My quest this year, because calling anything a quest makes it sound way more exciting. I mean, think about it. Would you rather:

Visit the grocery story (drudgery) or Go on a quest for provisions! (exciting)

Go to work (boring) or Go on a quest to stop the evil polluters! (compelling)

Clean the house (ugh) or Go on a quest for buried treasure! (magical)

See? I’m right, right?

But I digress.

My 2022 quest is to read at least 100 books off my TBR bookcase. (I explained why here.)

I started off the year a bit slow. I didn’t read anything the first week of the year. My first read was on the seventh of January. And yet, I still made good progress. I finished the month having read 10 books. This is how that breaks down:

• 4 physical books off my TBR bookcase (YAY!)
• 4 audiobooks
• 1 library book (that I checked out in December and needed to return)
• 1 book I pre-ordered last summer that was just released at the beginning of the month (and since I pre-ordered it prior to my self-imposed book-buying ban, I didn’t break my own rules)

If you like stats, here are a few more about my 10 January reads:

• 5 non-fiction, including 1 autobiography
• 5 fiction
  • 3 regency romance
  • 1 fiction
  • 1 graphic novel
• 9 authors representing 5 countries (I read 2 books from the same author)
  • 5 women
  • 3 men
  • 1 non-binary
  • 2 ethnic minorities
• My ratings:
  • 1 star – 0
  • 2 stars – 1
  • 3 stars – 5
  • 4 stars – 3
  • 5 stars – 1

As for my monthly reading challenges, I did complete my 2 books for the January #bookspin reading challenge (From the Land of Green Ghosts and Daring Greatly). I did not get to my 2 January #roll100 titles (The Fountains of Silence and Star Daughter) probably because I wasted the first week of the month doing other things than reading.

I started Fountains today.

I’ve also been listening to The Agony and the Ecstasy. It’s been in my audio-queue for a long while. It’s a chunkster (the book is 750+ pages and the audiobook is 33+ hours). So it may take me the rest of the month to finish it!

Even though I didn’t count audiobooks in my quest, I’m working on listening to the ones I have instead of getting new ones. (Although I *may* have just broken that promise as Libro.fm has great sales. See my note below on Libro.fm.)

This means I only have 192 books to read before I can buy a new book! (191 as soon as I finish Fountains!)

If you didn’t read my update post, I actually have 216 books currently in my house waiting to be read. I put myself on a book buying ban until I get that pile to 20 or less. I’m not great at maths, so bear with me. 216 – 20 = 196. I’ve now moved 4 TBRs to the finish pile, so 196 – 4 = 192.

Now it’s February and my reading challenges are monthly, so there are 4 new titles to pull off the shelf and put in the “read now” stack. I’m a little behind because I still have 2 books from the January #roll100 reading challenge to read. This means my focus is on these 6 books.

1. The Fountains of Silence (January #roll100 roll 1)
2. Star Daughter (January #roll100 roll 2)
3. Welcome to Night Vale (February #roll100 roll 1)
4. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (February #roll100 roll 2)
5. TBD Feb bookspin (the numbers have not yet been announced)
6. TBD Feb doublespin

So far I’ve dived right into Fountains. A historical fiction book set in Madrid, Spain during the late 1950s amidst the fascist Franco dictatorship. So far, so good. I expect to finish it in a day or two and then plan on moving into 19th century England with Lady Almina.

Providing I read at least these 6, my TBR total will be 186 by the end of the month. If I average 5 TBR books a month, I can get to 136 TBRs by the end of the year.

If I stop dilly-dallying around, read at least 10 books a month, and read the majority of books from the TBR, I could be at or under 100 by the end of the year. Now that’s pretty darn exciting.

So check back at the end of the month to see how many more books I’ve added to the finished pile!

What were your favorite reads in January?

A couple notes on this post.

The links to Bookshop.org are affiliate links. I explain affiliate links in my Terms of Use. I support Bookshop.org because Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores, which in turn, supports writers.

I also support independent bookstores with my Libro.fm membership. Libro.fm lets you buy audiobooks through independent bookstores and splits the profits with the indie bookstore of your choice. To learn more about them, check out their FAQ. If you join, let them know I referred you by using my referral code: lfm99480 (or click the link above).