Conquering the TBR mountain

I am a Serious Reader, as evidenced by the boxes and bookcases stuffed with books I read and loved and would never relinquish. However, my TBR (to be read) pile is also quite impressive. For instance, I have faithfully bought four Bombshells a month since the line's inception last summer, yet have only read a handful of them in all that time. I collect entire series by authors I have never read because the premise sounds interesting, or read one book from an author I don't know and then glom every book that author has in print.

So I decided to get my TBR situation under control. As I wisely told my husband, "If I buy 16 books a month and only read 9, I'll never get ahead!"

It's not that I just read 9 books, it's that I read 9 of MY books and then check out a huge box from the library and read 9 of them as well. See, the library has new books, old books, carefully-preserved-in-cellophane books. The library’s books have dated stickers on the back that prove other people have desired and read and hopefully enjoyed them. The library combines the glorious bookstore thrill of ooh-pretty-look-at-all-the books with the feels-like-stealing high of walking out the door with as many books as I can carry, all without paying a cent.

See, the library is all about choices. I want to look and touch and smell the books. When I’m at the library, I remember all my yummy books at home, but I like browsing the library knowing that, whatever mood I'm in, there is a great book within my line of sight that I can find to suit my mood. So, I take a carton of all kinds of books home because I need to know there will be a (whatever genre) book there for me when I need it.

Solution? I organized all my TBR books. I chose one particular bookshelf, shelved all the books I had ever read somewhere else, and dedicated the empty bookshelf as my TBR “pile.” I then proceeded to organize my books by category. All books in a series were placed in TBR order. All my books by Brockmann or Miller or Kurtz were in alphabetical order. I thought my plan was idiot-proof, except my books were three stacks deep on the shelf and I could only see the categories or series or authors in front. If I wanted a historical mystery in the Deadly series, I had to move two tall stacks of slippery paperbacks out of the way. That means carefully balancing 17 inspirationals and placing them on the floor on one side of me, balancing another 17 books (this time historicals) and placing them on the floor on my other side, tugging the Deadly book from its stack, and replacing both stacks of 17, all while trying to convince my three Very Curious Cats they did not want to sniff the books or knock them over or climb into the cubbyhole created by the displaced books.

Well, after all that, I was no longer in the mood to read the next Deadly. Instead, I wanted to go to the library and just pluck something off the shelf. The beautiful shelf full of books all mixed together and NOT organized by category. The exact opposite of my TBR pile.

Well, my next plan was to play catch-up. Let’s see, I’ll just read as many Bombshells as I can this month, and next month I’ll read as many mysteries as I can.

Umm, remember that thing about choice? I may not be in the mood to read Bombshells at all this month. If I pick up that Deadly instead, will I hate myself for not following my plan? No, I'll probably just go to the library and pick up something entirely different. Not helping; next plan, please.

So I think I’ve got it now. I listed ALL my books on librarything.com, using careful tags so I could easily sort them by whether they were series books or favorite authors or TBR or whatever. I then counted out how many books in each series or by each author and lined them up on a Very Nifty Chart so I could balance the numbers by the end of next year. (For instance, 8 books in one series plus 5 books in another series = 1 book per month for the next 13 months.) When I did that with all my series/gloms, I had about 30 books per month in all kinds of categories. I then reshelved my books by month.

I now have two stacks of books I can read in January. They cover all genres I like and all authors and series I have committed to reading in the next year. With 30 books to choose from, I should be able to find any book to suit any mood without having to go to the library.

My Feb. books are behind January. Once I finish ALL my January books, I’ll have 30 more books to choose from. All categories, any mood. It’s brilliant, really. Even though I know there’s NO way I can read a book a day for the next year, I’ll still definitely knock a big chunk out of my TBR mountain.

And no more trips to the library. Well, except for new hardcovers that I want to read before I buy them in paperback. Or books that are the next in a series I’m reading. Or. . .

Well, okay. I’m still working on it.