TBR pile?

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TBR pile?

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1The_Kat_Cache
Dez. 7, 2007, 11:14 am

I've read many a reference to people's TBR pile, so I started wondering... do you actually have a physical pile (stack, box, whatever) of TBR books?

All my TBR books are either shelved away in the middle of all my other books or on a list to borrow from the library. I think a physical pile would be mentally draining to see, if it were disproportionately large. But maybe not. *shrug* My method does lead to forgetting whether or not I read a particular book, since I don't keep them separate. Hmm....

2_Zoe_
Dez. 7, 2007, 11:38 am

I seem to have 654 books tagged "unread" (how did that happen?), so no, they're not all in a physical pile. If they were, it might fall over and kill me.

I used to keep my unread books on separate bookcases, but that just made it impossible to find anything, so now they're mostly shelved among my other books.

3philosojerk
Dez. 7, 2007, 11:43 am

I have a dedicated TBR shelf. Except that it long since flowed over onto the shelf below it. *sigh*

4Kerian
Dez. 7, 2007, 11:51 am

I don't have a place dedicated to my TBR pile, which currently stands at eighty-eight books. I place the books on shelves that share their genres. Except for a few collections of short stories, I can remember which books I've read and which I haven't.

I have, however, thought about placing the next few books I want to read in a pile somewhere.

5frogbelly
Dez. 7, 2007, 1:01 pm

I need to go through my catalog and tag the unread ones because I don't have a physical TBR pile either. I'm working at a bookstore where the discount is phenomenal so I'm stockpiling. My bedroom looks like I'm building a fort in it.

6Bookmarque
Dez. 7, 2007, 1:31 pm

Same here #3. Started with one shelf, now have two, though only 1/2 of the other shelf is filled. That's not to say that all of my unreads are there, just the ones I intend to read in the forseeable future. New purchases automatically go there.

7citygirl
Dez. 7, 2007, 2:05 pm

I don't have a dedicated TBR area. I know where to find them. They taunt me from their various locations. "Oh, again, you haven't gotten around to me and yet you keep ordering those Jasper Fforde books. What's so great about them? So they make you laugh, but will they change your world view like I will? Or can you brag about having read them?" This I get from the likes of David Copperfield, Far from the Madding Crowd, 100 Years of Solitude, Walden and Crime and Punishment.

8Killeymoon
Dez. 8, 2007, 9:14 am

I've been lucky enough to whittle down my glowering TBR shelf, by sending some things to join most of my other books in New Zealand. They were the ones I just knew I wasn't going to get to in the next 6-12 months! Plus, I know I'll buy more in the interim. My new, svelte TBR pile is on the bottom shelf of the bookcase (double-stacked, of course!).

9quietprofanity
Dez. 14, 2007, 6:45 pm

Since I have an apartment but also maintain my old room back home. (Yeah, I know ...) most of the books IN my apartment are unread. :-X

But I'm down to 41 (lowest its been yet) and plan to keep going, so hopefully that system will change when I'm down to about 10 unread books or so, which is where I would like to maintain it. (Don't ask me about my 30 partially read books. I can only say I'm trying.)

10gradvmedusa
Dez. 14, 2007, 8:20 pm

It depends, if I don't have any intention of reading a book in the forseable future it gets shelved away with the rest. If I'm planning on reading it in the mid term it goes somewhere else, either on the floor in front of the book case, on top of the book case or somwhere else where it can visually taunt me. If I plan on reading it within the next week or two or if I am in the midst of reading it it goes near the bed or near my bag so that I can either grab when I am going out it or read it while relaxing.

11_Zoe_
Dez. 15, 2007, 12:55 pm

Oh, I definitely maintain a book room at my parents' house, so most of the books I actually have with me are unread.

12Vonini
Mrz. 11, 2008, 9:43 am

I have a physical TBR pile in the attic. Or actually, it's six piles... But they're not too huge, just about 15 books a pile...

I love having it there though: it's out of my way so I don't feel pressured by it, but when I've finished my book, I get to go up there and pick a new one. My favorite part ^^

13Sandydog1
Jun. 5, 2008, 10:37 pm

Mine is mostly a virtual TBR pile. My LT list almost soley comprised of books I've read. I own a large percentage of those too, but I've run out of space so I have to be somewhat practical and rely on libraries.

14Medellia
Jun. 5, 2008, 10:40 pm

Since I've run out of shelf space, and there is no conceivable place to fit another bookshelf in our apartment, I do actually have a TBR pile now. Actually, three of them. I've been thinking of putting up some wall shelves, but it's far down on my list of priorities.

15Severn
Jun. 5, 2008, 11:44 pm

Hi! I'm not alone, yay!

I'm a to-read piler and my name is K

Right now I have 221 unread books. It keeps growing, even though I keep reading. I have a fantasy bookshelf, and a lit. fiction bookshelf, and the unreads of both genres are on the first couple of shelves on each respective bookshelf.

However, to ensure that (and here I confess my true pedantry) older stuff gets read, as well as the new, I now have an alphabetical system going so it doesn't really matter where I put them...

I'll never stop buying books, so I'm just resigned to the to-read piles.

16BookishRuth
Jun. 6, 2008, 7:16 pm

My TBR pile only actually exists in my LibraryThing tags. Anything tagged "unread" is what I consider my TBR pile.

17dawnlovesbooks
Jun. 26, 2008, 9:29 am

I have 565 books that i haven't read yet. i stock up at library book sales and barnes and noble's bargain section, and bookmooch of course. i am starting to feel overwhelmed and as if i may never reach the bottom of my pile. not to mention i have almost 1000 books on my "books i want to read" list that i haven't purchased yet. so many books! so little time!

18Jenson_AKA_DL
Jun. 26, 2008, 9:43 am

Yup, all 200+ books I have tagged tbr in my catalog I physically have in piles and on shelves all over my house. Every time my husband and I bicker about the clutter in our house he tells me he's going to have a book bonfire.

19QueenOfDenmark
Jun. 26, 2008, 9:56 am

Thinking about it now, a few unread books are shelved but I like to organise my bookshelves kind of like the bookstore, like with like, then alphabetically in author last name. So the unread but shelved books are not together.

At the moment there is a TBR pile beside my bed of about 30 books. There is also a large carrier bag full of books, some read and some unread, lurking quietly by the bedroom door, waiting to be shelved.

On top of the bookcase in the hall is a double stack of TBR books, probably about 20 in all.

In the living room is what can only be called a TBR heap of maybe 30 books, waiting to be sorted and either shelved or put by the bed.

Any book that makes it to the by-the-bed TBR pile is high up on my read it soon list.

This is unusual, but I went on a bit of a buying spree and happened to find a lovely second hand shop that sold books for 10p each. And Waterstones on-line have been doing good offers lately.

So mostly when I mention a TBR pile it is an actual pile. Back in February we had an earthquake that had books falling all over the place in our house and someone on here suggested I keep a more stable TBR pyramid in future.

20QueenOfDenmark
Jun. 26, 2008, 9:59 am

#18 - eeep! I live with the niggling worry that, should we ever argue seriously or even split up, my husband would donate my books to charity shops out of spite and I would have to try to find them all again.

21Vonini
Jun. 26, 2008, 10:11 am

# 20
It's the booklover's equivalent to cutting all the buttons of all his shirts ^^

22karenmarie
Jun. 26, 2008, 11:54 am

I don't tag books tbr or unread. I tried it once for another thread a while back and got depressed. So I got undepressed by un-tagging the books. I don't like to feel pressured about reading. In fact, I've started writing around asking for ARCs and am getting depressed by the idea of actually getting them and feeling obligated to write reviews. Hmm.

I love just looking at my shelves and pulling a book out to see if I want to read it - just like the library. Of course, I also look through my LT library, usually descending sort by entered date to show the most recent stuff first.

I have a separate account for things i don't own, and one of those tags is wishlist. That translates in my mind as tbr, too.

Oh. I just remembered. My unread 888 challenge books have been moved to one shelf, so I guess I DO have a TBR pile. Fortunately, it's small.

23booklover79
Jun. 28, 2008, 2:28 pm

Wow, my TBR pile is not as big as some of you.
I feel pretty good now!LOL.
I don't have an actual pile, the TBR books are shelved with all my other books.

24notmyrealname
Jun. 28, 2008, 9:43 pm

A book bonfire?? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo

25kjellika
Jul. 7, 2008, 7:10 am

I WAS
PUT ON
EARTH TO
READ A CERTAIN
NUMBER OF BOOKS
RIGHT NOW I AM SO FAR
BEHIND I WILL NEVER DIE
********************************
(Quote found on the web)

26booklover79
Jul. 16, 2008, 9:55 am

LOL.
That's a great quote!!

27Jenson_AKA_DL
Jul. 16, 2008, 10:30 am

>25 kjellika: I'm stealing this and posting it on my Myspace ;-)

28RachelfromSarasota
Jul. 20, 2008, 9:16 pm

kjellika -- I agree -- what an awesome quote.

I have made a mental distinction between "to be read someday, when I'm in the right mood" books, which I own and keep at home during the summer, and a whole other bunch of books that I buy deliberately to shelve and display in my classroom, and don't really care if I ever get around to reading. These classroom books consist of three categories:

1) reference works, which are by no means restricted to dictionaries and encyclopedias, but include things like a great book I just bought on the history of BEER in America, a great book on American gangsters, picture books for grown ups about subjects as diverse as the ISS and the old "man-of-war" battleships, etc. Some of these I've read b/c they intrigued me; others are there to attract my "non-reading" students -- sometimes it even works! Other tomes in this category are books I think a history or English classroom just ought to have available -- biographies and essays about topics in world and American history.

2) novels, both YA and adult. This category consists of both novels I've read and enjoyed and have an extra copy or two of; novels I started and didn't like enough to finish; and techno-thrillers like the Tom Clancy books which many of my students like.

3) books I feel I really "ought" to read as a literate history teacher. These include a few books by Jared Diamond -- I just can't seem to get through Guns, Germs, and Steel -- his circular reasoning really, really bothers me; and books I find so rich that I know I'll have to reread them slowly and carefully in order to fully benefit from their insights -- books like Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews and some stuff by Thomas Friedman, P.J. O'Rourke, and a few others -- Susan Jacoby's Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, Francis Wheen's How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World, etc. Most of these latter books I've skimmed through -- and my usual practice is to read a chapter or two at a time, frantically posting sticky notes on the pages I want to quote from. I currently have about 20 of these books which are TBR "musts" for me -- one of these days! When this TBR pile goes over 20 I grit my metaphorical teeth and resolve not to buy any more nonfiction until I can plow through the books I've already bought.

Here's where I enjoy an advantage over most other readers -- I can buy TBR books, shelve them in my classroom, and NOT feel guilty! After all, I say to myself, they're vital educational appendages -- and I console myself that I will get around to reading them ONE day.

My home TBR pile is much smaller -- I usually only buy books for my home library that I've read before and loved so much that I want to own them. Sometimes though, I stumble across some real gems at "ye olde junque shoppes" and just can't pass them up. Last summer my daughters and I went antiquing and we found about 30 paperback science fiction classics (many by Andre Norton) for $1.00 each. I confess that I bought them all, but have read only half so far.

29Flit
Jan. 5, 2010, 4:13 pm

Tagged them all and was quite shocked. I wasn't quite sure what to do about reference books that are read selectively or at need. On the other hand, there were a lot more books I had read than I realised (although how I am going to dredge up all the books read but unowned I don't know).

I have books on shelves and in piles, and have ended up putting fiction books I have read in blocks on shelves, so they are all together, and everything else is unread. This only works for the fiction because of the way the shelves are arranged - mainly by size to get the maximum amount of storage out of them (plus the usual double and triple stacking). For large format books this isn't really an option, and so tagging read/unread is suddenly useful.

The book piles are more like a Lego bonded wall, than a series of book piles. This is an attempt to make them stable and not fall over. I wonder if it counts as house/wall insulation?

Still, it's always nice to be able to choose what to read.

30karenmarie
Jan. 5, 2010, 4:24 pm

#29 - I have had a serious change of heart since June 2008 (see #22 above). I've tagged all my books tbr, ntbr, read, or started. I have over 900 books marked tbr - all the way from kids books to nonfiction I'll probably never read to things I want to start right now.

ntbr (not to be read) are typically reference books (including cookbooks) or books I inherited from family members that I want to keep for sentimental value but don't actually want to read.

So tbr is really those books I envision opening and reading. Sheesh. Depressing yet it's absolutely a blast to be in a particular mood/mindset and find the perfect book to satisfy it.

I've joined the Books Off the Shelf Challenge to try to whittle it down by 50 or so this year.