A Goal: Unwrapping My TBR

Hi, and thanks for stopping by.

So, just recently I discovered Sylvia (her YouTube channel name is WishFulfillment - go check out her videos and her twitter is @exsixtwosix) and her awesome TBR concept. Basically, you get some paper and wrap every single book you own that you haven't read yet. Then, each month, or just as and when you're ready to start a new book, you pick out a/several wrapped books and you have to read them, regardless of what they are. It's a really cool way of not just reading your brand new books, and getting a really cool surprise every time you open one. I decided I really wanted to try it, so here goes nothing...

As it stands, these are my wrapped books...I know, I know, I have a problem. Incidentally, doing this challenge has made my family acutely aware of how many unread books I own, not so great...

Here are some fun pictures of my wrapping process (took my several hours and gave me THE worst backache, but I looooooove wrapping, so it felt like Christmas all over again!!)

(This was a moment of mourning - I really wanted to cheat and read this before wrapping it, but I stayed strong!!!)

I've watched quite a few different people try this challenge since, and everyone seems to have a slightly different way of doing things, including myself!! Here are three little pointers about my approach to this challenge...

1. no more wrapping

For now, at least...I want to do the unwrapping TBR with just the books that I currently own and have already wrapped. I haven't bought any more since wrapping these, and even if I do, I'll just be setting those aside. But don't worry, those unwrapped, newer books will be officially OUT OF BOUNDS until every single wrapped book has been read - I promise!!

2. no genre-specific paper

The majority of people I have seen do this sort of video have wrapped in all different patterned/coloured papers to denote which books belong to which genre. I haven't done this for three reasons: 1) I own pretty much 95% contemporary, so it seemed a little pointless for me, 2) Because (as you can tell from the 95% thing) contemporary is my favourite genre, I would always go for that wrapping paper over the others, even if I was supposed to be behaving myself and 3) Pure & simple laziness. (P.S. I know some are wrapped in brown paper, that's just because THREE WHOLE ROLLS of the rose gold wasn't enough...)

3. series pointers

I literally only had two separate series of books to consider amongst all of these many, many TBR books (this is proof of how much I prefer standalones, I guess!!) but, regardless of the tiny number, I did have to make some slight alterations to their wrapping. As you can tell, I put little post-it notes on the books that are part of a series and then, as there were two seperate series by separate authors, I put the initials of said authors on the notes. This basically means that if I were to open book 3 of a series, let's say, that I can just find the two others using the sticky notes and open those instead of having to put the book aside or open literally like 30 books, hoping to find the first! This also means that if I open a second or third book in a series, I'll need to read book one, two and potentially three that month. Hopefully this doesn't happen too soon!

I'm going to change things up regarding the opening process each time I do it, I think, but for this first trial, I asked my mum, dad and sister to unwrap two books each, giving me a TBR of six unwrapped books for the remainder of January. If I don't get to them this month, I'll finish them off in February before opening any more! Here is what they picked (I'm REALLY pleased, for the most part...)

Shoutout to my dad for picking LITERALLY the longest book on my TBR (650 odd pages I think....great, but it does sound really intriguing and exciting, so it's all good!). The only book I'm slightly dubious about is The Handmaid's Tale - I do really want to read it, but it's gonna be pretty heavy for an already blue month. Hopefully it's as great as everybody says!!

So I can't wait to embark upon this cool challenge, and I'd really encourage you guys to try it, too. I will keep you up to date with what I'm unwrapping and reading via twitter (@ECbookblog). Hope you enjoyed this fun new TBR idea!!

Till next time

Katie