pace this year, I have enjoyed the months where I slowed down a little more for reading, making space to sit with the stories after they’re done instead of immediately reaching for the next.
I passed on, donated and sold 71 books from my shelves. I deleted books I didn’t enjoy from my kindle. And yet, honestly, I felt like I’d failed. I only brought 13 new books into the house and yet my shelves were still groaning. I still feel overwhelmed by how many unread books I own. I really thought I’d have made a noticeable dent in the bookshelves and its absolutely not the case.
I had decided to challenge myself after realising I had fallen into a hobby of buying books, rather than reading them. I’m so lucky to have bookshelves full of books, but there were more there than I could read in a year, even if it was my full time job! I had completely lost track of what exactly I enjoyed reading, filling my shelves with things I felt I should be reading and ultimately not doing much other than feel bad for not picking any of them up. So Challenge24 was an attempt to find the flow in reading again, to reduce the incoming books, focus on what I owned and hopefully rediscover my love of reading.
So what did I learn from Challenge24?
- That my favourite genres weren’t as cut and dry as I had expected. Whilst I enjoy non-fiction, it’s not one I reach for that often, and biographies last year were not really been hitting the spot. However, poetry was much higher in the ‘favourites’ categories than I may have realised, it just has a way of scratching the itch when my brain is full.
- My comfort reads are often YA, but not always – I think this may stem from using reading as an escape. I have unexpectedly discovered a deep love for Science Fiction – an unexpected favourite this year has been The Thousand Earths by Stephen Baxter, it’s a monster of a novel that spans an unimaginable amount of time and it is absolutely amazing!
- There is a lot of relief in accepting that you don’t have to finish a book, just because you started it. There weren’t too many DNFs on my list this year, but knowing I could just choose to stop and not force myself to finish made a big difference. Before I would have struggled through, but thankfully those days are behind me.
- There are definitely books I prefer to read in real life vs on the kindle – and not just the ones with pictures! Books with heavier subjects I would rather read in physical form, lighter romcom, summer reads and comfort books, I enjoy on kindle.
- I enjoy donating and gifting my books away almost as much as enjoy reading them – although full disclosure, I do sometimes buy a new copy if I know I want to keep my copy, I would rather gift a book than lend it – what if they crease the spine!?
- When I look at my top shelf – which is the books I’ve decided to keep, I feel happy, less overwhelmed and genuinely that I would reach for any of them. And that feeling is what I would like to feel when I look across my whole bookcase – I feel another round of cuts coming on!
- It is always worth staying open to recommendations and keeping space to buy things that sound interesting – I’ve found new favourites through keeping an amazon wish list which I was lucky enough to be gifted from.
An unexpected side effect is the desire to get rid of more, I’m sure it’s obvious from the books I read back in January 2024 that I’m interested in lightening the load of ‘stuff’ in my life. Books have always been a tough category for me to consider less, and yet giving them away and donating them has felt so positive – so I’ve been trying to bring this through to other areas in my life. I realised that it would take me 3 to 4 years to read all my remaining books, if I maintained the speed of 2024 and that’s if I didn’t buy any new books – which means no reading the books people recommend, or that catch my eye or that I can’t wait to read, and that just doesn’t sound fun at all!
I will definitely be carrying some sort of ‘challenge’ through 2025 to try to thin the weight from my groaning bookshelves and read what I own.
So – Challenge2025: what is it going to look like?
- More timely book roundups and detailed reviews – I didn’t do too many in 2024, but when a book or series really speak to me, I’d like to make the effort to do so. I love sharing my thoughts on books, and I’m lucky to have friends that love to talk reading but I’d like to expand on it. Its also more mindful and forces me to sit with the story for a while, before rapidly moving onto the next.
- Slow down – it’s meant to be enjoyable, not a race to see how many can be stacked up in a month.
- Keep the brutality – get rid of the ones that don’t spark joy, or that do, but that someone else will love more.
- Another cull – treat the bookshelf like a shop, would I pick it up if I came across it now? Some of these are just here because they’ve been here for ages – they don’t need to stay. I talked about getting rid of books I’ve never read here – and I can honestly say I haven’t missed a single one that I got rid of at that time.
- Stay open to recommendations but don’t auto buy things just because someone says they liked it.
- Keep up the book swaps and use the library!
I’ve bought quite a few books already this year, so it’s unlikely I’ll maintain the average of one a month – but I’ve found I’m reading them as soon as I buy them, and making a much quicker decision on whether or not to keep them. I think the ultimate goal is to have a smaller more curated library of books, and to only keep those which I feel I’ll actually revisit. I feel like I’m rediscovering my excitement about reading, the love has always been there – but the excitement had definitely faded.
How about you? Did you make any resolutions around reading this year? And if so – how’s it going so far?
Nx
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