This is NOT a Book Club

Last Sunday I got an email from my dad. Unlike my mum, he is an infrequent correspondent (embarrassing me and my siblings on Facebook is a different matter…), and when he does write it’s usually for practical rather than conversational reasons. This latest message was no exception.

“Would you have any great objection if I disposed of the piles of Empire magazines groaning quietly on the shelves in your room?

Put it another way: if Mum & I were to move in two or three years’ time, would you be likely to want to collect them, or to read them again in the meantime?”

To be clear, I last subscribed to Empire in 2003. Since then, six years’ worth of the monthly film magazine have sat in my childhood bedroom collecting dust, alongside old hockey trophies, videos of the 2000 Sydney Olympics (I shit you not), school reports, holiday photo albums, and a million other unwanted and long-forgotten relics of my youth.

Yep – my name is Exhibit A, and I’m a hoarder.

Even now, as a ‘proper adult’, I cart boxes of junk from apartment to apartment; there are some I’m not sure I’ve unpacked since I left my place in Oxford in January 2011. They hide away under beds or on top of wardrobes, waiting patiently for the day when I move into a house of my own…and shove them all up in the attic where they belong.

I’m particularly bad with books – I suspect a lot of us are. I buy them, or I’m given them as presents, or I borrow them from friends who forget to ask for them back*, and for years they just pile up on my shelves, unread and seemingly unloved, except as decoration. The hardest thing about moving to Warsaw, for example – far harder than saying goodbye to friends, family or fuckbuddies – was deciding which books to take** and which to leave behind. In the end I limited myself to 15, tucked neatly into my two suitcases between the layers of clothing. As much as it broke my heart to do so, I eschewed the comfort of old favourites; far better, I thought, to take a handful of those unread, unloved paperbacks, in anticipation of a long, lonely Polish winter in front of the fire. Plenty of time to clear the backlog, right? Right.

I left with 15 books and came back with 28 – 17 of which were dishearteningly, thrillingly, predictably unread. The pile has only grown since then. So when I tweeted this earlier today, I had an idea:

About to start The Versions of Us, by @laura_jbarnett. Anyone else read it (or want to read it with me)? Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/Q4zKSKgokM

— Exhibit A (@EA_unadorned) January 18, 2016

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I’m never going to stop hoarding books – and I’m ok with that. However, it would salve my conscience somewhat if I was better at actually reading the books I buy/borrow/steal; even now, I glance up at the bookcase next to my bed and wince at my casual consumerism…at the cavalier waste of someone else’s words. Getting better isn’t easy though: I’m a hoarder, after all, and there are only so many hours in the day. Getting better will require help.

So here’s what I’m going to do. Right now we’re a fortnight (plus change) into 2016, which means the year has roughly 50 weeks left to run. I’ve picked 25 unread books off my shelves (including The Versions of Us), and for the next 11.5 months I’m going to work my way through them. Here they are:

Every two weeks I’m going to read one of the books in this stack, starting with The Versions of Us. When I’m done, I’ll post a review somewhere (new page? new blog? Twitter?) and let y’all know which one I’m going to pick up next. Should any of the 25 remain unfinished by the end of 2016, I’ll donate them to a local charity shop – writing this post ought to be enough to make me read them, and if it’s not…well, clearly it was never meant to be.

If any of you want to join in and read with me, that would be A-M-A-Z-I-N-G – not only will it encourage me to keep going, I’ll also feature your reviews/thoughts/verdicts in whatever I end up doing with my own.

Alternatively, and as a way of maybe giving something back, I’ve put together a second stack, made up of 25 of my favourite books (from the ones that currently line my shelves***):

If you’d like to borrow one of those instead (and/or review it) drop me an email/DM with your postal address and the title of the book that interests you. I’ll put it in a jiffy bag, trust you to return it****, and find a way to add your gushing praise measured comments to my blog if/when you do so.

The aim is to get to December having read a load of really great books in 2016 – but having shared even more with friends, lovers, and the rest of you who read this blog. That’s what would really make me happy.

Mm…I suppose it is sort of a book club…

—

*That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

**Don’t you even dare say the word ‘Kindle’.

***I have a bad habit of lending out my very favourite books to people who ‘forget’ to return them. Yes, karma.

****(/name and shame you if you don’t)