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My bookshelves have always been crowded, but throughout 2016, they became even more crowded. In fact, I bought a new bookshelf in the summer that has already reached overflowing status. Even my Kindle shelves seem more stuffed than usual. Between my Book Of The Month subscription, trips to Goodwill, Kindle deal purchases, and other miscellaneous book aquisitions, my personal library is getting out of control. And when I really stop to take stock of what I've got, the unread list is much, much longer than the read list. So, in 2017, I'm determined to flip the script with the help of a reading challenge or two.

The challenge I'm most committed to and the one that's going to help me knock a ton of titles off my To Be Read List is the Litsy A To Z Challenge. (Litsy, btw, is a wonderful social media platform for book lovers.) The criteria of the challenge is to simply read one book for each letter of the alphabet. The choices can be based on the first letter of the first word of the title (excluding articles, of course) or the first letter of the author's last name. Drumroll, please...here's the list I put together for the challenge:

• A - Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
• B - The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
• C - Columbine by Dave Cullen
• D - the Castles Ever After series by Tessa Dare (3 books)
• E - Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
• F - Firestarter by Stephen King
• G - Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• H - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• I - Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
• J - Jackaby by William Ritter
• K - Kit Kat and Lucy by Lonnie Hull Dupont
• L - Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
• M - Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• N - Night Film by Marisha Pessl
• O - The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• P - Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link
• Q - Quiet by Susan Cain
• R - Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
• S - Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
• T - Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, AND because I couldn't decide, Troublemaker by Leah Remini
• U - The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
• V - Victoria by Daisy Goodwin
• W - Wild by Cheryl Strayed
• X - Xingu by Edith Wharton (short story)
• Y - You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott
• Z - Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Okay, so I may have fudged a little with my Z title, but I really want to read it! Anyway, I like my list for several reasons. First of all, as I said, it will really help me clean up my TBR List, and it won't add to my packed shelves because I already own all of these titles, except Gone with the Wind and Less Than Zero. Secondly, my choices are a good mix of old and new, and they are 70% fiction and 30% nonfiction. I like the variety! Lastly, I'm proud that I built a list featuring mostly female authors.

Where to begin? Well, I've actually already started with Mansfield Park on a great reading app called Serial Reader. It's a neat way to enjoy classic literature in easily digestible chunks. They break the stories up into "issues," and a new issue is delivered every 24 hours. Somehow, it's less overwhelming than picking up a whole brick of a novel at once. Plus, you earn badges when you've read a certain number of words, and you get virtual pats on the back for finishing an issue! Check it out! 

There are many, many other very specific reading challenges out there, like Book Riot's Read Harder and Pop Sugar's yearly challenge. I debated participating in one of those, but teaching is a quite a time and energy suck, so I opted instead to simply shoot for reading 50 books total in 2017. I'm going to use Goodreads to track my progress towards that goal, so feel free to follow me there!

Aaand that's it...my #2017ReadingGoals. I plan to post updates and thoughts both here and on Litsy, where I'm @shanebeth. Stay tuned!