Paperback Month Roundup

During April, I have been taking part in #paperbackmonth on Twitter and Facebook, which was a month for a group of bloggers, reviewers, book fans in general, to try and make inroads into our often neglected TBR piles of paperbacks.

This was run by Sophie at Reviewed The Book, and Suze at Librarian Lavender and I would like to thank both of you for a fantastically run month, of fun, chat, reading and giveaways. You are both stars.

About a week into April, it was suggested that I start blogging, given the rate I seem to be able to read and review, and although I had thought about it in the past, I finally took the plunge and on the 8th April 2015, Rachel's Random Reads was born, and so far I am loving it and want to thank everyone in the book blogging community for being so incredibly supportive.

At the start of the month, I took some before photos, and counted how many books I had that I was going to choose from to read during the month, and was amazed there were 41!

Having just checked back to my first post in the Facebook event, I stated my aim for the challenge was to reduce the pile of books, so that if feels like I have made progress with them.

Before & After shots of my purchased books section

At the Start of April

At the End of April

As we can see from the pictures, at the start of the month, I had 18 unread paperbacks that I have purchased at some point in my life. In the after shot, I have 12 unread paperbacks that I have purchased.

I have been almost very well behaved with regards buying more books this month, most of my purchases have been ebooks, and I only have the 1 brand new book, Wild and Free by Wendy Holden, which I only got at the weekend.

So mission achieved with this subsection. I have definitely made progress on the books I have purchased piles!

Before & After shots of my "won" book sections

At the Start of April

At the End of April

As you can see, I had 23 books that I have previously won from various book competitions that I hadn't had time to read yet. However at the end of the month I have 26 books in this category.

The explanation for this is simple, I have had a very lucky April and have won some wonderful looking books, so although I have definitely read some of my winnings, the pile just hasn't shrunk.

So what did I read?

Well I'm glad you asked that, I read this pile of books below:

Books read and enjoyed during April

Overall, I read 21 paperbacks, which in a 30 day month sounds scarily impressive. This was mainly due to the Easter break, as well as having a few days off work ill just after Easter, where al I wanted to do was curl up and devour books - so I did!

Overall

Start of challenge - 41 paperbacks to read

End of challenge - 38 paperbacks to read

This means I have met my aim, and in fact my piles are smaller, just about! Delighted with the way the month has gone.

What I did learn during April, was that I can no longer read paperback after paperback, after paperback. By the middle of the second week of the month, I was suffering from severe kindle withdrawal symptoms, to the effect that it was shouting at me to give it some love and attention again.

I believe Sophie and Suze are planning to run another Paperback challenge during the summer, which when its announced I will definitely take part in, and would urge you all to do so too, as its loads of fun talking about books with like minded people. I would though pace myself better and probably alternate paper and e-books.

If there are any books you have seen in my photos that you would like to see a review for on my blog, please leave me a comment and I will try and read those books first (can't promise, but will try to!).