This post will be a little bit different from my usual monthly TBR posts, for a couple of reasons:
1) My January TBR is super short!
2) I have two brand new bookish goals for 2018
3) We just announced three new events in Life & Lit
4) This is doubling (tripling?) as my sign-up post for the BEAT THE BACKLIST challenge!
Since these topics are different (but super related!), I’ll just tackle one at a time!
January TBR
Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World (ARC – releases 03.06.18)
Between the Blade and the Heart (ARC – releases 01.02.18)
Reign of the Fallen (ARC – releases 01.23.18)
Nice Try, Jane Sinner (ARC – releases 01.09.18)
Wonder Woman: Warbringer
Batman: Nightwalker (not pictured)
The Book Thief (not pictured)
The Dollmaker of Krakow (not pictured)
Sabriel (not pictured)
I know what you guys are thinking… “Where’s the rest of her TBR? Where are the 25 books she usually lists and doesn’t read?!” Well, the winds of change are blowin’, and… okay, seriously, these 8 titles are still more than I intended to write down for my January TBR, but this leads me to my next point…
New Bookish Goals
My two major bookish goals for 2018 are to: 1) focus less on ARCs and more on my purchased TBR titles, and 2) do more mood reading! I plan on requesting a LOT less ARCs in 2018, and having very loosely scheduled monthly TBRs so that I can leave myself more time for mood reading.
After January, unless there’s a big, special event, I actually am hoping for my monthly TBR plans to be even looser than this one!
Life & Lit Events
If you don’t already know, I’m one of the creators/admins of a Facebook group called Life & Lit, where we host monthly read-alongs and events. We announced three new events a few days ago!
1) Holocaust Remembrance event:
In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, we’re going to encourage our members to each read at least one book related to the Holocaust and/or WWII. For my book choice, I will finally be reading The Book Thief, plus The Dollmaker of Krakow!
2) Superhero event:
To celebrate the release of Batman: Nightwalker, we’re inviting people to read that as well as Wonder Woman: Warbringer, and we’ll have a big, spoiler-filled discussion about the DC Icons series at the end of the month!
3) TBR Catch-Up event:
It’s going to be for the entire year of 2018, and is essentially just a way for our members and mod team to help encourage one another to power through our TBR shelves. We’re encouraging members to pair it with…
Beat the Backlist!
Yep, TBR Catch-Up pairs perfectly with BTB! If you aren’t familiar with it already, Beat the Backlist is a year-long challenge hosted by NovelKnight, where you can read as few or as many books as you like that were released in 2017 or earlier! If you want to participate, you definitely should go sign up and get sorted onto a team so you can earn points and enter giveaways! (You can sign up at any time during 2018.) Since I’m focusing on my owned TBR this year, these backlist challenges are perfect for my 2018 reading goals!
In 2018, I’m aiming to knock out at least 75 books from my backlist! I’m not going to set a TBR for all 75 books, but I will add a link to my “owned-TBR” shelf here, as well as a collage below of the titles that are of highest priority for me to read in 2018. (Some of these will be rereads, which I’ll mark with a little blue star – rereads still count for BTB and TBR Catch-Up, by the way!)
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I am so with you with the small TBR and mood reading! 🙂
Knocking down that tbr is also on my mind this year. Again. Haha.
Happy New Year and good luck with all your goals!
What team are you on for Beat the Backlist?
Also, how do you get so many physical ARCs?? I’m looking at trying to get some as I’m just not being approved for anything on Netgalley anymore D:
Sorry, this is so late – Book Bards! How about you?
I honestly just email the publishers and ask for them, and cross my fingers and toes and wish for the best! I would say I probably only receive maybe 1 ARC for every 4-5 that I request, if that? You’re located in the UK, though, right? I know you’d have to contact the UK publishers, but I have a few blogging friends in the UK who actually have REALLY good luck with getting ARCs when they email to request them! You just have to look up the publishing company’s contact info and shoot them a request with your stats, like your blog followers and how many hits you get and such. Also, I’m sorry about NetGalley! I think I saw you mention that you’re having better luck with the UK site now, right? Or did I dream that? LOL I’m so frazzled lately, I’m sorry!
Haha that’s okay! I saw one of your posts somewhere else about you being in Book Bards. I’m in Dewey Dragons so we’re novel knight rivals 😉
I have had a lot better luck on the UK site! I requested about 5-6 books and got approved for them all within a few days of requesting them, so it seems to have all sorted itself out
Booooo! Lol none of my friends are on the same team as me, it seems like! *sniffle sniffle*
Oooooh YAY!
haha it’s okay, both me and you are being slaughtered by the knights and the sorcerors :’)
I KNOOOOOW! It’s so unfair… lmao…
I LOVE Nevernight and Six of Crows! Also A Gathering of Shadows and The Alchemists of Loom?!?! This TBR is going to be SO GOOD!
Thanks for joining the challenge and good luck with all the reading! It looks like you have a lot planned but I’m sure you’ll kick butt this year!!
Oh gosh, sorry for the late reply! Thank you so much, though! And thank you for hosting the challenge. It’s phenomenal! I’ve loved working on my backlist reads, plus it’s helped remind me to cross-post my reviews to Amazon. 😀
ugh yes book thief!!! wonder woman is on my tbr too 🙂
That is kind of sad that Holocaust Remembrance Day is on my birthday but that will def remind me to find some Holocaust books and read them. I’ve been really missing reading those books.
I thought about joining beat the backlist since I have at least 50 books that I own that I bought from thrift stores that I haven’t read yet. Maybe I’ll still join.
Sounds like you are going to have a good year! 😀
Oh nooo, that is so sad! 🙁 Happy early birthday, though! <3 I totally think you should join!
Thank you! I am totally thinking about it!
Beat the Backlist, baby!! What team are you on?!
I still need to figure out how to combine bookish events / readalongs / you know what I mean with my monthly challenges.. I tend to focus just on my monthly challenge and ignore everything else which may not be the way to go.. I need to figure this out, haha.
Book Bards~ You? I was doing that a lot in 2017, too! I’m hoping that doing away with my strict TBRs will help me get away from it ?
Boooo. Novel Knights. Up against the pink, I am!
Haha, fingers crossed! My next one is a fantasy / paranormal oriented one. Think I’m just going to put all the fantasy / paranormal I own in a post and go “we’ll see what I read” YAY FREEDOM.
Boooooo! I’m gonna go message Austine and demand that she re-sort you. Or me. Whichever. Book Bards were in last place last I checked, so maybe I should come to your team instead of vice versa ?
Ooooooh, do that!
Yep! You should definitely come to ours! Last I heard in the Twitter chat was that we were at second place, haha.
Lucky ducks. Lmao. I do kind of wish there was an option to formally request a re-sort, but I’m sure that would honestly be such a nightmare for Austine, and she’s so sweet that I wouldn’t even bother her with it, lmao
Maybe you could use a Rhysand-baby to convince her? Haha. No, I feel you. I think she’s in deep as it is with such a huge challenge to organize and keep track of..
[heart eyes] at you rereading House of Leaves, which I reaaaally want to do a reread of again sometime soon.
I honestly feel like I didn’t appreciate it NEARLY enough as a teen, so I’m super excited (and slightly nervous?) to reread it. Let me know if you want to do a buddy reread!
HMMMM, I think I’d maybe definitely be down for that! A buddy reread would for sure be fun! And I’m positive there’s a billion things I didn’t pick up on my first time through.
Yaaaaaaaaay! *happy dance* Just let me know when sounds good for you! I’m not in any huge rush, so if you want to wait until later in the year, just let me know <3
Ok, sounds good! I’m not in a huge rush either, so maybe in another month or two. I’ll let you know! <3
Good luck with your goal! I’m a Book Bard too! 😀
http://flaviathebibliophile.com/beat-the-backlist-2018-tbr/
Thank you, Flavia! ? you’re the first blogger friend I’ve talked to who’s on the Bard team with me! ?☺️ (and this reminded me that I need to go update the rafflecopter with my latest reads, lol)
Aweeee well I’m happy we’re on the same team! 😀 And yes! Let’s help our team win! 😀
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