The TBR challenge

I mentioned in the In memoriam post that I inherited some of my grandmother's books. They weren't a bequest, as she didn't leave a will, but I think she pretty much knew what would go where once she was gone. I, for example, am the only one of her adult descendants who is interested in folklore and fairy tales, so I got her collection of those, along with some historical novels, cookbooks and miscellaneous other books. I have entered 43 of those volumes (some of which contain several books) into my book database so far, but there are more waiting for me because we still haven't explored a number of book boxes my uncle was storing for her, and in addition to that there is a stack waiting to be gone through in her apartment.

In addition to this unexpected addition to my library, I also acquired 27 books from my grandfather not long ago. He had a sizeable collection of books and decided that he wanted to pass them on to his children and their children and grandchildren while he was still alive. I suppose it was because he wanted to make sure we got them and not his stepchildren and their descendants. Whatever the reason, he put them in boxes and had them delivered to my aunt and then we visited her and chose what we wanted. In that way I got a couple of collections of folktales and essays on Icelandic history, plus some popular history books and novels.

In addition, I have bought about a dozen books since the beginning of the year.

Before all this I had been meaning to reduce the TBR stack to 625 books, meaning I would have to read and/or cull about 100 books from my collection in 2012. Now I'm not so sure I can make it to that goal because the number of TBR books has swollen to over 800 again despite a vigorous cull to make room for the new books. Therefore I am going to set myself a new goal and plan on reducing the stack to 725 books in 2012.Than should be manageable while still being challenging.

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