I see that Emily and others have written progress updates on her Attacking the TBR Tome challenge.

This was my original list – I’ve only read two so far.

1. The Day Gone By, by Richard Adams (autobiography)
2. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
3. The Children’s Book by A S Byatt
4. The Country Life by Rachel Cusk
5. Helen of Troy: a novel by Margaret George
6. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie
7. Ghost by Robert Harris
8. Slipstream: a memoir by Elizabeth Jane Howard
9. Rivers by Griff Rhys Jones
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
12. Mollie Fox’s Birthday by Deirdrie Madden
13. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel €“ read
14. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15. Eden’s Outcasts: the story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by J Matteson
16. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan €“ read
17. Map Addict by Mike Parker
18. Resistance by Owens Sheers
19. Corvus: a Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson
20. Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself by Anne Wroe

I still want to read these books and the reasons I haven’t yet is that I keep coming across other books that I want to read too, my mood has changed since I made the list, books in the library have caught my eye or others have written about books that sound so good I’ve read those instead. The other reason is that as soon as I add a book to a list it becomes an ‘ought to read book’ and no longer so appealing. It seems that putting a book on a list often means that is where it stays – on the list.

But I did give myself the option of reading other books from my TBR piles and have done quite well with that, reading another 12 books, all of which I owned before December 1st 2009:

1. Drood by Dan Simmons
2. Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin
3. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
4. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
5. Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey €“ see also here
6. The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
7. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine
8. Dead Souls by Ian Rankin
9. The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
10. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie
11. Hearts and Minds by Amanda Craig
12. Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham

So a total of 14 books in all, so I think I’m not doing too badly really and I do intend to read more off the original list before the end of the year.

Emily’s challenge was not to buy any books until you’ve read 20 TBR books and I knew I couldn’t do that.  I have bought some books, and I have been totally unable to not borrow books from the library – more than half the books I’ve read this year have been library books.