A Much Needed Opportunity: #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks

Confession: I buy lots of books.  I have some unread paper galleys/finished copies, too, but since I get most advances digitally the vast balance of unread items in my house are purchases.

(OK, so this is probably not a huge surprise since I'm a book person and you're probably a book person and possibly have a similar large stash of unread books).

Well, I did an informal count and it seems that the unread portion is between 40 and 50% of my personal library.  And that's just printed paper books.  This number is approaching four digits and I'm not even going to pretend to try and count the unread books in my Nook and iBook accounts.  Let's just say that I shouldn't be allowed near an ebook sale with a credit card for the same reason that I can't be allowed in a library sale by myself.

So, I need to read books that I already own because...sigh.

Conveniently enough, Andi at Estella's Revenge has a solution for me: #readmyowndamnbooks, a You-Do-You Reading Effort.

There aren't really any "rules" - no percentages or quotas, etc.  Just however we want to try and read down our TBRs.  These are Andi's super basic rules for herself:

• Read my own books
• Try to knock off 100 in 2016 by either reading them or ditching the ones that are DNF
• I can't buyyyy myself any books until I've read a significant amount of my own. Like maybe I can treat myself for every 5-10 of my own books I read. I'll be fairly flexible with this and see where my guilt leads me.
• If I'm itching for newness...use the library. Even if it's the shitty local one.

Pretty easy, right?  I've been thinking about this for a bit and I've come up with my "rules" based off Andi's rules, since I like them alot:

• Read my own books (that's an easy one, haha)
• Do a cull of my personal library in a reverse-KonMari way (yes, I read that book, it was OK, but not terribly useful for me personally in general, good to think about on a "materialism" level, though).  Now, I can't use KonMari itself - a book in general gives me joy.  So I reverse this - if I pick up the book and I immediately think " *sigh* I still have to finish this" or "I will never re-read this" or "I don't remember buying this" or "Ugh, this author is a turd" then that is a clear signal that the book needs to go in the library donation bag (legit, the 2014 prize for finishing the ICPL adult summer reading program was a gigantic tote bag) or in a paper bag to make a short trip to the recycling center (reserved for crappy-looking books and galleys I don't want).  I can probably do a pretty fast cull and dump 100 books easy.
• a) Avoid buying books just because the book is there and I can.  b) Keep track of the books I buy - I'm thinking a simple list on the List app since I can update that from my phone (if you're also on the List app, *waves*).  c) If I'm "maybe" on a book, get myself to the library, don't fork over the dollars.
• Think twice before buying a Nook or iBook just because it's on sale (I don't have a good solution for ebook impulse buying). Of course, now that I've said that, Avon Books is going to have an amazing surprise sale or something...*sigh* #bookwormprobz.
• Shift my library audiobook reading - I really got into using audiobooks during the day job this past year so I should really investigate the Overdrive audio and CD audio library holdings to help knock down the unread titles (and then decide if I really want to keep the paper copy).

So that's it!  Pretty simple.  I'll try and do updating periodically.  I'll also be hosting a challenge with Andi round-about May, so that'll be fun!

Go forth and Read Your Own Damn Books!

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