There are far, far too many of them.
I don’t mean the books I’ve picked up and then put down because the moment wasn’t quite right. Or the books that I’ve not got on with and didn’t want to finish.
These are the books that I had made progress with, that I wanted to finish, and yet for some reason I didn’t.
And so I must thank Jillian, at A Room of One’s Own, for hosting The 2012 – Books I Started But Didn’t Finish – Challenge.
It’s exactly what I need!
This is how it works:
The goal:
- Commit to finish some or all of the books you began to read in 2011 (or before) and never completed.
Prizes:
- I will not give away prizes or otherwise motivate people to complete their goals for this challenge.
- Instead, I encourage you to self-motivate.
- Keep your list central on your blog (or elsewhere) and commit to buy yourself some sort of reward when you finish the task. (A book? A bookmark? Whatever you know will inspire YOU.)
The rules:
- Post a list of the books you began reading in 2011 (or at some point in your life) and never finished reading. (Maybe even say why you stopped reading!)
- You can list as few or as many titles as you intend to complete in 2012. One or twenty or a hundred – it’s YOUR challenge.
- You can include whatever genres you please in this challenge.
- It doesn’t matter how you go about finishing these books. You can combine them with any other challenges.
- You do not need a blog to participate. You can simply list the books you want to finish in the comments below.
- List the prize you will gift yourself when you complete this challenge in your challenge post (to make it official.)
- Write yourself a little manifesto about how you intend to approach these left-over books.
- Commit to finish your list by the end of 2012.
- You are NOT allowed to stress if it takes longer than 2012 to finish your list! Just commit again in 2013!!
And so to my list.
There are eight books, and many of them are very lengthy, so I know that I won’t finish them all in 2012.
I am listing them all so that I can choose the right book at the right moment.
My aim is to finish at least four books, and to finish any that remain in 2013.
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Kristin Lavransdattir by Sigrid Undset
And if I hit my target at the end of the year I will give myself a bonus Green Metropolis top-up to spend on out-of-print titles.
Wish me luck!
Fleur in her World 
I was quite moved by Vilette, a book I read in 2011.
This doesn’t seem to be a problem for me, as I most always finish what I start. What’s a problem is getting started! I have too many lying about to even know where to begin. 😉
Best of luck to you, in this challenge.
I recently started 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and know I’m not going to finish it before it will HAVE to go back to the library on 12/31/2011 (probably on the stroke of midnight).
Not because it’s not well-written. Of course it is. SK writes very well indeed.
Not because it’s not enthralling. It is. Very.
It’s because I’m nervous about it. It’s scary. Not the general horror-scary stuff the author is known for, but because I just know something is going to go terribly awfully wrong for our well-meaning hero. As so often happens when one tries to go back in time to change events.
So, while I really want to read this book, I’m just not ready to read it. Yet.
But I will. Eventually.
Good luck on finishing those books!
Welcome and good luck, Jane! That’s an awesome list. I can’t wait to see what you think of Villette! It’s one of my favorite books. 🙂
I know you will do a great job on this challenge!!
I thought I was the only person who did this! It’s good to know I have company 🙂 I should probably join this challenge, too, as just yesterday I was berating myself for having so many books lying around unfinished.
Good luck on this challenge. I would be rubbish with this challenge – mainly because I can’t think of a book I started reading and didn’t finish, but also my memory is terrible and I would have to start reading from the beginning. Even if I only leave a book for week, I find myself trying to remember who is who.
Wishing you the very best of luck on this one. What a sense of achievement and completion you will get when you succeed! I have this awful habit of losing interest completely in part finished books. Even if I get a book from the library and don’t start it, it seems tarnished in some way – awful I know.