Monday 4 January 2021

Mount TBR 2020 wrap-up

Doesn't seem like five minutes since I was doing my sign-up post for Mount TBR 2020. I probably did it well before Christmas 2019 and had no idea what was coming. Probably just as well.


 

1. Tell us how many miles you made it up the mountain:

I started off aiming for Pike's Peak, 12 books, with the aim of counting only books I'd had on my shelf for a long time and 'chunky' books over 400 pages. Not sure I quite kept to that but I don't think I did too badly.

By the beginning of August I was at the summit of Pike's Peak and aiming for Mont Blanc, 24 books. I reached the summit of that mountain in November. I kept reading after that even though I knew I probably would not make it to the top of Mount Vancouver, 36 books. And I didn't but I did read another 4 and ended with a total of 28 books... a third of the way up that mountain.

2. The Words to the Wise According to Mount TBR: Using the titles of the books you read this year, see how many of the familiar proverbs and sayings below you can complete with a book read on your journey up the Mountain. Feel free to add/subtract a word or two to help them make sense. 

A stitch in time...  [saves] The Morville Hours (Katherine Swift)

Don't count your chickens... [in order] To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis)

A penny saved is... [worth] Dashing for the Post (Patrick Leigh Fermor)

All good things must come... [on] The White Road Westwards ('BB')

When in Rome... [beware] Capital Crimes (ed. Martin Edwards)

All that glitters is not... Silver Bullets (ed. Mike Ashley)

A picture is worth... The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins)

When the going gets tough, the tough... [go] To War with Whitaker (Hermione Ranfurly)

Two wrongs don't make... [you an] Outsider (Frederick Forsyth)

The pen is mightier than... A Slip of the Keyboard (Terry Pratchett)

The Squeaky wheel gets... Travels with Tinkerbelle (Susie Kelly)

Hope for the best but prepare for... [the] Menace of the Monster (edited by Mike Ashley)

Birds of a feather flock... Pole to Pole (Michael Palin)

Some of those answers are a trifle tenuous but it was fun to do.

Thanks to Bev for hosting Mount TBR 2020.


12 comments:

Lark said...

Your words of wisdom are so great! I love The pen is mightier than a slip of the keyboard and also Hope for the best but prepare for the menace of the monster. Such clever choices. :D

TracyK said...

I did not check for my stats on books from the TBR pile earlier, so I just went through all of them quickly. I think I read 67 books from my TBR piles (out of the total of 113). That leaves 46 books that either belonged to my son or my husband, or I purchased new this year. And the majority would have been new purchases. Oh well.

I would have liked to have done better, maybe 75% instead of 59%. I have the same intentions this year, but we will see what happens. I do have one TBR pile challenge planned.

Sam said...

Well done on the TBR piles, Cath and TracyK. I only managed 18 and that was the most I've managed in several years. My "shelf TBR" grows and grows as a result. (I've already added three in 2021.)

Some of your words of wisdom made me smile, Cath, because they fit so perfectly. Here's to another great year of reading for all of us.

Yvonne @ Fiction Books Reviews said...

This post really made me smile, as I reckon that the actual height of all three of those mountains you have virtually climbed in books, is about the height of my TBR pile.

I tried filling one standard sized box with about three dozen books, ready to take to the charity shop and I didn't even clear half a shelf from the bookcase, I estimate that at 2 boxes per shelf, if I went right round the house and gathered up all the books, I would fill at least 100 boxes - and that might be an underestimate!!

So, as we are now back in lockdown and all the charity shops are closed for the duration, I emptied the box and put the books back on the shelf :)

I liked the Terry Pratchett proverb and also the Michael Palin, those two just worked so perfectly :)

A nice fun post to round off a depressing day - Thanks :)

Yvonne Xx

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Good answers - it's harder to do than it looks! I've just signed up for the 2021 challenge - will you be doing it too?

Cath said...

Lark: Thank you. I thought 'Hope for the best but prepare for the Menace of the Monster' was pretty relevant to our current situation with the pandemic.

Tracy: 67 of your own books is very good. My 'extras' were mainly library books or lent to me by my daughters. Also I have to confess that a lot of my 75 were books newly bought in 2020 so they didn't count for Mount TBR. Now if I can only restrain myself from buying too many this year I might actually make a dent in the TBR mountain. And pigs might fly.

Sam: Thanks! I do seem to be lessening the books on my actual shelves a bit but the real growth area is my Kindle of course. So many tempting 99p buys on Amazon or books recommended by you guys that I can't resist, so on the Kindle they go. I've had to create a folder on there of 'Books I want to read in 2021' because they're just going on and getting lost.

Glad my attempt at Words of Wisdom made you smile.

Yvonne: I know how you feel about the height of your tbr pile. My real growth area, as I said to Sam, is my Kindle. I chuck things on there willy-nilly and then forget they're there. Hoping to do something about that this year.

Your description of attempting to get rid of some of your books made me laugh. I have one boxful on the landing waiting to go the charity shop, should have sent them off before Christmas, didn't, and now I need another box. LOL

Glad my fun post cheered you up a bit. I expected another lockdown but at least this time we have a vaccine that should alter the outcome. Last March we had nothing.

Margaret: Thank you. It is hard! Particularly as I only counted 28 out of the 75 book of my own I read last year, so the choice was limited. No, I don't think I shall do it again this year. I'm sticking with just the one challenge I think, the Historical which, as I don't read heaps of those normally, is a real challenge for me.

Rosemary said...

Oh I love this Cath - well done!

I'd never heard of the Mount TBR challenge (though I've certainly got the Himalyas of a TBR), I will look it up.

Sam said...

What you said about Kindle is very true, Cath. I have the same problem. So many cheaply priced, or even free, books catch my eye that they end up getting lost in a virtual haystack rather than being lost on my shelves or put away in a closet somewhere. It's a whole different problem than physical books...your approach might solve it, though. Good luck.

CLM said...

Love the words of wisdom! As I contemplate my books read in 2020 - which wound up being a lot because I read so many children's books plus did not sleep enough - I was very conscious of how many books I read from what I own vs. books from the library, but it didn't occur to me to think about how long I had had them.

However, I was influenced by the shelf you mentioned. My little office had so many piles of books on the floor that I haven't really used it for two years yet it is the warmest room in the house. So yesterday after work, I cleaned it (not quite done) and divided the 200+ books on the floor into TBR or donate piles. I haven't touched the books on the windowsill or the filing cabinet yet; maybe tomorrow. My grad school semester begins at the end of the month so I am trying to be very productive before classes start again.

In the piles, I found a book by Lissa Evans that I must have bought in the UK two years ago without remembering. Since then I had read Crooked Heart by her which I really liked, so I was quite pleased to find I had another by her. Usually, I try to note new purchases to avoid buying something twice!

Cath said...

Rosemary: Thanks! I think quite a lot of us have TBR mountain to rival the Himalayas. And whereas I used to feel a bit guilty about them all, I haven't since lockdown. I would've been so lost without my books.

Sam: I know quite a few people who, like us, are using their Kindles in this manner. It's just as well to be honest, if I bought them as real books the house would be bursting at the seams and there would be complaints from the management (Hubby). I'm such a 'stuff' person.

Constance: Glad you enjoyed the Words of Wisdom fun.

I love the idea of sorting out your office so that it's usuable again, especially if it's a nice warm room, sounds like a sensible idea and I hope it's going well.

Lissa Evans is a new author to me. I will look her up.

TracyK said...

Cath, I have read two books by Lissa Evans. Crooked Love, that Constance mentioned, which I loved. And Their Finest Hour, which was very good also.

Cath said...

Tracy: I've had a look on Goodreads and added Their Finest Hour to my 'want to read' shelf. I popped over to Amazon to have a look too and saw that Crooked Heart was cheap for Kindle so I've bought that. Thanks very much for your input!