Before joining the writerly bloggerly community, I never thought my “to be read” list on Goodreads was a big deal. t was just the slush pile of books from every series I’d ever started, books that kinda looked interesting, and other things.
I never really tried to make it grow smaller, and often I rarely read the books on it.
Until this year, of course. Until about a year or two ago, I’ve been reading mostly historical fiction, middle grade, classics, and a smattering of YA. That’s what my TBR consistent of. But now I’ve been reading a lot of YA, and have, of course, added a good helping of YA books.
But now it’s the same thing. It’s turning back into a slush pile of stuff that I’m not sure I want to read, and it’s growing. Of course, not all of it is bad. Most of it is good.
Slush piles needed cleaned, or in other words, politely killed. Here’s how I’m planning on doing that this summer, all the while increasing the amount I read.
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CLEAN OUT BOOKS I DON’T WANT TO READ ANYMORE.
We are all guilty of adding tons of books onto our TBRs and then never reading them… because we don’t want to. Maybe for some that’s fine, to have an ever accumulating list of books.
But I like to see what I actually have left to read.
So I went through and got rid of the books I’m no longer interested in. The last few books of the little house series, some random Warrior cat books I’ll never read because I forget what was going on in the series, and some historical fiction I’m no longer interested in.
2. ACTUALLY CHECK OUT THE BOOKS I’M INTERESTED IN READING AND READ THEM
Instead of just finding and reading brand new books or buying books on Amazon, I went to the library and checked out 4-9 books that were on my TBR. That’s key, because I know half of them I”ll read the first chapter and not click well with it. Then I’ll have a select few that I actually *want* to keep reading.
Then? ThEy’Re ReAd and I can mark them as read.
3.REPEAT.
Perhaps this is all easier said than done. Perhaps you feel there are too many books out there for you to ever make your TBR smaller… oh well! It’s just a number on a screen.
I only wanted to make mine smaller because I found it wasn’t helping me otherwise. It was becoming a slush pile instead of a “I need to remember to read these books because they’re entertaining/help me grow as a author/widen my reading knowledge.”
So go forth this summer and conquer your reading before getting sucked back into school work this fall!
I like your ideas for trimming your TBR. I do a similar thing with mine. Currently, my TBR has 169 books on it. Good thing it’s mostly virtual.
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Haha, that’s very true! It would be interesting if TBRs weren’t just virtual… interesting and scary.
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I eliminated my entire TBR about a week ago — it was becoming way too stressful, and I just took everything off the list. Then I went back to the physical shelves in my house and looked again at the newer titles that when we first got them, I thought, “I might read this…I definitely want to read that…”
I had to knock a few novellas/supereditions off my Warriors TBR — my oldest has read 98% of everything published, but he also has a smaller TBR than I did. He’s very smart about it — if a sequel takes too long to come out and he just doesn’t remember if he liked the first book, he’ll just move on to something else.
Something I found out about joining Goodreads is that I was randomly adding books that normally I’d never think about reading — and it made the pile suddenly get close to way too big. And you’re right, when we read for a purpose, and it’s supposed to be enjoyable, then stressing ourselves out over our TBR is just silly.
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Oh wow! That’s some dedication to clear your entire TBR. I’m glad you found what worked for you 😀
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Ah yes. Sometimes I add books that I’m not really interested in, but they have been recommended to me or some other reason. I also need to learn to stop reading books if I’m really not enjoying them.
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I caught myself doing that the other day… it’s definitely a bad habit XD
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I really need to delve into my TBR over the summer- I’m excited!
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Yay for summers and reading! 😀
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This post is awesome! I purposely leave my Goodreads TBR very very small so I won’t ignore it, but instead actually read it. Haha! So far it’s sort of worked. Also, yay for libraries! 😀
I love Goodreads! Sometimes I feel it’s even more important then Amazon because you can see things about books (like listopias) before anywhere else. Plus, it’s super fun to track your progress. 😉
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That’s a pretty good trick for keeping a small TBR, too!
And YEES! I love being able to track progress on Goodreads. It inspires me to keep reading because it’s like checking boxes, and that feels nice. 😂
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I don’t have a written TBR because I like to read what I like! I also don’t understand book bloggers who buy reams of books that they haven’t read and might not like. I’d rather get books I’m not sure if I’ll read from the library because you know you’re not wasting your money. And huge TBR piles confuse me because too much choice is very hard *nods*
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Very true! I only have my virtual goodreads list. Libraries are so great XD. I usually only buy books I can’t get from the library, like selfpub stuff. 😀
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