‘They’ say that if you write goals down you have a better chance of reaching them and if you share a goal with others your chances of success improve even more. So, here goes.

As of 1 January 2011 I have 200 works of fiction* that I either own or have ordered but have yet to read. I would like to reduce this number considerably by the end of the year, which means I need to do the bulk of my reading from these books and refrain from adding too many more books to my various shelves and devices until I have done so.

*no we’re not going to talk about the 20 or so non-fiction books gathering dust on my shelves at the moment, for a long time that was all I read but for now I am more interested in the pretend world than the real one so they might be a project for another year

I’ve decided to aim for a net reduction of 80 books by the end of the year.

While ideally I would like the reduction to be greater I think I need to be realistic as I know I will be compelled to procure some new books. There will be new Australian author releases, my book club’s monthly choices, the occasional book that everyone is talking about and a need to keep up my supply of audio books (I go through 4-5 of those a month and only have a handful on my iPod, at least 2 of which are of the dubious ‘can’t remember what possessed me to get that‘ variety)

I have signed up for a total of 9 challenges and if I read books I own right now for all of them that will consume around 60 books from my TBR which would be a jolly good start to reaching my goal (assuming of course that I can stop going shopping).

If things get desperate I might ask you all for help (in the form of insults and loud berating). Stay tuned.