This week I’ve seen quite a few videos on YouTube where people are attempting TBR zero, as in they want to read all the books that they own so that their To Be Read pile gets down to zero books.

I find this quite interesting because I personally feel like I have way too many books. I have nearly 200 books at the moment, which may not seem like a lot to some people, but when I havent even got through 200 books in the past four years, it seems quite intimidating for me.

Therefore, I’ve  been doing my research on how different people have gone about completing this challenge.

For a lot of people, it means not buying any more books while they read through all the books that they already own. For others, it’s reading a certain number of books before buying more.

Personally I don’t feel as though I buy crazy numbers of books. There used to be a time when I would buy every book that I had heard people talking about online. Now I am much more selective about what I choose to buy. So I don’t  think purchasing books is necessarily going to be an issue.

I think my biggest challenge is trying to get through more books each year.

Over the past couple of years I have been much slower with my reading. I had a major reading slump in 2022, which ended up lasting about nine months. And even when I started reading again, it wasn’t  nearly the same quantity that I was reading before. However, this was also around the same time that I stopped commuting to work, which I think had a huge impact on my reading.

So I’ve come up with some ‘rules’ for how I’m going to go about this challenge, which will hopefully help me to read more books in 2025 (how is next year only about six weeks away?!).

Rule One: read every day.

Even if I only read five pages, it will all add up. I know that I’m  going to have days where I read hardly anything at all, and days where I might read a hundred pages. I reckon if I read a few pages even on days where I dont feel like reading much, it will still help me to get through my books. As Tesco says, “Every little helps.” Honestly, something is always better than nothing, and just starting to read might make me want to keep reading.

Rule Two: have a monthly TBR

This is something that I used to do years ago, but haven’t done for a long time. If I choose four or five books that I want to read in a month then it might encourage me to get through each book. Providing a monthly TBR will get me excited about the books that are waiting for me. If I don’t get through all of those books that month, then I’m  not going to worry. It’s  just for encouragement rather than a strict plan that I have to stick to. But I feel that getting excited about the next book I want to read will encourage me to finish the book I’m currently reading.

Rule Three: read one book at a time.

During 2024, I decided that I was going to have multiple books on the go at any one time. I had heard that reading more books at once helps you to read more because you always have a book for whatever mood you are in. However, I have found that this doesn’t  particularly work for me.  I think it just allowed me to not finish books,  and keep starting new ones without worrying. Next year I want to go back to my old habit of reading one book until it is finished, then moving on to the next one. Personally I think this will encourage me to finish books so that I can start another one, and therefore I ought to get through more books because I’ll  actually be finishing them in turn.

Rule Four: DNFing books.

DNF stands for Did Not Finish. This means that I am not going to pressure myself into finishing books if I don’t like them, or if I’m just not in the mood for them at that time. I am happy to return books to my shelf for later, or just to get rid of them completey. There is no pressure to finish a book just because I started it. That is a sure-fire way of putting me in a reading slump.

Rule Five: not re-reading books.

I love re-reading books. I feel that if I really enjoyed a book in the past then there is no reason why I shouldn’t  read it again. Books aren’t made to be read only once. However, sometimes I just get carried away with it, so for 2025 I have decided that I will only re-read a book once every three months. This will allow me to re-read four books in the year. I feel that this will give me a chance to enjoy some of my old favourites, while also encouraging me to read some of my other books in between.

Rule Six: finishing series.

So I am currently in the middle of quite a few different series. But there are so many more series that I want to start. There are some series where I own the first one, but haven’t  read it yet. I think that, for these series, I’m  not going to start them until nearer the end of the challenge, this way I won’t feel the need to buy the rest of the books in the series until I’ve completely reduced my TBR.

Then there are the series which I’ve read a few of the books, but not completed the entire series. For this situation I think I would consider borrowing a copy of the sequels from the library before purchasing more books.

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Okay, so these are the rules that I’m putting in place for myself during 2025.

I’d really like to get back into a strong reading habit. There have been years in the past where I have read about 50 books in the year, whereas this year I’ve only just got to ten books, which is quite disappointing. So I’d really like to put a big focus on making more time for reading, and building up my reading habit in order to get through as much of my TBR as possible.

I need to keep reminding myself that my intention for this challenge isn’t to prevent myself from buying more books, but to read the ones I already own before focusing on getting more. Or, indeed, only really buying books if I’m about to read them immediately. I’m not going to prevent myself from buying a book if I’m really excited about it, however, I do want to try reading new books as soon as I can so that they don’t just add to the large TBR.

How’s your reading going this year? Have you started making any plans for next year?

I want to make a list of priority books for next year. It will probably only be about five or six books because I haven’t read many this year. I don’t want to overwhelm myself. Haha.

Until next time,

Love, Bobbi. Xx