Saturday 25 January 2020

Challenge One - The One Hundred Books Challenge


The first Challenge I'm setting myself this year is a year long one and it is to read one hundred books over the course of this year. 

 I seem to have gone from loving books and reading all the time to being much more intermittent with my reading.  Just recently, like so many other people I've been picking up my phone more and more and of course this has meant that sometimes I simply fill my time with social media, playing games and well basically … just not reading books.

Now I have decided that I simply want to bring my love of reading books back to the forefront of my mind.  Hopefully giving myself the Challenge of reading a minimum of two books a week should help to do this.


To start me off and to inspire me I have just been around the house counting the books that we own.  The ones on bookshelves, the ones on ledges and the ones stacked by the side of the bed ... all of them.

The grand total of physical books in this house is 362.

I also have my tablet which holds all the books that I used to have on a Kindle.  There's around 200 on there,  or maybe more now as I tend to pick up any Kindle freebies that I spot on Amazon that sound interesting.

I have some books at the Van which will have to be added into the main total, I'm guessing around 25-30, we'll see when we get back there next month, but I'm thinking that this will still bring our total number of already owned physical books to just under 400, which is a big improvement on the 619 that I counted up to in 2015.

Over the years books have come in, both new and second-hand, and some have gone out again to car boot sales and charity shops and the number we own has fluctuated up and down, but then last year we decided to start slimming down the collection properly in our bid for a simpler life and it's nice to see that we seem to be on target to reducing the number we own.



Ideally I would like to own just one hundred books … but I doubt that would ever happen.  Perhaps I can get to one hundred fiction and non-fiction (biographies etc) and then another one hundred cook books … now that might be achievable!!


Anyway thanks to my counting of books I now know that this bookshelf will easily hold one hundred books, and as this is one of the few pieces of furniture that we intend keeping once we sell our house it's good to know that if I can downsize all the non-cookbooks to one just hundred, they will all fit comfortably on the shelves of this unit and we will have the cupboard for storage of other things.  My cookbooks I hope will in future all be able to fit in my kitchen!

I will be listing all the books that I have read and am currently reading, on the post that published just before this one and that is the post that can be linked to from the link on the right-hand sidebar, under My Challenges 2020  so you will be able to follow my progress throughout the year.

Better go, I have some reading to do.


I started this last night as my bedtime reading ... it's good.  I'm also loving their television series on Sunday mornings 'Living on the Veg'.  How nice to see a good vegan cooking show on television. 🙂


Sue xx


13 comments:

  1. What a lot you have got, I seem to be addicted to cookery books, I am on the look out now for some wartime cookery ones now. Good luck with your challenge!

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    1. This is almost half of what we used to have :-)

      As you can see on the second shelf of the brown bookshelves I have a lot of wartime cookery books, I should maybe do a Challenge cooking from them for a month again. I did do that in January 2018 I think it was, but it was before I started this blog.

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  2. I wondered when I first saw your title whether it was to cut down to 100 books...with currently being in the process of packing up books myself, I thought I really need to cut down, and so this post really did catch my eye. I like the idea of your challenge to read 100 books, and perhaps future challenge to cut down to 100. I would have to do the 100 Fiction and 100 Non-Fiction, although I think in reality for me that would just be impossible!

    Like you I don't read like I used to, although do read everyday in the evening, but seem to fall asleep reading so don't get a lot done. I used to easily read 100 books in a year, but there is no way I can manage that now. I do still keep a record of all the books I read though which are listed on my blog.

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    1. I toyed with the idea of getting down to a hundred books in total, but then I realised it would be a step too far for me at the moment. It will be interesting to see how many I can read and then discard this year … then maybe, just maybe, a hundred mixed fiction and non-fiction and a hundred cookbooks will be feasible.

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  3. As an avid reader I love your challenge. I wish you the best and know you will be able to accomplish it with ease.

    God bless.

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  4. I would struggle with this challenge, not the reading, but I do read a lot less now. In my kitchen I currently have a 3 shelf bookcase full of cook books, but I know there are some in a box somewhere, plus I sold some to Z****t. There are a number of authors I collect, that is without my non-fiction, canal books, walkling, history, family history and crafts/ card making. Ok, I have just identifies another area to work on as we want to be moving in 2022. Good luck with this challenge. Helen S.

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    1. I realised last year that I had been doing the same as you and collecting the books written by certain authors, but the thing was I wasn't actually getting round to reading the last book before buying the next, and sometimes I had fallen out of love with the style of writing or the subject. So that is one thing I have stopped doing now, and it was one of the reasons I found it relatively easy to let some books go last year.

      Thank you. xx

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  5. We still have thousands of books, and although some are being passed on, I shall need to harden my heart when we eventually do get a buyer for our house.

    I think committing to read two books a week is a big ask as not everything is easy reading (unless you limit yourself to chick lit I suppose). Anything in the line of more literary fiction takes a lot more concentration to enjoy fully. Good luck.

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    1. Haha … I rarely read chick-lit, in fact I rarely read fiction at all, so they will probably be the easiest and quickest to flick through and sell on. So if I start a few and not like them, I won't waste time reading right through I will give them a half-count probably and pass them on.

      Life is too short to read bad books :-)

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  6. I have to admit I have never read anything remotely resembling chick lit either! I do read a lot of fiction though - I have always read avidly and love to get lost in a good story. It's taken me until this age though (67) to realize that if I don't get on with a book, I can put it down and start another!

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  7. Ooooo...I love a good reading challenge. Looking forward to hearing your updates throughout the year.

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  8. I suggest you look into Paperbackswap dot com. I've been swapping books for years - and not only paperbacks! It makes my reading habit much less expensive, and leaves more room on my shelves for more.

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