Springcleaning the Book Piles – my latest reading challenge

The to-be-read piles seem to be growing despite my best efforts. The person with whom I share my life is suggesting that there may be a danger of the floor collapsing under the weight. But yet the charity shops, second-hand book shops, book tables, new book shops and online sellers still have a fatal attraction and the number of unread books I own increases and their chances of being read decreases as the days and months go on.

For the past couple of years I have attempted, and truthfully failed, to address this issue by taking some of the books that have been languishing unread and possibly forgotten at the bottom of the piles and reading them as part of a summer challenge – I read the books but the piles seemed to continue growing. In 2023 I read twenty books (see here for wrap up blog) and last year I increased that to 24 (see here for blog) and I enjoyed the challenge, and many of the books – I found some new favourites from books I had mostly forgotten I owned.

For 2025 I am going to do the same thing but as a spring challenge during the months of March, April and May and I will increase the number to 25. I have chosen the books to reflect a variety of styles and genres with roughly half of them to be non-fiction. On looking at the pile I am intrigued to see how many different countries are represented in the settings of the stories, memoirs and travel books. All of them should be standalone books and not part of a set or series (although I have been known to misjudge that it in the past). I reserve the right to abandon any book that I am not enjoying and substitute another.

So, here they are. The 25 books I hope to read in the next three months…Let the challenge commence.