July's 20 in 30 Challenge Final and August's Theme

In July, I decided to read 20 books in 30 days.  Here are my final results:

Books finished: 15
Books discarded: 8

While I didn't complete the challenge, I got close enough to make me feel satisfied.  The 8 discarded books slowed down my reading progress. However, for most of those books, I did read 100 pages, give or take, of each so I feel like I read 20 full books.  This challenge helped clear 23 books off my bookshelves.  Yippee!  That truly was the real goal.

On to August's theme:
Yup, I've decided to theme read for the next several months.  About 2 weeks ago, I was driving to pick up my daughter and pondering the state of the bookshelf.  It dawned on me that I have books on those shelves that I've had for years, literally years.  I haven't read them for a reason.  Right?  Why?  Because I don't really want to read them.  I keep passing over them.  Some are ones that I purchased thinking I wanted to read, others are ones given to me, some are library fill-a-bag sale books that I just pick up for the heck of it. 

This month is the Unchallenge, similar to a post I just read at Book Nympho.  I pulled out all the books I have no desire to read or mild interest.  I've already discarded the no desires, discovering in the process that I've previously started some of those books and put back on shelf.  Now I'm reading through the mildly interested.  So far I've finished three books and discarded 11.

My goal for this Unchallenge is to get to the books that I really want to read without feeling guilty for letting others sit there.  I don't want my new 2011 purchases to get stale or lose their appeal.  I want to read my review books without guilt of foregoing my 2011 Personal Challenge (get rid of all previously unread books).  I only have 3 more books from my initial pull-off-the-shelves decision.  Then I'm going to look once more for any iffy books. I'll end the month with my current review books.  Or at least this is the plan.

Next month's theme: Non-fiction!
Have you read about BAND yet?  If not, go here.  Encouraged by this band of bloggers, I'm dying to delve into a serious amount of non-fiction.  I've pulled all the old unread non-fiction from my shelves to read for September.  Back to school season, back to the real world.  Why not kick off the season with some non-fiction!  Care to join me?