We invite you to share with us a book or genre you tried due to the influence of another blogger. What made you cave in to try something new and what was the experience like?
I have a lot of books. Many unread for the decade or more that I’ve owned them. But since I’ve started blogging I have picked up books at sales based on bloggers recommendations and have won more from blog contests. So, this past December I collected all of my books, took a picture, and asked my online and face to face friends to vote for 50 of the books I would read this year. The post is here. After 72 voters voted for up to 5 books each I had my 50 books. The RYOB Challenge here is where I list the ones I’ve agreed to read and who voted for each one. I also include their names and links with the review when I post it.
I’ve only read 29 out of 50 so far. That’s not so good, but I’m still plugging along. The two chosen that were most outside my usual reading comfort zone were War & Peace by Tolstoy and The Glass Castle by Wells and I ended up liking them both. I’m sure that The Glass Castle will end up on my year end favorite list. Having book lovers choose books for me from my overflowing shelves has been a great experience and I plan on doing it again. Fifty may have been too many, but we’ll see what I can accomplish.
In case you missed these posts due to BBAW overload…
My Tuesday Quiz – first week of Round 4- please join us
My interview with Page Turners
My answers to Page Turners questions
Stacy's Books 
So that’s where the recommendations came from! I missed the voting. I hope the remaining 21 are good reads.
Next time I’ll be looking for your vote 🙂
30 out of 50 seems like good progress to me. Good luck with the rest of them!
Not when I’m having a baby in a month and a half. I’m running out of time!
You are doing good! I think I will do it next year.
Here is my BBAW: Unexpected Treasure post!
It was a lot of fun watching the votes come in 🙂
Thats a great idea. Hope you enjoy the last 21 books.
So far I;ve only hated one so that’s not too bad.
Your challenge is great! I didn’t think about it, but you were the big influence on my trying audio books and I’m totally addicted to them now.
I’m so glad 🙂 I’m never without an audio book in the car.
LOVE The Glass Castle! I wouldn’t have read that one if it wasn’t for the non-fiction five challenge but I’m so glad now that I’ve discovered how much I love memoirs. How’s War and Peace going? Eeep! 🙂
I was unprepared for how much I loved The Glass Castle. It’s nice to test boundaries once in a while.
That’s a really neat idea. I love the idea of having a poll like that!
It was fun. I look forward to doing it again.
I have War & Peace in my TBR pile. Glad to hear you liked it, ’cause I’m a little nervous seeing as how I’m not liking Dostoevsky.
I had a reading buddy (Molly from The Bumbles) and I don’t know if I would have gotten through as easily with her!
I hope you make your goal! I loved The Glass Castle as well – one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.
The goal seems like a distant dream right now, but we’ll see.
The Glass Castle is one I want to get to as well. Can’t decide if I want to read it or listen to it.
I don’t know who reads it and that does make a difference. I loved reading it.
I actually loved your idea of letting folks pick books for you to read from your shelf. I love The Glass Castle too, by the way.
It was risky 😉 but so far so good!
I liked your idea of asking for help in picking 50 books to read this year. I’ve enjoyed following along as you’ve read them. 21 left to go is not that bad. Even if you don’t get them all by the end of the year, you’ll have a list to start on next year. Although – it will be interesting to see how much you read with the new baby and all those new duties.
I just posted a review of one you voted for 🙂 I think I could finish the challenge if I was at 100%, but not only do I have a lot more to get done these days, I’m doing them a lot slower! And I figure I’ll be lucky to finish a book or two after the baby’s born, at least until after the new year.
I loved The Glass Castle. She had every reason to be bitter, but managed to write her sorry childhood with humor and understanding. She’s not a whiner.
That’s exactly what I loved about her and the book too. Too many memoirs have this woe is me attitude and I don’t get very far without putting it down.