How many times have you looked at the books on your shelf and thought, I should really stop buying books until I read the ones I have? If you’re like me, you think this all the time. I’ve expanded it to include, “I should really stop borrowing stacks of books from the library until I read the ones I have,” because I keep those library scanners going.

We’ve got a fairly largeish built-in bookcase (thanks Dad), and I’ve limited the books to fiction, other than the highest shelf and the lowest shelf (assorted classics in matchy-match binding on top; cookbooks (shudder) and gardening and some college literature anthologies on the bottom). So, my challenge:

I WILL READ – OR ATTEMPT TO READ – ALL THE BOOKS ON THAT BOOKCASE.

Do I need a timeline? It’s a big bookcase. But I have read a lot of them…at least half, I think. Well, let’s just see how far I can get by the end of the year, shall we?

I’m not going to finish each one, because frankly, there’s quite a bit of Kerouac. Each book will get a chance, though, of fifty pages (and that’s being darn generous, I think, because nowadays I’ll happily set a book down if it doesn’t hook me in the first five).

I’m also not going to re-read books which I have already read.

I’m also not reading the same books twice just because we have two different copies and/or editions (hello Bloomsbury Harry Potters, nestled next to their Scholastic kin!).

Some parenting and other nonfiction books have been lazily added to the bookcase. These do not count toward the challenge. They are only there because I don’t feel like carting them down to the basement (to the nonfiction bookcase) while holding a heavy baby in one arm. That sounds a bit dangerous.

YES, to answer your incredulous question, I HAVE SEPARATED MY READING MATERIAL BY GENRE. It comes from working in a bookstore. Or maybe it comes from being me.