Beat The Backlist 2022

Overview

A new year, a new TBR pile, and a new set of readers tackling their backlist!

Welcome to Beat the Backlist (the 2022 edition)! 
The Beat the Backlist reading challenge is designed to help you tackle all the books you keep meaning to read and still haven’t. Head over to AustineDecker.com for full details.

Guidelines

The guidelines are simple:

The book must be published in the previous year or earlier (for the 2022 challenge, anything published in 2021 or earlier counts).

You have to start and finish the book in 2022.

And that’s it!

Any format, any genre.

Re-reads count, and you don’t have to own the book.

It’s open for the entire year so whenever you feel like jumping in, you can!

BEAT THE BACKLIST BINGO

Bingo is back! I enjoyed this last year, and for 2022 Bingo is back, with new cards packed full of reading prompts. This year, there are two bingo cards available. You can find both at AustineDecker.com.
Bingo is an additional element to the challenge and finding books to meet each category is fun. I’ll mainly be attempting the 24-prompt card, but some of the prompts on the 52-prompt card are interesting too, so I’m adding that list to my challenge post as well, just for reference as I doubt I‘ll manage to read that many books over the whole year. My main focus will be the 24-prompt card.

Potential Reads

2022 marks my sixth time participating in Beat the Backlist. As I did last year, I’ll set an initial target of 10 books to read, but hopefully will be able to manage more. My TBR pile is HUGE so there’s no shortage of books to choose from! Here is just a short selection of potential reads for this challenge…

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

There are so many more books I could have mentioned above, so I look forward to seeing how many books I manage to read for Beat the Backlist.

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Monthly Progress

January

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) by Lynda La Plante

February

The Wind Through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower #4.5) by Stephen King

March

Murder is Easy (Superintendent Battle #4) by Agatha Christie
Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett

April

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Room in the Attic by Louise Douglas

May

Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17) by Agatha Christie
Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie

June

No progress to report

July

The Hollows by Mark Edwards
The Midnight Man by Caroline Mitchell
Billy Summers by Stephen King

August

An Evil Mind (Robert Hunter #6) by Chris Carter
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers
The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard
Hunting Evil (Robert Hunter #10) by Chris Carter

September

Witch by Finbar Hawkins
The Crucifix Killer (Robert Hunter #1) by Chris Carter

Beat The Backlist Bingo Progress

This year Bingo is back with a great collection of prompts.  While my main focus is the 24-prompt card I may choose a few from the 52-prompt list as well.  Here is a collection of covers that fulfill a prompt on either of the lists featured above:

 

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow – Book about siblings

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw – Novella

Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) by Lynda La Plante – One word title

The Wind Through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower #4.5) by Stephen King – Your favourite trope on the page

Murder is Easy (Superintendent Battle #4) by Agatha Christie – Murder, mystery – or both!

Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett – New-to-you author

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Discovered via social media

The Room in the Attic by Louise Douglas – Indie or self published

Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot #17) by Agatha Christie – You watched the show or movie first

Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie – Forgotten on your shelf or eReader

The Hollows by Mark Edwards – a book set in the season you read it in

The Midnight Man by Caroline Mitchell – title is an alliteration

Billy Summers by Stephen King – superheroes/villains OR character in disguise

An Evil Mind (Robert Hunter #6) by Chris Carter – a book in a genre you never/rarely read

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers – set in space OR on/in the ocean

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard – a book about books

Hunting Evil (Robert Hunter #10) by Chris Carter – everyone has read it but you

Witch by Finbar Hawkins – Debut novel

The Crucifix Killer (Robert Hunter #1) by Chris Carter – First in a series you’ve been putting off