Taming the TBR thread

[bibliomania]

Some of us in the 50 book thread are ruefully contemplating the piles of books we mean to read someday, but have never quite got round to. This is a proposal for a one-week experiment in pruning the pile:

• It can apply to books in any form (physical, e-books, audio)
• You choose seven books: each day during week, read the first 10 pages of one of them (and/or page 67 - a tip from the ever-wise PepeLePew on the 50 book thread) or equivalent, adjusting for format. If you're intrigued and keen to continue, keep the book. If you're not, then you let it go. Donate to charity, delete from your Kindle, sell online.
• It doesn't have to be 7 - set yourself whatever goal works for you.

Anyone fancy a go, starting from this coming Monday, 20th March?

I’m in! I’m going to try and squeeze in 2 a day (because my unread books are so out of control) so aim for 14 for the week (but I’ll be happy if I do 12).
I'm going to stick with ebooks only, my physical tbr and audio aren’t too bad.
thanks for organising this biblio!

Great, Baru! I'm now weirdly looking forward to it.

Checking in. Going to give it a go. I need to do something with my kindle books - I have far too many, acquired over more than 10 years.

A tentative yes. I feel like I'll end up not reading full books though

Oh one week you say?'

Yes I can do that

I'm in - I have so many unread books

I’ve been looking at my unread books. They’re scattered across my three favourite genres - thriller/crime, fantasy and litfic. I’m going to do 3 days thriller/crime, 2 days fantasy and 1 litfic - that should fit my ratio of unreads! If I have the energy to keep going on the Sunday, I’ll do potluck!

I am already on it, not even reading the first few pages, mostly going WTF was I thinking buying you, already culled my Kindle ones

not even reading the first few pages - hardcore, Five!

I'm going to start with physical books, on the basis that will make the most visual difference to my shelves.

Even though I don't have too much of a TBR, I'm going to join you for my half dozen gifted-so-feel-obliged books on my shelves :)

Placemarking- this is a great idea :)

Thanks @BaruFisher for excellent problem solving. I'm going to give it a go. Need to read book club book next week though so may try starting this weekend. I also suspect I have some books on my Kindle that say "Unread" but are actually read from when I've switched from an older Kindle to my present one. My relationship with Kindle goes back at least 11 years to when my youngest was a baby before the days of back lights.

I will give this a go - great idea! There are books on my shelves that I can't recall having bought, nor why I was interested in them in the first place, and they never seem to appeal when I'm scanning the shelves for something to read.

Occasonally I do get round to one and discover something truly excellent; The Shipping News a few years ago for example, which is now one of my favourite books.

Off for a preliminary look now ..

I'm hesitating. Even the thought of getting rid of any books is making me clutch my pearls anxious. I must say the page 67 thing resonates with me - that might be the way I go.

Well, that was an eye-opener. I began on the first shelf of my third bookcase, at authors starting with P ( my fiction books are filed alphabetically - some people find that strange but it makes sense to me ) and there are eight there I haven't read:

The Quincunx Charles Palliser (enormous)
The Other Mrs Walker Mary Paulson Ellis
Wake Up Tim Pears
Stone's Fall Iain Pears
The Invisible Ones Stef Penney
Under a Pole Star Stef Penney (I liked her wolf one so bought these two)
The Day of the Storm Rosamund Pilcher
In the Memory of the Forest Charles T Powers

I'm going to start tomorrow and evaluate one each day. Really good idea biblio especially as I am constantly buying more from Wob as well as a huge wish-list on Amazon. It's getting a bit ridiculous.

I can vouch for the Quincunx @highlandcoo - it is long though and a bit of a mission I read it on holiday maybe 10 years or so ago

Might go for the page 67 idea. I was using my TBR pile as the ones I was going to read for the 52 books a year challenge but they aren't enthusing me when I look at them.

I'll be in on this. I have not bought a new physical books for ages (thanks to Libby and library) but still have the sane 15 unread books on a shelf.

I need a daily commute to read more (rather than work from home!)

Oh I am purposefully ignoring anything unread on kindle. I did make a list of things I'd paid for by actual authors whose names I recognise and not read (pretty much all 99p) and will tackle that sometime but most are free dross!

Stone's Fall is good but also like all of Iain pears' books a bit of a project!

Did Iain Pears write An Instance of the Fingerpost? That was a fabulous book.

Yes, & Arcadia which didn't get great reviews but I rather enjoyed

I admire the sentiment but since War and Peace sat on my TBR pile for over 20 years before I read it and it was (predictably) incredible I refuse to get rid of anything unread because at some point I might want to read it. Happily get rid of books I've read and don't like though.

Good to know Eine. It's a long book! Which I don't mind if it's a good read. I think I've had it for almost 30 years; the pages are yellowing at the edges.

Stone's Fall looks very readable too. I'm not sure why I've never got round to it. Might be something to do with getting distracted by recommendations on the 50 Bookers thread ..

Hello my name is MamaNewtNewt and I'm 'addicted' to buying books.

I'm in. My TBR list is in the high hundreds, and might even be over a 1000! Given I read about 100 books a year and probably buy at least that many kindle books a year that list is only getting bigger. I also don't like to DNF books, I tend to start, and if I'm not feeling it, the book just goes back onto TBR Mountain.

I'll have a think about my target but looking forward to weeding out some of the rubbish from Mount NewtNewt!