The Books I’ll Read in January

and how I decide on my monthly TBR.

Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash

Not too long ago, I wrote an article about four challenges that help to meet our reading goals in 2022. I wanted to take a little from each in designing my own reading plans for both the year in general and each month.

The Year-long Challenges

I participate in both the buzzwords readathon and the 52 Around the Year Book Challenge. These are the first books I set aside per month.

The buzzword for this month is to find a book with one of the five w and one h questions in it- who, what when, where, why, or how.

• The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Created Modern Crime.

photo taken by author

For the 52-week Around the Year, I don’t read in order. Usually, because something comes along unexpectedly and snags my attention. The books I’ll read from this challenge in January:

photo by author

• A book with 22 or more letters in the title: The Invention of Murder
• Book connected to something you read in 2022: Shadowsong
• Main character’s name starts with A, T, or Y: A Whole New World
• Historical fiction genre: The Kingdom of the Cursed
• Next book in Series: Through the Zombie Glass
• related to game: Thrones and Bones
• non-human main character: Frankenstein

The Read-a-Longs

I am doing both the BytheAngel readathon and the Dark Tower readathon this year. As a Stephen King fan, I’ve always wanted to get into the Dark Tower series. I found a youtube content creator who has a shorter version of a challenge that would have originally taken me two years. The January Books:

• The Gunslinger (Dark Tower)
• The Drawing of Three (Dark Tower)
• City of Bones (BytheAngel)

The Readathon

photo by author

I’m looking forward to taking part in the Hello 2022 readathon this month, running from the 23rd- 29th. There are four prompts and I plan to read 3 books:

• Through the Zombie Glass (book I wanted to read in 2021 and new beginnings)
• The Alchemist (outside comfort zone)
• On Way to Future (plan to read in 2022).

Sorry!

photo by author, original game: Splash Mountain Sorry!

One of the most addicting subjects for me on youtube is monthly tbr (to be read)lists. Many people play a game that will determine this. Over the holidays, I decided I wanted to be one of those people and create my own version of Sorry!

My aim is to read move around the board four times to determine part of my to-be-read (tbr) pile. This month, it gave me:

• A Whole New World (comfort read… I’ve begun reading Liz Braswell’s young adult retellings of the Disney classic tales. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading both Part of Your World and Once Upon a Dream, and have high expectations for this one as well).
• Shadowsong (PoR- Pages of Rachella- my Instagram account- review)
• TBD (family member pick. I’m waiting for a book subscription to come in before they decide).
• Brave New World (graveyard- I keep a list of books that I’ve had but not read for years. I choose a few every year to focus on. If I haven’t read them by the end of the year, they get donated.)

It Promises to Be a Full Month

If I still have time after reading these, I’ll mood read and pick what sounds interesting in that moment. I do enjoy having a structure to my reading, but I also leave it open for change or to rewrite an entire TBR, if needed.

This month promises to be a full one, but I’m looking forward to reading during it. I also look forward to sharing insights from these books during January.