Every year Goodreads asks you to sign up for their reading challenge. How many books do you plan to read this year?
My Challenge
For the past few years I have signed up for 70 books. This is not because I can’t read more. I can. It’s not because I don’t have a lot more books waiting for me to read them. I certainly do.
The 70 books is doable. Although the challenge is adjustable, I prefer not to. So the number is set at a comfortable height, a little bit challenging, but doable. I hate to arrive at December with a dozen more books to read.
Another Challenge
The reading challenge is easy compared to a greater challenge at home. That one has six big bookcases – four feet wide, six feet high – filled with books waiting for me to pick them up.
For years I loved going to book sales and bookstores to look at and buy books. Half of them got read. All of them sat on the shelves waiting. Then stacks were on the floor next to the bookcases or on top.
I stopped buying books. Now I am trying to read my way through all of these books. How many books can I read in a year? Not enough.
My goal is to include at least 40 off my shelves every year. As I finish them, they go somewhere else. Some to people who are interested in them. Some to book sales.
How Many Books Do You Have?
A book only means something if someone reads it. Sitting on a shelf for years only gathers dust. Books are meant to be read.
I know I will have to read a lot faster, if I am to get through all the books on my shelves. And my tastes have changed so some of the books are no longer ones I care to read.
The Value of Books
As I read “Thunderbolt House” by Howard Pease, the library is important to the main character. He isn’t reading the books, only checking to see what their monetary value is. His great uncle started this library only as a way to make money. Jud originally succumbed to the lure of the money. He has changed.
Books are to be read. Their true value is inside the covers in the words the author wrote.
My books have spent too long sitting on shelves and I am trying to move them off. What are you doing with your stash of books?
