I have some problems. Bookish problems. I have way too many! I have a personal library of books that has every shelf full. A few bookcases packed and even double-stacked! A kindle with over 1000 eBooks. And I don't want to even look at my Arc stacks/list again! Everything is out of control! I have books in stacks, and even a few boxes full. Books I meant to read years ago that are collecting dust! I have tried buying bans, stopped logging onto Netgalley and even cut way back on library usage. That just sent me into some nasty depressions. I love my book collections! I think at times the collection and ability to admire them has some enjoyable merit in itself. Books are my splurge. Who care about clothes, going out to eat, etc. I like to read and adding a new books to my shelves also brings lots of joy.
But right now, it is a two-edged sword. With personal pressure to start reading them or paring down on the books. I tried the latter. Failed miserably. Once I have read a book, unless I loved it or it is part of a series I can part with if fine. But to look at a book I want to read someday...Nope. Can't do it. That ended up with me re-buying a lot of books. Waste of money (happy authors though-lol).
Then there is all the time invested into choosing a book. Prioritizing series you are in the middle of, new releases you are dying to read, challenges or buddy reads, review books or the dusty lonely titles that are desperate to be read. Trying to balance it can be exhausting. So I am thinking of trying a TBR jar. Tossing in a mix of all the above and late fate take charge. What do you think?
Also, to get books out of boxes, I am thinking some kind of DIY or object use for small but very sturdy bookends. Any ideas? Do you have more books than space? How do you solve it?
I would love to figure out a way to organze ebooks for review, series, genre/mood readign, freebies, etc but that seems like it will be such a pain to go through? Do you do anything to organize and find all your ebooks?
Thinking maybe installing a read 2-3 books to take one in (including review titles) or something to help get my TBR under some semblance of control. Any ideas or techniques that work for you? Someone once suggested a reward system for not adding books but I have no clue what I should award myself with right now so not sure that would work.
TBR jars don't work for me as I'm a mood reader-I have to want to read certain books at certain times. I'm tackling tbr by having themed weeks where I try to clear as many books in the genre as I can. I've had Zombie, Prepper and Tudor weeks so far and it motivated me to read lots as I tried to cram in as many of the books in that week as I could! I'm now on Urban Fantasy Week and it's proving productive in getting to the books that are gathering dust! I need a YA week and a mountain climbing week as I have a backlog of them too!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a blog post last year about the ways to reduce an existing overload of tbrs which might be useful:
http://chucklesbookcave.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/how-to-tackle-mount-tbr-survivors-story_7.html
It doesn't stop me buying books though. I tried the 'you can buy one if you read ten' reward thing and book bans but they don't work for me. I like grabbing books too much!
I agree, I have waaay too many paperbacks on my shelf which I keep ignoring for newer ebooks. But I'm gonna make myself read at least one pb per week combined with how many ever ebooks I can. Its best to start organizing and keeping some kind of schedule to control your tbr.
ReplyDeleteJanhvi @ The Readdicts
I'm the odd one out with this, because I'm an avid reader who doesn't actually own any books :) I'm a 100% library girl and this keeps things really organized and simple!
ReplyDeleteI have seen a lot of bloggers try the TBR jar idea though and it seems to have mixed success. There's no harm in trying it though, maybe it will help you :)
I think your strategy of forcing yourself to read two books you already own before you obtain a new one is a good one. It would go a long way toward paring down that TBR. I have the same problem with organizing my ebooks - they tend to just get lost in the Kindle shuffle and I forget about them!
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
I've found that I read a lot faster when I really switch it up. It's like I get bogged down with a certain genre/type of book, but if I force myself to pick something completely backwards from what I've been reading, I find myself refreshed.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that would help, but that's what I've got, lol :D
I have almost stopped buying paper books altogether, but my ebooks are piling up. I do try to organize in folders by genre, and I have authors that I love so I know I can find them that way. Like Library Huntress, I mostly get my books from the library otherwise I would be buried. You can try having "must-read" folders or piles vs. "just interested" and then after a certain time period you could consider donating or giving away ones that you haven't gotten to.
ReplyDeleteTBR jars worked perfectly for me! I used to to be a mood reader and I almost always read fantasy but now with a TBR jar, I read books from all genres which would otherwise have collected dust on my shelves.
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, I have tried numerous times to organize my ebooks, but the task was so big and daunting and time-consuming that I always ended up giving up! So now my kindle just has a collection for review copies and a collection for ask the books I haven't read yet lol, regardless of genre.
ReplyDeleteI could never do a TBR jar though! I'm a mood reader and am super picky about choosing books to read. I'd end up picking every paper in the jar until I found what I wanted haha.