The Trouble with TBR Lists
Or More Accurately – My Trouble STICKING to said TBR Lists
So this year has been an interesting experiment in attempting to keep track of what books I’m planning to read next. My goal was to try to knock out some of my physical TBR pile which has now morphed into an entire bookcase plus two more shelves. To help me with that, I joined #beatthebacklist, then dove into #arcaugust, and this past month was attempting #latinxbookbingo. And for each of those challenges, I sat down and made a list of which books I thought would be my best bet for the various themes/goals.
And then I promptly read mostly books that were NOT on any of those goal lists.
Because of course I did.
It’s not that I don’t want to read the books I put on those lists, of course. I was aiming for some of my most anticipated of the year, but for whatever reason, once they were sitting in their pile ready for the challenge, they just… didn’t seem like what I wanted to read right then anymore. And damned if I can figure out why my brain does that!
On the upside, I mean I HAVE been reading – according to Goodreads I’ve knocked out 46 so far this year, which puts me about 6 books ahead of schedule to meet my goal of 52 books or a book a week. Granted, a good chunk of those have been e-books or audiobooks which has not at all helped my overstuffed shelves issue, but at least I have been making progress of a sort, right? Right???
(Please ignore the stacks of new books that have been added to the TBR in the meantime. That way madness lies to say the least.)
Honestly I’m not sure yet how I’m going to handle this odd habit of mine. I really do want to get a handle on my books before they bury me in my sleep and leave my husband a widower, but it just seems like they multiply far faster than I can read them.
I have at least come to the conclusion that next year I need to NOT ENTER ANY contests or giveaways – ARCS in particular have been coming in the door faster than I can finish them – and also stick harder to my book buying ban/possibly remove myself from the long running secret sister project I’ve been in which has led to folks sending me new books, as well. They do have pen pal and/or very inexpensive levels which would at least limit the amount of books I’m given, so maybe I’ll go that route? I just love mail which makes it hard to resist challenges like this as well as preorders I then forget about LOL.
In the meantime though as the year winds to a close, I’m not sure if I’m going to try to sort out a specific TBR to focus on or not. I do want to try to finish up the ARCs I still have left over from #arcaugust added to the several new ones I’ve gotten. But that leaves the massive amount of backlist books that are just staring at me from my shelves looking sad and abandoned. And those aren’t even considering the ones in my audio and e-book collections and and and…
It’s possible I have a book hoarding problem. It’s also possible that I regret nothing.
What are y’all reading for the rest of the year? Do y’all have a set TBR you look at or just run with it at random?
Edited to add: as of this post going live, I've officially added 3 more books to my completed pile - 2 poetry volumes & an audiobook. Note: none of these were the ARCs I had planned to read. Because of course they weren't. *headdesk* At least I'm consistent? LOL