Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I have a project I call my “TBR pile.” It’s one of the several on-going projects I have to clean up my life, reducing the piles of tasks and stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. As a book reviewer, a book reader, an editor, and an author, I’ve collected a hoard of books, many of which I’ve read, many of which I haven’t read.
Watching TikTok, in particular BookTok, I see a cornucopia of content creators talk about their TBR (to be read) pile at the beginning of each month. What books they are going to read and review for their audience. Throughout the month they show the cover, record themselves reading the books for reaction videos, maybe make skits related to the book, and post a video reviewing the book. At the end of the month, they sum up their book haul – reporting how they read books (eBook, Paper, or Audio), whether they succeeded in their original TBR goal, etc. Sometimes they grade the books read from worse to best. (Best is always last, so TikTok viewers have to hang around until the end of the video.)
It looks like so much fun, and I want to do it … NOW!
Then I turn and look at my shelves, piles, and boxes. There is no way to figure out what to read next, let along choose a handful of books I know I complete in a month with my unpredictable schedule. The shelves contain too many options. My Kindle groans for sympathy, hiding equal amounts of digital dusty treasures. Where do I begin?
Well, it has to start somewhere, so I’ve created a full, huge TBR spreadsheet.
I’ve uploaded my GoodRead list – all thousand plus books. Then I reviewed them against my kindle records. Next I went through my shelves. Once I started the project, I made sure to add every new “wish” and “purchase to the list. The TBR spreadsheet is at two thousand and twenty-seven books /lines … and counting.
After downloading my GoodReads account, I cross-referenced it against my Amazon digital content (Kindle account).
Here’s where things got tough. Did I want to copy/enter everything over into the spreadsheet? I had hundreds of unread books already; why add more from the Kindle when I know I am never going to read them. Sure some will get read, but others, not so much – my tastes have changed over the years. And the first year was a grab everything with this wonderful new device.
But if I wasn’t going to read them, all they did was take up mental and digital space. I should delete them.
But BOOOOOOOOOKS!
“On the Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books” by Lewis Buzbee. Lithub. 16 August 2023. (https://lithub.com/on-the-difficulty-of-getting-rid-of-books/ – last viewed 11/17/2023)
Not the first, nor the last, blog I’ve read on cracking down and clearing out.
Most say stupid things like “You only need a single shelf of twenty books – this will bring you joy.”
Mr. Buzbee’s plan of limiting ownership to the amount of bookshelves which can fit in his house matches my own. I can get twelve bookshelf units inside the footprint of my small home. I usually cull books when I move, but with the TBR project, I decided to do a pass now with the goal in mind of having no piles of books on the floor and no packed books in boxes. I can do this. I will conquer the piles.
TBR spreadsheet in hand, I too shall be amazingly organized and a bastion of reviewing, clearly cutting through the seas of literature, my neat shelves behind me.
I ruthlessly cut hundreds of unread electronic books from the Kindle.
I may have added a hundred or so books to my TBR want list while doing so as I discovered series I’ve enjoyed in the past had new books out. Oh, and that recommendation that went by as I verified the book I already had wasn’t something I would read. And…
Well, I have completed the electronic pass, finally.
Onward to the physical books, clearing shelves, rearranging, and sending boxes of books out to new homes.
I’m really feeling accomplished with this project. The TBR pile project gives me hope I may one day actually clear up my emails.