Hello, readers!
Ahem. HAS IT REALLY BEEN FIVE YEARS? Goodness.
I think I speak for all when I say we're glad the past year hasn't been on a scale of ridiculousness like many of its predecessors. But that's not to say many of us haven't been going through stresses and challenges in our own lives. We see you. And so, once again, we gladly throw open the doors to October (The Best Month), beckon you in, show you to a cosy sofa surrounded by stacks of books, and tell you 'Hey, this is your place for the next 31 days, snuggle up and lose yourself in your stories without fear or guilt, and we'll be back to bring you some cocoa and crumpets shortly'.
For those of you who have been here before, welcome back, we missed you! And you know how this works so you don't need to read on.
For those of you who are new here, welcome! Here's what you need to know...
What is the OcTBR Challenge?
The OcTBR Challenge was set up because we figured our TBR book piles were getting out of control and we wanted to dedicate some time to getting through at least some of them. We decided October would be the perfect time to collectively come together and celebrate reading (or listening to) the words we have on our shelves or next to our beds that remain unread, despite our best intentions.
Do you have to get through all of them in the month? Hahahaha... no. If you're doing TBRs like we're doing TBRs then that's not nearly possible. But if you can even get at least ONE of those beautiful books off the pile, wouldn't that be something amazing?
The OcTBR Challenge Plan
We usually kick off on Oct 1st by encouraging everyone to share photos of their TBR piles on Twitter. Either the whole lot (do you have a wide angle lens?) or maybe just the few you have decided to tackle this month. And they can be any kind of wordage at all, be they physical books, ebooks, audiobooks, the thousand open browser tabs of articles you keep meaning to read... whatever. It all counts.
After that's done, you just focus on the reading!
If you want to keep track of what you're devouring, we've got some downloadable Challenge Sheets to make notes on. And you may also love to collect and share our fun badges celebrating particular reading achievements! All of which can be found on our 'Cool Things' page.
Aside from that, we like to come together on Twitter (we're not calling it the other thing) every Thursday at 8pm throughout the month of October. These are our OcTBR Chats (follow #OcTBRChat), where we all get involved in conversations on reading. We'll ask questions and you answer them and then we'll chat about all the things reading and have the very best time!
* For those not on Twitter, this year we're also running the event as much as we can on Blue Sky!! Follow us here: https://bsky.app/profile/octbrchallenge.bsky.social
FINALLY, at the end of the month we once again have some amazing book prizes for those of you who really get into the spirit of the event and have fun with it. As always, these come courtesy of the amazing literary agent Sara Megibow at KT Literary (thank you, Sara!!). Yes, this adds to the TBR piles you're trying to whittle down, but come on, that's the fun of it. :)
Anyway. That's all you need to know. If you have any questions, check our our FAQs page or just drop us a message on Twitter or Blue Sky.
Glad you're back, it's lovely to see you again. Now let's get reading!
Love, us