Year three! Once again, a shout out to the awesome book bloggers/booktubers who created the
#RYBSAT (Read-your-bookshelf-a-thon), which I adapted this challenge from in 2017.
An admission on my part. I failed miserably at this challenge (AGAIN) in 2018. I'm hoping I will get it right this year. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
Here's what you do:
- Go to your bookshelves, or stack on the floor, or on your nightstand, etc. Pick out a book that you've been wanting to read on a particular shelf.
- Now continue down that line of books on the shelf (in order) until you have 12 books. (Here's an example image - most of my books are stacked instead of shelved traditionally because I have so many!) So, I choose Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train as my first choice and then I go up the stack until I have twelve total so I would end up at up at Summers' Vampires and Vampirism.
- You might notice that there are a couple of extra books at the top...Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi and the top one is The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. These are alternate titles. I found that part of the reason I failed at this challenge is that I didn't have any options for alternates, which I now feel is essential, especially if your sequence of books has more than one by the same author. I'm limiting the alternates to a three book maximum.
- You will then read your 12 books over the next twelve months, one book each month. You can read them in order (forward or reverse), or you can plug 1 - 12 (or 1 through your total number including alternates, if any) into a randomizer each month to pick your title for the month. The point is that you're not specifically choosing the book each month. It's chosen for you, either by ordered reading, or random choice.
- If you find that one of the books is part of a series and you've already read it, I will allow a substitution of another book from the series. However, if you find this happening (a whole series, several by the same author, etc) in the stack/shelf you chose, and you don't like it, I would suggest picking a different stack/shelf.
- What an awesome way to tackle books gathering dust on your bookshelves. Right?
- Challenge runs January through December of 2019.
- You can cross over books from your 12 books with other challenges.
- Just remember to stick to the guidelines above.
- Easy peasy!
ADDENDUM ONE: If you find yourself unable to finish one of your books in a month's time (I recently experienced this with a book I've found will take me a bit longer to finish, as I need to read it in doses), as long as you finish it during the challenge dates (January - December of current year), it counts. So, with the alternate reads option, and this addition, I think things should be much easier.
ADDENDUM TWO: If you start the challenge late, mid-year, etc., you can read the number of books coinciding with the remaining months in the year. For example, if you start in June, you would pick a shelf (or section of shelf) with seven books (and 2 or 3 alternates) to give you your seven books for the remainder of the challenge dates parameters.
Sign up below and grab the button. I hope you will join me!
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