Most avid readers have a “to be read” pile, in our office or near our bed: books we bought intending to read, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Some of us have “to be read” bookcases.
In 2023, RoofbeamReader is celebrating the 10th year of his TBR Challenge, and I’m once again participating.
You have to go to RBR’s website to officially sign up for the challenge if you want to be entered to win a gift card to Amazon or the Book Depository at year’s end but the basic rules (other than how to enter) are simple: Choose 12 books that have been on your bookshelf or “To Be Read” list for AT LEAST one full year. This means books with a publication date of 1/1/2022 or later are ineligible; books published in 2021 or earlier qualify as long as they’ve been on your TBR Pile/List. Then choose two (2) alternate titles, just in case one or two of your original twelve end up in the “did not finish” bin.
MY 2023 ROOFBEAMREADER TO BE READ CHALLENGE LIST:
1. Young Miles, by Lois McMasters Bujold (1997) (Science fiction)
2. Ice Land, by Betsy Tobin (2008) (historical fantasy)
3. Let Me In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004) (horror)
4. The Mystery of the Sea, by Bram Stoker (1902, reissued in 1997) (Classics/horror)
5. The Book of Lost Saints, by Daniel José Older (2019) (Latinx fiction/supernatural)
6. The Red Lamp, by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1925/2018) (Mystery)
7. Dune, by Frank Herbert (1965/2014) (Science Fiction)
8. Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (2019) (Fantasy)
9. The Prophets, by Robert Jones Jr. (2021) (historical fiction)
10. The Celluloid Closet, by Vito Russo (1981) (non-fiction, LGBTQIA history)
11. The Mythology of Salt and Other Stories, by Octavia Cade (2020) (mixed genres, short stories)
12. Cemetery Boys, by Aiden Thomas (2020) (YA, transgender, fantasy)
Alternates
1. Pangs, by Jerry L. Wheeler (2021) (Horror)
2. Twilight at the World of Tomorrow: Genius, Madness, Murder and the 1939 World’s Fair on the Brink of War, by James Mauro (2010) (non-fiction, US history)