For What It's Worth


Monday, October 30, 2017

monday musings: TBR reading progress

Back in January I posted about my goal to tackle my physical TBR pile. It’s been growing since I attended my first BEA (book Expo) in 2011.

Over the past few years I’ve managed to wrangle my Kindle books, ARC’s and Netgalley under control but this pile – not so much. It just keeps getting bigger.

This is the before pic of ALL of my books laid out in my kitchen. Total of 139 books.

To be honest, I have not been doing a great job working my way through them because I am such a mood reader!

I know! 139 books and nothing I want to read but it’s true! I had only read about 10 books of these books since January despite averaging 20-ish reads per month.

But starting in September I really started to focus on this pile. I sorted, went through Goodreads reviews and passed on books that no longer interested me and cracked down on the reading.

Here’s the after!
20171021_111037

I’m down to 85 books (I read several more after taking this shot). My goal is to get down to 50 but I don’t think this is too bad. It’s progress and I feel like such a HUGE weight has been lifted off me.

Most of these books were from book cons I attended over the years and I was far less picky and thought I could read ALL the books. Even though I wasn’t necessarily obligated to read them all – I felt like broke a code or something. The arc’s were given out for the intent to review or give publicity to said arc’s.

I feel actual joy about reading again. I can’t even believe how much it changed my attitude about both reading and blogging – just having that pressure removed.

So all in all – I want to get this down more but I’m VERY happy with my progress so far!

27 comments:

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    1. I wish it was better but it is going in the right direction so I'm happy.

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  2. Wow Karen, that's brilliant! It's really overwhelming with a large TBR and you're doing so well, are they books you'll be reviewing Karen or just the good ones?

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    1. I have been reviewing most of them. I worked my way through the more recent arc's first and now what's left is the older books (going back to 2011 BEA). I don't plan on reviewing ALL of them but if I have something to say then yeah.

      All those children's books from Friday were from this pile.

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  3. That's an awesome progress Karen. Hope at the end of this year you could wipe half of them :) I'm working on my pile too, but in my kindle hehe.

    xx
    Vanessa @ Blushing Geek

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    1. I read so much this year. If I had concentrated on JUST this pile it would be done lol

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  4. That BEA spoiled you LOL. But also ruined your appetite! Glad you're making progress.

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    1. It's weird to complain about something so amazing and wonderful but yeah...too many books lol

      Lesson. Learned.

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  5. Great work!! I'm overwhelmed by all the books I want to read, but it's not fun when you feel like you have to read. This is great!!

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    1. I got to the point where I don't even look at what's coming out anymore. It's all to stressful.

      It's nice to be back on a more even keel and choose what I WANT to read.

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  6. Like you, when I first went to a couple of ALA events I grabbed up a lot of books, not being as picky of a reader, and I got a pile of books I'll never end up reading. It's a bummer, but I've learned my lesson. I'm pickier about what I commit to reading. You've made great progress, Karen! :)

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    1. It never, ever occurred to me that there would be too many books or that I wouldn't' at least like most of them. I used to read 100's of books per year and loved almost everything. Instead I just got overwhelmed and panicked lol I couldn't even choose 1 book.

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  7. I am loving seeing your progress here!! I love wittling down those TBR books to read. I have quite a few I have on my shelf that I have grabbed from book fairs, costco, or half price books. I think next year I am going to focus on that more and do less of ARC.

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    1. It's still high but manageable. I don't feel as stressed or pressured anymore.

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  8. Oh nice! Anything that gets the pressure off is good. Looks like you are really working it. I'll never tell how many ebooks I have yet to read. Nope, not telling. :D

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    1. The e-books were tackled last year lol

      I think I have less than 50 which is fine for me.

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  9. Great job - and I'm glad that you're not under a ton of reading pressure. I'm doing fairly well with keeping e-books down and I'm slowly but surely getting through my physical ARCs, so I don't have too much pressure either which is always nice.

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

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    1. I just wanted it at more manageable levels and while I would like it down to 50 - this is good.

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  10. You are not alone with an unmanageable physical TBR, mine is a little embarrassing, I'm scared to count the number. It's actually my Kindle shelf I'm most ashamed of, it's in the three figures and starts with a 2. Oops?

    I think the number you've cut down by and your goal is brilliant. I think this is something most bloggers need to regularly otherwise we are at risk of being swamped with more books than we can ever hope to read. Next year I want to get serious about my TBR and I will try and follow your example first and actually laying my books out there to see and then I can try and tackle getting rid of a few.

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    1. I worked on my Kindle books the past 2 years. Mine was way up there too. Then my physical arc's and now this is the last big pile. It was over 200 last year so I want to do better but I'm happy where I'm at.

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  12. Yeah for slowly reading all those books :) I'm proud of you

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  13. That's not bad at all! I'm glad you've found your happy reading place again. It is nice when you eliminate that pressure. I still do requests/add to my pile but it's incredibly limited compared to what it used to be. Much much better :) Happy reading this month!

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