TBR
How many unread books do you have in your house, right now? (Your own books, that is–not ones that belong to other family members–and not counting things like school books, if you have them.) Clearly, an estimate will do. OK, instead of an estimate, the OCD in me had to run into the den and my bedroom to look on the bookshelves and my nightstand. My quick eyeball count is about 35 books, but that does include all of the John Grishams we own in our collection, that I’m not sure I’ll get around to reading. That does include a few books I have borrowed from my mother-in-law and a friend, so the actual count is probably closer to 30, really. 🙄
To the best of your recollection, what is the OLDEST unread book in your collection? How long has it
been waiting? That would be some of the hardback John Grishams that we own, but I have not gotten around to reading. Some of those are 3 or 4 years old. I buy them new for Tim when they come out, and because we like to own all of the Grisham books in first edition, hardback (since he’s a local boy, “done good” and we both like that genre of legal thriller). After that, the oldest is probably some of the ones I bought last summer at the bookstore and haven’t gotten around to reading yet.
Do your TBR books (that’s “To Be Read,” if you didn’t know) haunt you, make you feel guilty that you haven’t read them yet? Just a little, but not really. I like having books here on hand to read, when the mood strikes me. I usually get the majority of books I read from the library, but sometimes I like not having to go and get them and return them. But, I think the library really helps me. Checking out a book and knowing it is due back in 3 weeks really propels me to read a lot more, as opposed to knowing I own a book and it’s in my TBR pile and I can read it anytime. Something about a goal, or a deadline.
Oh, and library books don’t count . . . not unless you absolutely don’t have ANY other unread book except what you checked out last Tuesday.
Good one, Stacy! I have about 15 unread books in my house. And YES, I do feel guilty I haven’t read them. I’m really trying to get to those before I move on to new ones but I can’t always do that.
I have a friend at work who brings in a ton of books to share and I always want those instead of the lonely ones on my shelf! Some of them have been there for about 5 yrs. I used to belong to 2 book clubs so I’d order them and pile them up!
Unread books – probably about 50. Sometimes I do feel guilty not reading them, but sooner or later I’ll either read them or sell or give them away so they’re in a home where they’ll be appreciated and read. I don’t know how long some of these books have been unread, but I know that I moved some of them into this house and we’ve been here almost 4 years.
I’m REALLY going to read more of them this year.
Geez-I have literally hundreds. Back when we lived in TN, we had this amazingly fantastic used book store. It was enormous, and full of every kind of book imaginable. We used to just go hog wild every time we went. Hey-the prices were right. So, I am still working my way through them. But people keep lending me books, so I always feel like I have to read those first so I can return them quickly. I probably have enough books to last the rest of my life. Not such a bad thing, huh?
And no, I don’t feel guilty. I feel guilty about too many other things…like letting my son put chocolate in his milk every day and blogging instead of working on school stuff…so I’m going to skip the guilt on this one.
LOL! I starred this entry in my Google Reader to do on a future blog post. My TBR pile is SCARY!! I actually have about 168 fiction to-be-read and 185 non-fiction to-be-read. I don’t know what the oldest one is. I’m terrible at buying and buying. I’m trying to read more and buy less so the pile goes down.
I’ll say it’s 50/50 on the unread book count. Most of the non-fiction I have, I’ve read, or mostly read. It’s the fiction – the classics – that I have not gotten to! Actually looking at my shelves right now, I’ve read quite a bit of them.I have a set of the worlds greatest classics that I bought in college, so some of them have been waiting 20 years to be read. Um excuse me, even an English major would have a hard time with Washington Irvings “Sketchbook”, right? And I do feel a twinge of guilt about the unread ones but I have been doing better borrowing fiction and only buying non-fiction so not so many books sit around unread that I’ve bought recently.
Very interesting questions!!!
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