January 2021 TBR
WEIRD to type 2021. Seems like I've been typing 2020 for 9847394 years.
Anyway, it's time to do the TBR game once again to choose my books for January's TBR. Away we go!!
This is what the board looked like at the beginning of the game. Let's choose a Bomb Book for this month...
Woof! It's Les Miserables. Only the second longest book on my shelves. Yikes!
Shuffle the deck and pull the first card.
Four of Diamonds. Let's see what that prompt is...
Well, that pic is a little blurry, but it's a book published in 2015. After some shelf-searching, I choose.
An Ember In the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir - This is the first in a series set in a Middle Eastern based world. Sabaa Tahir is a Persian author and this series is still getting read and reread even 5 years after publishing.
Now I replace that prompt with a new one:
Oldest Publishing Date - not that you need an English to English translation, but that would be the book on my shelves that was published the earliest.
Shuffle the cards and draw again.
Two of Spades. Let's see what that prompt is:
2020 Release - Well that's pretty easy. I have a whole bunch of Award Nominees I need to read and they were all published in 2020.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn - I've heard this is fantastic! I'm looking forward to this urban fantasy type book. Also, I promised I'd read it before our January 8th Award committee meeting.
And I replace that prompt:
Aha! This is a prompt from the 2021 POPSugar Reading Challenge. I made all of the challenges into prompts to put in my TBR. Woohoo! So this one could be interpreted many ways. If I land on it, I'll figure it out.
And we shuffle again.
Oooh fun! Queen of Hearts! Look at that Queen!
So a Queen is a Random Number Generator - I pulled up a random number generator on my phone and had it select a number from 1-344 (the number of books on my actual real shelves I haven't read.)
Number 258. I go to my Goodreads list of books on my bookshelves and find number 258.
That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron - Not only is this about Winston's mama, it's written by one of my favorite Jane Austen Mystery authors. Win-Win!
Shuffle those cards again:
Six of Clubs! Let's check out that prompt:
Backlist: This means a book published before 2020. I have LOTS of those on my shelves.
The Governess Game by Tessa Dare - I chose this because I can read these books quickly and save room for my Award Nominees reading. We do our final vote count in February so I need to read like the wind!
And we'll replace that prompt with:
Black and White Cover - That's pretty self explanatory. Also, you can tell by the font that this is a PopSugar challenge prompt.
Shuffle again:
Six of Hearts - Alright Cap'n. What's that prompt?
Wild Card! Cool! That means I get to pick anything I want.
Listen, I'm stacking the deck in my favor here. This book has 163 pages. Once again I chose my best interest in making room for Award Nominee reading.
Replace the prompt on the board:
Published anonymously. Another PopSugar prompt. If I get this one, I'll have to do a little research. Oh wait! I thought of one. I wonder if published under a pen name counts. I'll have to look into that. I'll worry about it when I get that prompt.
Shuffle that deck one more time!
JOKER! Womp womp. That means I have to read the Bomb Book:
Holy crap. That's really long. Over 1400 pages in my edition. Doing the math, that means almost 50 pages a day. For a month. That is highly unlikely. I'm making an executive decision. I'm going to give myself 2 months to read this. It will just carry over into February. It's fine. Here's hoping I can read 25 pages a day of this monster!
Ok. That's the TBR game, but to finish the PopSugar Challenge, I need to do at least 4 prompts a month. And some months have to be 5. I think January is not a 5-challenge month, though, honestly. Let's see what I can fit from this list onto my PS reading challenge:
A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign: Right off the bat, Sabaa Tahir's birthday is the day after mine! Heck yeah!
A Book you've seen on someone else's bookshelf: I see Legenborn on practically every bookshelf on YouTube right now. Easy peasy.
A book from your TBR you meant to read last year, but didn't: Convenience Store Woman - That was on at least one TBR in 2020. I'm sure. I even read the first page or two.
So okay. That's 3 prompts down. Maybe I can choose Award Nominee books that will cover some of these prompts, too. Like Written by an Indigenous Author. There is one on that shelf I definitely need to read. Also A Free Book: since all those books are free from the publisher. Yeah. That's the ticket! That would be 5 prompts down! We will see what happens!
Here's the whole stack!
