Skip to main content

My TBR stack just keeps getting bigger...

...and bigger, and bigger. I think I will have to go on a stricter book diet, because this one isn't working. Cancelling the library card has made me read more of my own books, but I am accumulating them faster than I can read them.

Tuesday I went to the charity shop and bought 9 books. Today, Friday, I went back there and was about to leave with one book, when they told me they were giving away books for the day. Back in I went and left with 19 books. That's more than I read last month.

This, of course means that there will be dozens, if not hundreds of new books there on Monday. Bbbbwwwwaaaaaahhhhhaaaaa!

Comments

Maxine Clarke said…
I'm just the same, it is quite depressing really. I have cured myself of my book club addiction (I was in about 3 simultaneously on and off for 10 years, juggling them so as to take advantage of introductory offers) for about 6 months now. But the pile still grows, for the reason you say and more. (Since I started blogging that has definitely not helped).
It is getting very depressing when I realise that I literally will not live long enough to read all the books I have.
June 17, 2006 9:18 pm
Bibliophile said…
I'm beginning to think I should use my clothes-shopping rule for books: One in, one out. Either that, or buy a new bookcase. Both my TBR cases are full and overflowing.
June 18, 2006 9:09 am
Becky Holmes said…
I can't believe you cancelled your library card. Having a library card helps me avoid buying books, because every time I pick up a book at a bookstore, a stern little voice goes off in my head saying "just get it from the LIBRARY!"

I like your blog. Can I link to it on mine? www.abookaweek.blogspot.com
June 20, 2006 7:26 pm
Bibliophile said…
Becky, I cancelled the library card to try to force myself to read some of the 200+ unread books I own. I have realised I will also have to stop buying more books because my reading rate has dropped to below my book-buying rate.

Go ahead and link, I'll do the same with your blog.
June 21, 2006 7:59 am
Jenny Davidson said…
Actually, one of the things I like about book-blogging is that it means I've got a complete record of all of my light reading, which makes me feel free (I always did, but now it's even easier) to give away almost everything I've read and liked. Young-adult fantasy to my sister-in-law, demented noir to my brother, crime fiction to a colleague who collects and reads it avidly, 'women's' fiction (for lack of a better term) to my mother, experimental fiction to an avant-garde friend, etc. etc. Then I take the rest, books not good enough to recommend, and give them to the guy who sells used paperbacks on the street nearby, and he lets me pick some good stuff from his current stock in exchange. I find myself (in other words) not so much with the problem of mounting TBR (there are always a number of books I buy and don't read, but it's manageable) but with the need to clear my one-bedroom apartment of the hundreds of novels I make my way through every year....
June 23, 2006 7:33 pm
Bibliophile said…
My problem is that my mother just wants to read them and then give them back (no room to store new books in her house), and my brother has a very narrow interest in reading which doesn't overlap with mine much. I do occasionally take books to a friend who is always happy to receive new reading material. One second-hand bookstore does exchanges (2 or 3 for 1), which helps a bit, but he only takes books published this century. I usually end up trading them on TitleTrader or giving them back to the charity shop.

Right now, I very proud of myself: I haven't been to the charity shop all week. I plan to try to stay away until the end of the month. If that works, I will try to go there only once a week and only buy 2 books at the most each time until I have the TBR stack under control. It has filled every shelf in my office and is beginning to creep into the living-room.
June 25, 2006 9:11 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...
25 comments
Read more

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...
9 comments
Read more