The British Books Challenge 2018

2018 is the year I dive headlong into books, great big piles of books.

I've always read, and reading has gotten me through some really dark times, but in 2018 I'm going to do it in an organised way.

That means keeping this blog going and growing.
It means joining book clubs and listening to other people talk about books.
It means going to literary events, festivals and conventions.
It means getting to know other bloggers and authors and learning from them/
It means getting to understand how the publishing industry works and how to make myself a little place within it.
It means reviewing books and shouting about the ones I love as loudly as I can.
It means writing, writing my own stories, writing reviews, writing articles.
It means using my new bullet journal to organise my booky life.
It means taking on challenges wherever I can find them.
It means reading, a lot.

One thing I was excited to come across recently was a British Books Challenge, created by Michelle at Tales of Yesterday. A big part of this challenge is to support British authors, and that's one of the things that attracted me to it. I love supporting local authors, especially since there's a higher chance of actually getting to meet them at a local event.

The north east of England seems to be producing a particularly good crop of local talent right now, with Anna Day, Dan Smith, Laura Steven and Chris Callaghan all kicking about the region, writing fantastic books. It adds a real vibrancy to the literary scene up here, when it doesn't feel like everything is happening in Waterstones Piccadilly.

Details of Chelle's challenge can be found on her sign-up page, here.

If I've got this right, I need to commit to reading 12 books in 2018 by UK writers. Since I've just set myself a Goodreads challenge target of 52, I'm pretty confident I can do that.

So here are the books I'm starting with:

The Fandom by Anna Day (the British Books Challenge debut book for January)
Below Zero by Dan Smith
The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (who I'm going to see in January!)
State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury
The Scarecrow by Danny Weston
After the Fire by Will Hill (who I just discovered is from the north-east)
Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone
The Night Spinner by Abi Elphinstone (I've recently fallen in love with Abi's writing)
Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens (which will hopefully be a joint review with my daughter)
It Only Happens in the Movies by Holly Bourne (who I met at her launch party and is lovely)
The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan.

So that's the twelve, and there's a good number of local authors in there too, which pleases me.