Required Reading: JANUARY

Last year, I enjoyed joining the Required Reading challenge by TINA, which, to quote her, is meant to help  strike books off the Mt. TBR. I know a lot of people who have the same problem: an ever-increasing TBR pile and too little time to read all of the titles that comprise it. Ways with which to whittle the numbers are being resorted to, depending on which one works for which reader. As for me, this is how I want to go about it. Plus, it gives me an excuse to write something on the blog aside from pseudo-reviews, right? :)

The rules:

• Books chosen for the challenge should be in the current TBR pile as of the month of the Required Reading post. So if you decided to join at March, the books you choose for the month should be in your TBR pile as of February.
• Galleys and ARCs can be included.
• Posting reviews aren’t necessary (but don’t you want that out of the way, too?).
• I’ll be posting a theme every month but you don’t have to follow that. You can choose a theme for yourself if you want to — what’s important is the books that you put there are books that you want to get to reading.
• And since this is a TBR reducing challenge, it would be very ideal if the books you choose aren’t a part of any other challenge. Just so you can read more. But seeing as I bent this rule so many times last year, you can bend it too. :)
• Lastly: have fun. If you don’t finish a book, it’s okay! If you finish it, then…feel free to reward yourself with something. :)

So, for this month's list:

(1) Alternative Alamat by Various Authors, edited by Paolo Chikiamco >>> I am halfway through with this book, my first for 2012. So far, so good! :)
(2) A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro >>> My trade paperback copy of this book was a Christmas gift from my buddy, Angus. (I squealed when I opened the package, seriously.) It was meant to be my first read for the year, but I couldn't resist Alamat. :D
(3) 1984 by George Orwell >>> I've had this on my Kindle for the longest time, but it's only now I thought of reading it - just in time for the first "face-to-face" discussion with the members of the TFG on the last week of January. :)

I'm going to limit my list to 3 titles per month to make the challenge more realistically achievable - I don't find any sense in writing down a number of books that I know, for a fact, I won't be able to read in a month anyway, for time constraints. I will only keep failing the challenge, and I wouldn't want that now, would I? It would be a complete waste of time. That much I learned from the previous months that I joined this challenge. ;)

I am also currently reading A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3) by George R.R. Martin, but I'm not going to include it in this month's challenge. Martin's books are chunksters, and if I included them in my Required Reading lists, they will be the only books I will challenge myself to read in a month. LOL.

Wish me luck on this first month! ;)