One chapter at the time; The Forgotten Shelf

Goodness, what a journey. Sharing the forgotten shelf with you was absolutely interesting. Let’s have a little recap. Below is also a list of every single book I chatted about.

Having an endless TBR, or even having a library that is all your own, is fun. Surely there is nothing wrong with owning a lot of books, especially when you read a ton. Now, all of this is true. I have so many books and not enough time to read them all. Buying books is also a distinct different hobby from reading them. Yet still, some books feel more like a shackle around the ankle than the joy I usually feel when looking at my shelves.

It certainly is well… fault, I would rather not call it, but it is of my own doing. Here is the insight. I have always loved reading. When I was a teenager, I started buying books and curating my own little collection. Stories I enjoyed and wanted to own. Back then, you did not have many books in English in the library, and as my mother had looked up which books were easy reads for teens, I bought the first two Twilight books over the summer in England. That is, as far as I remember, where it started. I had books before, and owned a modest collection. But reading books in English, a whole world opened up. Because then, and now, only very popular books are translated, and those books are not always the best books.

I bought books, a ton of them as it turned out. When I was living in England, especially because the prices were very good, I was also really getting into people online chatting about books and recommending things to their online friends. Then, from one day to the next, I stopped reading. I don’t want to get into it too much; the world is trauma and all that, but at the time, it was not my choice.

As days passed, it was not something that was part of daily life anymore. Reading for pleasure has always been an escape, a happy moment within a day, and suddenly, I did not have that anymore. Now, getting out of a reading slump is something else entirely, something I will talk about at some later time, as I do want to share some insights.

However, at the time when I stopped reading, it was something else entirely. Five years went by, and once I picked up a book again, I just went to town. Falling in love with reading was like meeting an old friend, and after five minutes, it is as if you are just as close as you always were. Curating what I liked and did not like again took a bit, but I did have vast experience, and now I can proudly say I hardly ever read a truly bad book. Which brings me to my conundrum and the reason I started this series.

I had roughly 30 books that I had bought somewhat before my at the time never-ending reading stop. I hadn’t read these books. I hardly even touched them. Last year or so, I took about five books that I similarly hadn’t read or touched and read them. Half of it was really good, the other half not so much. But by that time, I could move on. They could leave the shelf, and I had the space for other stories.

I do not like to DNF my books. I’ve talked about this before. But I also do not want to throw them away (read recycle or leave them at a resharing place) before giving them a fair chance, because what did I think about them, why did I pick them up ten years ago (and goodness, what a long time)? I felt it then. The feeling of: I am ready to move on. To curate my shelves, but I knew I wanted to give them a fair shake, one chapter at a time. That was how the idea had started.

And I meant that literally at the time. I wanted to read these books to see if there was something, anything that made me want to keep reading. That made me want to know the book. So I started, and of course, I did not DNF any of them. I wanted to, but there is something so prideful that comes over me, a stubborn need to finish it before I can say “no, this wasn’t for me”.

Over the past month, I have posted here every single day (sometimes even twice a day, regular updates always commence). I shared my Forgotten Shelf; the posts were short, of course, but I wanted to have one place where you can find the full series in case you missed one.

Over the past 28 days, I chatted about 34 books, and here they are in order of appearance

Day 0: The Forgotten Shelf: An Introduction
Day 1: Just One Day
Day 2: Peter Pan & Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
Day 3: The Carrie Diaries

Day 4: Chloe does Yale
Day 5: Bridget Jones’ Diaries, Bridget Jones: the edge of reason, Bridget Jones: Mad about the boy
Day 6: Sweet Little Lies, Sugar and Spies (and L.A. Candy)
Day 7: The Reward

Day 8: Undercover
Day 9: Me Before You
Day 10: Jack the Ripper
Day 11: The Shock of the Fall

Day 12: The Best of Me
Day 13: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Day 14: The Abundance of Kathrines
Day 15: The Language of Flowers

Day 16: Tales from Shakespeare
Day 17: Who Do you Love
Day 18: English Fairy Tales
Day 19: This is a love story

Day 20: Irish Fairy Tales
Day 21: Harry Revised
Day 22: In silence
Day 23: Romeo and Juliet

Day 24: Pride and Prejudice
Day 25: Hamlet
Day 26: Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
Day 27: Normal People

Bonus: The Forgotten Shelf – a Guide

And I learned a lot. I could see why I liked getting the books, but I can also agree that that isn’t who I am anymore, and there is joy in that. Moving on from these books and giving them a chance to be someone else’s favourite. It is what it always had been about for me.

I might actually, honestly, do another series at some point. Because this was actually a really fun and interesting way to get rid of the weeds in my book collection (and I say this in a loving way).

Having said all of that and then some. There it is, and tell me. Do you have those books that you never got around to reading? Because maybe it’s time to give them the chance you, at some point, thought they deserved. If you are indeed interested, this post may help you out.