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WARNING: Some bad words might be used in the following post. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Hello fellow book lovers! By now you're probably familiar with my Down The TBR Hole series of posts, but in case you're not, it's a feature hosted by Lia @ Lost In A Story where you look over your TBR shelf and you clean it of any books you know you're not going to read. I've been doing it for almost two months now, with 15-20 books a week, and while Since I started doing it I've realized a few things about myself and I thought I'd share with you guys. So without further ado, here are
I've previously talked about this, but I am a mood reader. My TBR shelf has had time to grow since 2010 and that's not counting my old favorite bookish website, Shelfari, which I discovered back in 2006 or 2007. The TBR on there was insanely huge. Looking at my current TBR and sorting through every book, I can tell what mood I was in at the time I added certain books there. I didn't actively start using Goodreads until about mid-2011, so I had to use the import feature to get my books from Shelfari to GR, which caused a lot of the books to get mixed up in order and that makes it less visible, even in my Down The TBR Hole weekly posts. That being said, it's hard not to notice that sometimes the books I'm sorting through in one post are mostly adult romance.
That isn't such a bad thing though, because it actually saves me time and energy when I get in one of my reading moods again. Which actually brings me to my next point.
I'm going to be honest, I'm horrible at sorting books on my GR profile. If my physical book shelves are pretty well organized, by genre, author, series, the same cannot be said for my GR shelves. If you look at my profile though, you can probably tell that over the years I've tried to make some sort of sorting system to keep everything organized, but a lot of the times I'm hit with that monstrous thing called laziness and I tell myself "I'll make time next time I use GR to add a book". So I believe I need to take a full day of doing only that: organizing each and every book in shelves that allow me and everyone else visiting my profile to look through the books I'm adding and reading and reviewing more easily.
Each week it seems I'm moving one step forward and about 10 steps backwards, because each week I find out about new books I'm interested in reading and I add to my TBR. That means that the chances of me getting under 2500 books on my TBR are slim to none.
Another thing that goes against me is that I tend to add entire series to my TBR, sometimes even before I've read the first book. This usually happens with series from authors I know (like with Lexi Blake's Thieves series) or series that I've just started but I know I want to keep on reading (like with Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series - yeah, I had all 26 puppies on my TBR). This week I decided to take a few of them off my TBR shelf temporarily, because I'm afraid that the shelf is only going to become a random collection of books with no real purpose for being there other than a way for me to keep track of series. Which really isn't the point of that shelf.
I have yet to figure out a proper system to really do keep track of the series I want to read and the ones I've read, but I know this ties into the previous point. If you have any suggestions, please do share them :D
From classics everyone loved to the newest fiction everyone is going ga-ga over, at some point they were on my TBR. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because I have read a few overhyped books that I ended up liking. A lot of the times though, I kinda didn't.
I remember when Twilight was EVERYWHERE, and I do mean everywhere. The movies where starting to get out, the books were published in Romania faster than I thought possible, there were posters outside bookshops announcing the newest book in the series being released. So yes, I had it on my TBR at one point. But I do know that it's not for me. I watched the movies and while I know that's not the same thing, I don't think I can see myself reading the original story. The same thing happened with other books, like Little Women or Hunger Games. And while I may be surprised and end up enjoying Little Women, I fear I may have a different experience reading it that the one I should have had I read it when I was growing up, so I took them off my shelf.
This last point is really important. I started out as a strictly erotic romance reader, went on to read paranormal and urban fantasy and then discovered YA. Although I like to imagine that at some point I would have read those books on my own, I know myself well enough to know that that is not the case. Being a part of the book community in the way that I am, following other book bloggers with both similar and different tastes as me, guarantees me that I get to find out about new books that I eventually want to try out. And by new books I don't mean new releases, I mean books that are completely new to me that I wouldn't have learned about in any other way. And I love that, because a lot of the books I've discovered because of this hobby of mine are really amazing and I get sad thinking about a universe in which I missed out on those adventures.
So there you have it people. These are just a few of the things that I've learned and that I'm still learning during my massive TBR clean-up process.
Five Things That Cleaning My TBR Is Teaching Me
1. I can track my reading moods by my TBR
I've previously talked about this, but I am a mood reader. My TBR shelf has had time to grow since 2010 and that's not counting my old favorite bookish website, Shelfari, which I discovered back in 2006 or 2007. The TBR on there was insanely huge. Looking at my current TBR and sorting through every book, I can tell what mood I was in at the time I added certain books there. I didn't actively start using Goodreads until about mid-2011, so I had to use the import feature to get my books from Shelfari to GR, which caused a lot of the books to get mixed up in order and that makes it less visible, even in my Down The TBR Hole weekly posts. That being said, it's hard not to notice that sometimes the books I'm sorting through in one post are mostly adult romance.
That isn't such a bad thing though, because it actually saves me time and energy when I get in one of my reading moods again. Which actually brings me to my next point.
2. I need to use more shelves if I want
to make any sense of my Goodreads account
I'm going to be honest, I'm horrible at sorting books on my GR profile. If my physical book shelves are pretty well organized, by genre, author, series, the same cannot be said for my GR shelves. If you look at my profile though, you can probably tell that over the years I've tried to make some sort of sorting system to keep everything organized, but a lot of the times I'm hit with that monstrous thing called laziness and I tell myself "I'll make time next time I use GR to add a book". So I believe I need to take a full day of doing only that: organizing each and every book in shelves that allow me and everyone else visiting my profile to look through the books I'm adding and reading and reviewing more easily.
3. I'm a compulsive TBR-filler
Another thing that goes against me is that I tend to add entire series to my TBR, sometimes even before I've read the first book. This usually happens with series from authors I know (like with Lexi Blake's Thieves series) or series that I've just started but I know I want to keep on reading (like with Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series - yeah, I had all 26 puppies on my TBR). This week I decided to take a few of them off my TBR shelf temporarily, because I'm afraid that the shelf is only going to become a random collection of books with no real purpose for being there other than a way for me to keep track of series. Which really isn't the point of that shelf.
I have yet to figure out a proper system to really do keep track of the series I want to read and the ones I've read, but I know this ties into the previous point. If you have any suggestions, please do share them :D
4. I can accurately point books I added there just because of the hype
From classics everyone loved to the newest fiction everyone is going ga-ga over, at some point they were on my TBR. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because I have read a few overhyped books that I ended up liking. A lot of the times though, I kinda didn't.
I remember when Twilight was EVERYWHERE, and I do mean everywhere. The movies where starting to get out, the books were published in Romania faster than I thought possible, there were posters outside bookshops announcing the newest book in the series being released. So yes, I had it on my TBR at one point. But I do know that it's not for me. I watched the movies and while I know that's not the same thing, I don't think I can see myself reading the original story. The same thing happened with other books, like Little Women or Hunger Games. And while I may be surprised and end up enjoying Little Women, I fear I may have a different experience reading it that the one I should have had I read it when I was growing up, so I took them off my shelf.
5. Book blogging really has influenced
my reading tastes
This last point is really important. I started out as a strictly erotic romance reader, went on to read paranormal and urban fantasy and then discovered YA. Although I like to imagine that at some point I would have read those books on my own, I know myself well enough to know that that is not the case. Being a part of the book community in the way that I am, following other book bloggers with both similar and different tastes as me, guarantees me that I get to find out about new books that I eventually want to try out. And by new books I don't mean new releases, I mean books that are completely new to me that I wouldn't have learned about in any other way. And I love that, because a lot of the books I've discovered because of this hobby of mine are really amazing and I get sad thinking about a universe in which I missed out on those adventures.
***
So there you have it people. These are just a few of the things that I've learned and that I'm still learning during my massive TBR clean-up process.
What about you? Has there even been a feature or a series of posts that you've done for you blog that has taught you something about yourself that you previously didn't think about?
Nice post. I've been working on cleaning out my TBR pile on Goodreads this year and have discovered that some of the books on their I no longer have interest in or they are no longer in publication or I have no idea why I put them on their in the first place (probably the book hip). ^_^ I'm totally a mood reader and have tried new books in different genres that I never thought I'd read. I'm mainly PNR/UF for my reading, but I have branched out into HR, RS, & a few very few YA.
ReplyDeleteYup, I also found books there that I have no idea why I added or when. But then, it's nice to once in a while get out of my comfort zone. I also started with mainly PNR/UF, with a generous serving of erotic romance :D
DeleteI've learned a lot from doing Down the TBR Hole too! While I was in college/graduate school I added a lot of books that would help with my studies, just because that was an easy way to save authors/titles. But of course now, except for a few references, I don't need all those on my TBR 😂 I can also spot the ones I added because of hype, or entire series that I haven't even started yet. And although I'm mostly happy with how my shelves are organized (I don't get *super* specific) it's been so helpful eliminating some clutter and stress :)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I'm not the only one that can tell when or why certain books ended up on the TBR. I definitely don't need all of the books either on there lol. The clutter also kind of makes me want to shut down the page whenever I look at the TBR, because it's so hard sorting through everything. BUT I will find a way lol
DeleteI too am a mood reader but it's harder to track using my TBR.
ReplyDeleteI think this is because I add books constantly based on what I like in general so it reflects every genre I read but my actual reading tends to gravitate towards whatever
genre/ sub-genre or two meets my mood at any given time. It's much easier to track my reading moods using my 'read' shelf. :)
You really can learn a lot from going through your TBR. I try to sift through mine every now and again. I never thought about tracking my reading moods, but I can totally see that!
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction