Yet Another Challenge

I know, I know. I just signed on for Kailana’s November challenge, and I haven’t yet reported in on my R.I.P. Autumn Challenge reads. But there’s another challenge in the works at Overdue Books that sounds tailor-made for me. Dubbed the From the Stacks Winter Challenge, the goal is to read "5 books that we have already purchased, have been meaning to get to, [...] and haven't read before. No going out and buying new books. No getting sidetracked by the lure of the holiday bookstore displays." The time frame is from November 1st to January 30th.

Some of you may remember that one of my resolutions for this year was to read more books from my own collection. I’ve tallied up the numbers and it appears that I’ve made good on it. Of the 109 books I read in 2005, a scant 14 were books from my own collection. Whereas of the 82 books I’ve read so far in 2006, 28 were from my own collection. Upon closer examination, however, I must concede that I’ve adhered to the letter but not the spirit of the resolution. You see 16 of those 28 were new books that I’ve acquired since making the resolution. And of the 12 that remain, 11 were re-reads of old favourites. So only one of the 28 was actually among the tomes languishing unread on my shelves to which I resolved to turn my attention back in January.

The upshot is that I feel honour-bound to join the From the Stacks Winter Challenge, and to revise the terms slightly so as to serve the original goal of my resolution. That is, in addition to being books I already own that I’ve been meaning to but haven’t yet read, my five selections will have to be books that I acquired before 2006. Precisely which five books? I’ll have to think on that a bit more before committing myself, but I expect that the final five will include these three: Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, and Katherine Mansfield’s Letters and Journals.