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Category: books (Page 1 of 29)

Project Read the TBR wrap-up

We’re down to the last few hours of December, so I’m wrapping up my project to read the TBR. Here’s my last few reads for the year, which includes a sort-of cheat: Empire in Black and Gold is my current read I just started on the 27th, and at 600+ pages there is very litle chance I’m going to finish it before we ring in the New Year – even at my best reading speed.

As you can see from the table above, my reading slowed right down over the last few weeks, due to my mum passing away in November.  Nonetheless, Project Read the TBR was a success. I had an informal goal of getting down to under 100 books in the queue, and according to Goodreads, my “Mount TBR” shelf is currently sitting at 98. Yay, me etc. Of course, since I *actually* read a total of 110 books in 2024, clearly I could have read a lot more. A few books also had to be added to/removed from the shelf mid-year because a) I read some series openers that I then decided not to continue with, and b) I am an idiot who cannot be relied upon to maintain my Goodreads shelves accurately.

But on the subject of series openers, in the course of this project I discovered some crackers, many of which I had been sleeping on for a number of years, including:

  • Eternal Sky – Elizabeth Bear
  • The Redwinter Chronicles – Ed McDonald
  • Rook & Rose – MA Carrick
  • The Tower and the Knife – Mazarkis Williams
  • The Divine Cities – Robert Jackson Bennett
  • Memoirs of Lady Trent – Marie Brennan
  • The Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
  • Planetfall – Emma Newman
  • Shades of Magic – VE Schwab
  • Spellcrackers – Suzanne MacLeod
  • The Bone Season – Samantha Shannon
  • The Laundry Files – Charles Stross
  • Weather Warden – Rachel Caine
  • The Shadow Campaigns – Django Wexler
  • Wolfhound Century – Peter Higgins
  • Winternight Trilogy – Katherine Arden
  • The Greatcoats – Sebastien de Castell
  • Drowning Empire – Andrea Stewart
  • The Blackhart Legacy – Liz de Jager

These were all thoroughly enjoyable, all for different reasons, and I want to read on. As a result,  my list of ongoing series now numbers 48, so 2025’s TBR looks, to use a seasonally-appropriate phrase, somewhere between “Ouch” and “boi-oi-oi-oing”.

There goes my pocket money.

 

Project Read the TBR: mid-year check in

I’ve been reading books from my TBR for over six months now, and I’m keeping myself accountable by posting periodically what I’ve read. We’re closing in on the end of July now so that seems as good a time as any to bring you all up to date.

Without further ado, here’s the tally since the end of May:

 

As you can see, I have read sixteen TBR books since my last update, but my Goodreads shelf ‘Mount Toberead’ only reduced by eight to 111. Either I have been remiss in keeping it up to date, or I actually have more books waiting to be read than I realised. Oh dear.

Fortunately, last weekend Rob helped me rearrange the bookshelves so that all my unreads are in one place, which has made it much easier to go through them all. I discovered several books I had been gifted and hadn’t added to the list, plus a couple erroneously marked as read which shouldn’t have been. Mount Toberead now numbers 119 again.

On the one hand, yay, more to read! But on the other, ugh, I’m not going to get it cleared this year, which means the TBR will get out of hand again. As a consequence of Project Read the TBR, I have discovered some two dozen new series I had been sleeping on, and now want to continue. The Tower and Knife, Spellcrackers, Eternal Sky, The Divine Cities, Livi Talbot, Rook & Rose, Redwinter et al, I’m looking at you.

But honestly, what a delightful problem to have.

 

Featured image © Elspeth Cooper

 

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