Discussion: How much do you plan your reading?

I used to be the kind of person who finished a book, then looked around my room to figure out what I was going to read next. Maybe I would find something, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I would have to wait a few days until I went to the bookstore before I even started another book. *laughs* Obviously being a book blogger changed THAT.

I know some bloggers make really detailed tbr lists each month, scheduling what books need to be read in what order. Others have so many unread books sitting in their house that they make NO plans, just mood read to the extreme. For those of us who use the library and depend on inter-library-loan, we have to plan at least one book ahead because it takes time for our books to get to us.

These days I more or less plan a monthly tbr. If you’ve been following me for very long you probably know about my genre rotation schedule, and typically I plan all the books in a rotation together. Since I’m using more than one library and ILL, I find it helpful to order all necessary books off my list at the same time. Then I read them in the order they arrive in, or if they all come in at once I just read whatever I feel like first.

What about YOU? How far ahead do you plan your tbr? Let me know in the comments!

How to know when your TBR is too long

Looking at your tbr gives you anxiety.
Books are supposed to make us feel happy and relaxed! If your tbr makes you anxious, it’s probably because there are too many books on it, my friends.

You look at some of the books and think “I’ve never even seen that book before!”
I think we all have books on our tbr that we can’t remember the plot of or why we added them. But if you’re looking at a book and you don’t even RECOGNIZE it, the problem is either a cover change or you have so many books you can’t even remember them all.

There’s not enough room on your shelves for all your unread books.
When books are falling on the floor, when you can bathe in the pile of books on the floor, your tbr is probably too long.

Dicussion: Love or Hate the Never Ending TBR?

Back in May, in an effort to make room on my tbr so I could start being more intentional about actually adding books again, I went through my list and deleted EVERY book that I had lost interest in reading, couldn’t remember anything about, or only added because I had FOMO. I don’t know about anyone else, but when my list gets too long I get overwhelmed to the point of not being able to choose a book. Hence all my super type-A lists, spreadsheets, and genre rotations etc. lol

In two short months it had easily filled back up to 90 stinking books, which I know to some of you is a drop of water in the ocean, but to me is a heck of a lot, hence another type-A list (which you can read here if you’re curious). Since creating that list, I don’t know, three weeks ago?, I’ve been devouring books at rates I previously couldn’t have even imagined. I’ve been regularly reading two books a week, sometimes more. But my tbr hasn’t gotten any smaller?

For every book I read there’s always another to add. I knock one off and add seven on. Sometimes it feels EXHAUSTING.

2nd Half of 2020 Reading List

If you’ve gotten a comment from my on Instagram or the blogosphere in the last month and a half you’ve probably heard me say “I’ve had that book on my tbr FOREVER, and I just haven’t gotten to it yet!” (Is that the book blogger motto or what?) I’ve also got a quarter million new releases out or coming out in 2020 that I want to read.

The obvious problem here is that I have a hard time prioritizing certain books. As a very much mood reader I tend to skip on heavier or more serious books, even if I *really* want to read them. I DON’T WANT TO DO THAT!!!

So I hand-wrote a list of must-reads in 2020! (Any other type As out there??) Here they are!

Must-Read New Releases

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The Year of the Witching
Have had this Salem-esque book on my TBR since January, and a fellow bookstagramer just gave me the green-light that it’s not too scary to read. Can’t wait!

The Angel of the Crows
First of all, Katherine Addison is my everything. Second of all, an alt-history London with monsters, Jack the Ripper, and a Sherlock vibe? Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!

Deacon King Kong
Heard a great interview with James McBride that made me decide to pick this book up. Excited for the slice-of-life storytelling, religious characters, and light satire.

I’ll Be the One
I’m in a fluffy mood lately, and this looks like the funnest book on my tbr. Plus East-Asian rep AND body-positive rep!

Most Popular Books on my Goodreads TBR

Last week I wrote about the books on my to-reads list on goodreads that had the fewest ratings. Mostly because I think it’s so funny to look at my strange taste in books. In retrospect it’s not at all shocking that nobody was particularly interested in that post, because who wants to hear a bunch of negativity?*

So in contrast, I thought it might be fun THIS week to look at the most popular books! As with last week, by “most popular” I mean the most people have read/left ratings. NOT has the highest star ratings, because Goodreads star ratings can’t be trusted. Buuuut that’s a point for another post. Shall I get on with it, then?

*While the post was not negative, one might expect it to be based on the title…

Dune

Author: Frank Herbert
Number of Ratings: 662,384
View on Goodreads

I’m kind of shocked this is THE most popular book on my list, mostly since I have a lot of sci-fi/fantasy favorites on there, but it’s in no way surprising that Dune is on this list. Probably even more surprising is that literally HALF of all ratings are 5-star ratings, so… That’s something! I meant to read Dune this past summer, because it’s so long and summer vacation is typically when I have the most time to read. But then I ended up taking three classes, so it never happened. BUT! I got it for Christmas, so 2020 is the year! It’s going to finally happen! (Me and everyone else… I’m seeing this book EVERYWHERE right now…)

How to Keep Your TBR Under 100

The book blogger’s number one problem? Keeping that TBR down! I am here to offer you 10 tips and tricks for keeping your TBR under 100 books.

What qualifies me to write this post? you might be asking. Great question! I have been book blogging for about a year and a half now and my TBR STILL has only 95 books in it. Which makes me the resident expert on keeping your TBR from exploding.

So here we go!

1. Read books that are actually on your TBR.

I know, I know! It sounds impossible! But if I can do it, you can do it.

PBS Made Me Read It

AAAAAAAAAAAND FOR THE THIRD TIME IN EIGHT DAYS…

PBS recently launched a show called The Great American Read. I’ve already gone into absurd amounts of details in other posts, so I’ll spare the repeat visitors, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here. Okay, that’s done.

Anywho, one of the major pluses of actually watching the show instead of just reading the list was that people were talking about why they loved a book. And clearly I’m a sucker for people telling me they loved a book. I’m a book blogger. So there’s now a kajillion books that I like, HAVE to read, that I can’t believe I’ve never read before, and that I’m hitting myself trying to figure out when I’m going to squeeze them in.

New to My TBR

Things Fall Apart

I just don’t think I had any idea what this book was about. I’ll be honest, I thought it was by Ernest Hemingway, who I can’t stand, so I have no one to blame but myself. They read aloud a short passage, and it sounded so touching and heartbreaking and amazing.

The TBR Tag

Hello everyone! I am writing this on vacation, but I’ve done such a good job of scheduling posts that by the time you see it I’ll have been back for a couple of days. Note to self, pre-scheduling is good but doesn’t leave much room for flexibility…

Thanks to Krista and Dawlyn at Little Blind Book Finds for tagging me! They are pretty much my favorite duo on the internet, and we basically like all of the same things, so if you’re reading this you should go check them out now!

Also, if you are reading this and saying to yourself “What the heck is ‘tbr’??” don’t you worry for a second! I totally feel you! TBR means to-be-read, and that acronym essentially doesn’t exist outside the book communities online, so there’s no reason you should know it. I’m sad to say it took me a good month into blogging to figure it out.

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How do you keep track of your TBR pile?

I am on goodreads, which is a great place to keep track of the books I want to read, especially since I can’t afford to just go buy them all. However, I do have a dresser in my bedroom with some rather  pretty bookends on top, and I keep any books I’ve purchased but haven’t read yet on there. Which lately has gotten to be pretty small.

Traumatized

I had a bit of an … experience at the library yesterday.

So, my library is teamed up with the libraries from a couple of nearby cities, including the BIG city with like, 10 branches or something. That’s really cool because it means that if MY library doesn’t have a book, one of the other branches might. I can order it to be shipped to my location and picked up at my convenience, or I can go right to their branch and use my library card there. So cool!