TBR Pile Reading Challenge 2023

 

One of my favourite Reading Challenges that I joined in 2016.

I don't think Evie from the Bookish Blog still carries this on, as I can't find it on her page but her words with which she started this challenge are still true: "We all have those books. We buy them, win them, they're gifted to us. Then we put them up on a bookshelf and there they stay, collecting dust, waiting for the time when we'll finally decide to pick them up."

As I mention every year, even now, after seven years of participation, my TBR (To Be Read) pile is still a lot longer than it should because I just can't resist buying any new books and going to the library though I have tried to attempt reading more old books than buying new ones. But I read lately that buying books, collecting books and reading books are three completely different hobbies. And I have them all.

I could, of course, try to tackle the 50+ challenge but we all know that is not going to happen, instead, I tried to do at least 11-20 old books in addition to the new ones I'm buying and those I get from the library and wished to be pleasantly surprised at the end of the year. That happened, I have reached the 21-30 (First Kiss) and 31-40 (Sweet Summer Fling) sometimes in the last years, maybe I can get to 41-50 (Could This Be Love?) one day.

I have read
37 books in 2016,
32 in 2017,
38 in 2018, 

23 in 2019

25 in 2020 

39 in 2021 and
15 in 2022
of the books that had been waiting to be read for more than a year.

I hope I will manage more in 2023.

(I always add the German title - when available - in brackets for my German friends)

So far, I have already read these of my "old books" in 2023:

Illies, Florian "1913: The Year before the Storm" (GE: 1913: Der Sommer des Jahrhunderts) - 2012
Sankovitch, Nina "Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading" (Tolstoi und der lila Sessel) 2010
Janson, Stefan (Hrsg./Ed.) "Griechenland. Reise-Lesebuch" [Greece. Travel Reader] - 2002
Gillard, Joe "The Little Book of Lost Words. Collywobbles, Snollygosters, and 86 Other Surprisingly Useful Terms Worth Resurrecting" - 2019
Wood, Levison "Eastern Horizons. Hitchhiking the Silk Road" - 2017
Greiner, Lena; Padberg, Carola "Unser Mathelehrer unterrichtet von draußen - damit er dabei rauchen kann!: Die lustigsten Storys über Lehrer" [Our math teacher teaches from outside - so he can smoke!: The funniest stories about teachers] - 2020
Abulhawa, Susan "Against the Loveless World" (Nahrs letzter Tanz) - 2020
Lagerkvist, Pär "Barabbas" (Barabbas/Barabbas) - 1950
Mahfouz, Naguib "Die Midaq Gasse" (Midaq Alley/Zuqaq El Midaq) - 1947 (زقاق المدق)
Rutherfurd, Edward "New York" (New York. Im Rausch der Freiheit) - 2009
Kazantzakis, Nikos "Die letzte Versuchung" (The Last Temptation of Christ/Ο τελευταίος πειρασμός/O telefteos pirasmos) - 1951
Taschler, Judith W. "Sommer wie Winter" [Summer and Winter] - 2011
Mercier, Pascal "Das Gewicht der Worte" [The Weight of the Words] - 2020

13 altogether.