It’s a new year and a new opportunity to write and read.
I have been adding to my to-read pile throughout the holidays and it is now so large I don’t know where to begin. There are more than 600 books on the so-called “short” list of what I want to read this year and that doesn’t account for new releases that will appeal to me. It is insane. There is no way I can hope to read a quarter of that, much less all of it.
My reading goal this year is 100 books. That’s one-sixth of my list.
Why do I do this to myself? My only defense is to freely admit that I am greedy for books. I want to read them all. They are like paper Pokémon. I love their shiny new covers and the promise of intriguing tales on their back blurbs.
It’s a sickness; I realize that. I am a book hoarder and addict with no hope of rehabilitation. But I have accepted that and found my peace with it.
Still there is the question of how to manage my list? I am happy to say that I have a few methods that seem to work for me;
1. I keep an electronic bookshelf on Goodreads that allows me to sort through books and shelve ones I own and ones I want. Goodreads also offers the ability to search reviews and see what others think. (Sorry my personal list is private, but I will be launching a new public account shortly to share my book reviews and some of my collection.)
2. I keep a book jar, which is a large vessel filled with tiny pictures of book covers—ones I want to read. When I am at a loss what to read next, I dip my hand into the jar and pull out a title. It is random and pushes me at times to read things I might not have pulled off the shelf given my own preferences at the time. I find I am such a mood reader. I filled the jar with the 600+ books on my to-read-this-year list and will leave some of my choices to chance. Since the list is curated, there is no chance of finding something I don’t want to read.
3. I run a small electronic book club (on Goodreads) filled with lots of reading challenges. This lets me pick books to suit challenges when I am stuck. There is a certain responsibility to completing some of the challenges since I am the one who created and posted them.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get stuck. It happens after I have read a novel I have loved. There is this palpable sense of loss that comes with turning that last page. Sometimes that loss deprives me of the ability to choose my next book. I stare at my shelves in a stupor unable to do much more than mourn the loss of my latest read and unable to choose a worthy replacement. This is when I turn to challenges or my book jar. It helps me jump back into a world of stories when it seems impossible to love another character as much as the last.
How do you manage your to-read pile?