October Challenges and TBR Update

Hellloooo!

So the good news for September I still have a job; a bit of a relief but some questions remain as to what I work on in the near future. I’ll live but uncertainty is something I don’t enjoy. Otherwise had a lovely month. We visited York and I got to finally enter the amazing The Portal Bookshop (and you can order books from them you know!). I had an excellent weekend in Heathrow at Fantasycon and saw lots of people I knew. We got to celebrate the fifth Subjective Chaos awards there too. As with any con it is all about the ability to recharge my batteries as to why i love the SF, Fantasy and horror scene and get my teeth into it. More on that a little later.

First up how goes my Tidy The TBR Challenge?

At the end of September I’m on 191 books, novellas and magazines read

ARCs - 100

TBR - 91

I’m glad the split is pretty decent, and this proves the exercise is working…to an extent. It s also nice to do a few articles like the British Women in SF category and I’ve quite a few ideas more to work on.

October for me feels an end of year. My birthday is early November and its a good time to take stock. I still have too many unread books on shelves and am reluctant to do a more radical cull. So next year I will dial down my enthusiasm for getting over-committed and focus on a lot more older books being given a go. Not all may be reviewed but there are in the pile some ideas I can use for projects of a slightly different manner and also allows me to catch up. But yes, I will have another year-end challenge to help you too. I also need to work on a special idea for November - more on that soon. So by 2024 I can have shelf space again! (Famous last words)

October has a few things on my agenda. I’m halfway through the Clarke Awards shortlist and if I get time I can probably do a Kitchies and World Fantasy category too (all help the TBR pile). But another reason I love October is it leads to Halloween and that leads nicely to this month’s challenge.

TBR Challenge for the Month

For October the theme is Boooo and EEK

The main challenge is to read a horror or dark themed tale (crime counts too) - but you want to be unsettled in some way

Stretch goal - honour the October harvest reaper man - find a book that has a death theme.

For me I’ve got a pile of horror tales from TBR to read over the month and that’s my way of achieving this and having fun!

Let me know your choices in the comments