Chels

We’re officially half way through the year! And, as of today, we’re closer to 2050 than to 2000, which is almost too scary to think about.

One of my New Year goals was to end the year with less than half the number of unread books on my shelf than I started with, be it through a book-buying ban, reading, decluttering the books I’ve accepted I’ll never read, or a combination of all three.

It’s not going well.

I expected to be reading a lot more since starting this blog – I saw my average number of books read go up during my Master’s, and this is essentially a place dedicated for me to talk about reading and literacy. Unfortunately, maintaining a blog, job hunting and securing a job, and setting aside time for other hobbies (I made an entire blanket this year!) takes away a lot of reading time. It doesn’t help that I got out of the reading before bed habit I developed in lockdown.

I’ve been pretty good at not buying books, though. My birthday is in January and I received some books as gifts, and I treated myself to two of the new Penguin Archive Collection books a few weeks ago (how could I resist?), but other than that, there have been no splurges on books.

My big problem comes with decluttering. I have a set of 12 Doctor Who mini stories that have been on my shelves for over a decade now, and while I haven’t watched the series for years, I do still want to read the collection. It’s been a long time though, and I counted the collection as 12 books in my initial count, so decluttering would make quite a dent in my goal. At the same time, they’re only short – probably single sitting books – so reading them would also make a good dent. Who knows what I’ll choose to do.

Creating reading focused and literary content means that I’m friends with a lot of big readers and bookish content creators, so around this time of year, I see a lot of very impressive lists of books they’ve read so far. Some people manage a book a week or more, especially when reading is their job. Comparison is the thief of joy, so I try not to compare my own less successful reading year to theirs, but I still wanted to take part in the trend.

My Reading (or Lack Thereof)

One of the things that keeps me on track with reading is the challenge I set up with my cousin back in lockdown. We were both sad to have aged out of the local library’s summer reading challenge, so we created our own year-long competition. I’m super competitive, so it motivates me to commit to my books, and most years I end up ahead by one or two books by December. This year, so far, I’m a book behind, and with the summer holidays around the corner, she’s about to breeze ahead of me.

I’ve hit a real reading slump for the past couple of months (as you might have noticed from the lack of reading-centric posts from me), but the books I have read have all been really great reads. In fact, looking back, every book I’ve read so far this year has featured on the blog in some way or other.

I started the year with Frankenstein Retold by Nick Pierce and Isobel Lundie, and I liked it so much I included it in my review of the best Frankenstein adaptations.

In February, I used Love Letters: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West to write my Literary Love Story of the couple, and I got so invested in Woolf’s writing that I followed it up with Mrs Dalloway, which I also reviewed.

I got into a good reading routine by then, so to celebrate St Patrick’s day, I read Joseph Jacobs and James Stevens’ Celtic Myths: Legendary Tales of Gods and Heroes, and wrote about my favourite folk tales from the collection.

At this point, I hit my first big reading slump of the year. For around a month, I hardly read, until Sanditon called out to me. The edition I own has two short stories by Austen, so I read them both in single sittings, and assumed that meant I was out of the slump. I reviewed Sanditon, and then hit another big slump.

At the end of May, I read through The Folk Tales of Scotland by Norah and William Montgomerie, and had a really mixed experience reading it. On the one hand, I was really fascinated by the similarities in the folk tales and those from other cultures, but on the other, I couldn’t help wishing for a bit more variety in the stories – a lot of them told repeating tales with very similar themes, and at times it felt like a chore, especially because I’ve gotten into a terrible habit of binge reading books over a day or two.

I’m currently reading Isla Dewar’s Women Talking Dirty, which is such a summer read. It would be perfect for by the pool or at the beach on holiday, but my back garden has been a nice enough setting. The book has been on my to-read list for years, and the film’s been on my to-watch list for even longer, so it’s been quite satisfying to finally dive into the story.

It’s my first contemporary novel in a while, too, which I think has helped me to get back into reading. I typically lean more towards classics and mythology, which can be quite dense to get through, so reading something a bit less taxing has been a real treat. I must remember to pick up some more contemporary lit – I usually end up really enjoying it.

Hopefully this month I can get back on track with my reading, and hopefully I’ll complete my goal for 2025. I don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to declutter any books just yet, so if I want to succeed, I’ll have to get reading. My 2025 reading list isn’t very impressive so far, but I think that’s okay. There’s still six months to find my rhythm again.

Have you done a mid-year reading check in? How has your reading year been so far?