I’m feeling kind of sad this morning. A little down. You see, yesterday I went through my goodreads tbr and deleted the books I’m not particularly interested in anymore, as well as a hand full of duplicates. Now, my tbr is smaller than the average book blogger’s, only about 75, and yesterday I eliminated 10-15 books from it.
And as of today I have ADDED about 10 books.
Because new books are being written and published all the time. Books that sound fascinating and amazing! There are so many books that I want to read!
But I average about two books a month.
There’s no way I can keep up. No matter how many books I read, my list of books I want to read will always be getting longer and longer and longer because there are always more and more books. Which is wonderful! We are so lucky to live in an age where books are so readily and easily available and there is such a variety that we never have to worry about getting bored.
But I’m feeling sad. Because I realized.
I will never be able to read them all.
I will die having not read something that I really wanted to. There are worlds out there that I will never experience, people I will never meet, places I will never go. Probably some of the books I don’t read will be 5-star books, all-time favorite books. Books I would have loved and cherished and proudly displayed on my bookshelf. And I’ll never read them.
Sometimes I look at other book bloggers and wonder how they stay so up-to-date on upcoming releases. How is it that they know a book is coming before the cover is even released? Why don’t I know to? The truth is, I avoid finding out. I’m scared to know about all the wonderful books out there because I know I’ll probably never read them.
So I’m feeling sad this morning.
But there is good news!
My mom and my reddit Secret Santa have both sent me a few books that I’m not very interested in reading. Recently I’ve been debating what to do about them. Do I take the time to read them anyway out of respect for the gift? Do I just leave them on my tbr shelf for the rest of time? Do I take them to Half Price and hope the gifters never find out?
But this morning’s existential crisis has made up my mind for me. There’s not enough time in this life to waste on books you’re not really interested in. With so many books out there that I’m excited to read and might not get to, why would I waste a precious two weeks on a book I don’t care about?
So today on my way to pick my son up from daycare I will be taking those four books to the Little Free Library. I’m not interested, but some teenage girl will be. And that’s a better life for those books than sitting, unread on a shelf until the end of time.
Do you guys ever feel sad when you think about all the books you’ll never read? How do you cope?
Oh Katie, I love your blog post! Every word you wrote is so true. It’s really sad to think about the books that are going to be written in the future and we might never be able to read them because of various kind of reasons.
I really need to clear up my tbr too one of these days. I did that a few months ago but there are still too many books on there.
I’m wishing you a great day!!!
-Sabrina ❤
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It seems like clearing out the tbr is the ongoing battle of the book blogger, haha!
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Sorry to hear that you’ve been feeling down about this! I experienced this a while ago and went to the extreme of getting rid of any tbr’s I had either physical or virtual and while I know this won’t work for everyone it’s really worked out for me, I just pick every book I read as and when and I think that makes it easier because I just don’t know about all the other books out there and what you don’t know can’t hurt you, right? 😂😂 I’ve also started DNFing books more if I’m not enjoying them because I’m just like, I am going to read a finite amount of books in my life, why am I struggling through one I’m not enjoying? And I also make sure to try and read what I want to read rather than just anything that has been hyped or books that I think I should have read!
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I’m pretty good at picking books I’ll enjoy, so I don’t think I’ll have to make myself start dnf-ing yet. I don’t enjoy dnf-ing at all, lol. But I’ve definitely noticed that I stopped adding books to my tbr *just* because a blogger recommended it. I have to say “Ooooooo, that sounds GOOD!” to add it.
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Haha, yeah I’m the same, I think especially starting out blogging it can be so tempting to want to read books just because everyone’s talking about them even though they sound nothing like what I normally enjoy but I’ve definitely got to a place now where I can just be like, no, I will not like that book so I will leave it for others to enjoy! 😂😂
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Exactly! lol
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I love this post because I feel like this all the time. It’s impossible for us to read all the books we want to because of time, let alone the ones we aren’t interested in. It’s taken me forever to get over this and to finally learn to put a book down rather than finish it. I used to never be able to DNF. I guess because so many times the book would turn out to be good. Anyhow, this is a great topic! 💖
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Thanks!
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I think about this ALL THE TIME! Which is why I don’t think twice about DNFing a book I am not enjoying. Like you said, life is WAY too short, and there are SO many books out there that it is just not worth wasting time on something you aren’t enjoying/won’t enjoy.
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Haha, soooooo many people are talking about how this makes them dnf, and in a week I have a post scheduled about why I almost never dnf. lol
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Hahaha 🙂
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I so relate to this post! Even when I look at my shelves at home, debating what to read next, I always get a little sad that I’m not able to experience all those stories, all those worlds, and meet all those characters all at the same time. I know I’ll never finish every book out there, and as I’ve come to realize that I’ve also become a lot more likely to DNF books that I’m not enjoying. There is way too much out there that I want to read, to suffer through ones that I’m not enjoying.
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I think about this quite often especially when I am reading a book that I am not enjoying. I could have been reading a five star book instead! I feel like since I started blogging I have gotten better at determining which books I am going to love.
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I feel like I’m also a lot better at that now too. I rarely pick up a book that I would give lower than 3 stars these days.
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Everything in life is this way and it seems like the older you get the more you realize how much freaking awesome stuff is out there, and how your time is growing more and more limited. You have to pick your battles, which unfortunately for me leaves little time for reading. The only solace you can get out of life is knowing you chose what was MOST important. I do know what you mean though. I have abandoned more books than I care to admit half-way through because I just couldn’t put the time into something I didn’t care about, most of which are actually very good books that most people love. There are simply things that I love more. Now if you’ll excuse me my toddler is yelling at me, eeek!
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Haha, I think more than anything it was having kids that made me realize there isn’t enough TIME. My toddler is a non-stop talker, and he can tell when you aren’t listening, lol.
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Great post, I can totally relate to you and this is the reason that I have become more prone to DNF books I’m not enjoying the past few years. the thought of dyeing in the middle of a book also makes me sad.
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Oh Lord, I didn’t even THINK about dying in the middle of a book! At that to the list of reasons I’m petrified of death…
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It is a pretty terrifying thought
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I take comfort in the fact I’ll never read every book, because then I’ll never run out but I can see why it can make you feel upset 😦 😛
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What a positive take. 🙂
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I totally get this! This was always my reasoning behind DNFing books. There are so many books I want to read, so if I’m not enjoying a book, why would I bother reading it?
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Thumbs up. It’s always good to cut things out of your life that’s either stressing you out or making you do things you don’t want to do, and I feel you made the right decision. Cheers! Hopefully you can focus on books that make you legitimately excited now! 🙂
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Oh my gosh, I’m sooooo excited about the books lined up on my tbr! I want summer vacation to get here NOW so I can start!
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Hehe good luck! 😂
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I too sometimes feel sad about the fact that I will die without reading every book I would like to. But, I guess I just try to read as many books as I can with the time I do have, and that will have to be good enough. You know, unless someone wants to just pay me to do nothing but read, because then I could probably read a bunch more than I could otherwise.
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Haha, right? Whenever my husband asks what job I would want, I always say “well as far as I know getting paid to just read all day isn’t a thing”.
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That would be an awesome job. I would want that job.
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Gosh that is a sad thought- I guess I only don’t worry about this cos I’m so busy worrying about all the other things I might not get a chance to do 😂😂 As for new books- I think it makes sense to leave it if you’re not that interested- there’s just too many other books out there!
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Oh yes! all the time! So I never waste time reading books someone out there tells me I MUST read. I read what thrills me or I toss it aside. I also get sad over not having enough time to write all the books i want to write. I do believe in an afterlife though and pray to God there are books up there–and pens.
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I worry way too much about a lot of things, but not being able to read all the books isn’t one of them. I don’t know why, because I’m a total worry wart! I just like knowing I have an endless pool of books possibilities to dip into whenever I want.
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