Bragan beats the books pile back, part 2

So, it's been pointed out to me that my previous thread had reached a whopping 300 posts. Which is almost embarrassing, really. But it was getting entirely too long, so here's a fresh new one.

To recap: Getting older books off the shelves (where "older" for this purpose is defined as pre-2010) is sort of a secondary goal for me this year. The primary goal is to get the total TBR books down to 400. Since I started the year with 428. that means I need to reduce it by 28, which doesn't sound like much, except for how I keep adding new ones to it. Will I make it? Stay tuned to find out!

Here's the exciting TBR Ticker:

Wait... "Books pile?" D'oh! Why can't we edit subject lines? Now I'm going to look stupid for the rest of the year. Stupid, and talkative. :)

I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't called attention to it. A minor thing indeed.

Keep up the good work!

Damn, that's what I get for pointing it out!

OK, I just finished book #74 for the year: The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko. This one does count as an "older" book: I got it sometime last year. It felt like time for a little light SF, although I think this one maybe turned out to be a little too much of a light read for my current mood. Never mind. Off the shelf it comes!

The book fairy left three sciencey books on my doorstep today: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch (for which the touchstone doesn't seem to be working), The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons, and The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins.

Down drops the ticker again...

That's one sneaky book fairy. It apparently left my ER book, How Did You Get This Number, in my front door while I was out doing yardwork this morning, and because I was using the side door, I didn't notice it until somebody else came in this afternoon.

Well, that's all the books I'm getting this month! Really! We'll see how much TBR ground I can make up...

So, what's the best thing to do when you've just bought a bunch of books and you really want to make progress on getting the TBR pile down again? Why, start a dense 600-plus-page scientific tome, of course!

Yeah, I don't understand my logic there, either. Regardless, I just finished The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, which has been sitting on the Pile for several years at least.

At least some non-fic is coming off of your TBR shelves. Mine just sit there looking abandoned.

For a while, I've had more of a craving to read non-fiction than fiction, although I think that's starting to reverse itself now.

A 600-plus-page tome at least clears off more space than a small one!

There is that! Plus, it was a nice example of me deciding I really should read the book(s) I already have by a particular author if I'm going out and buying new ones by the same author, and actually following through on it. I don't do that nearly often enough.

Well, I finished two more books that don't count as "off the shelf": Horns by Joe Hill and How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley. (That second one was an ER book.) And then a book that I've had sitting on the ol' TBR Pile for ages, Escape Velocity by Christopher Stasheff, one of a zillion old SF paperbacks I've picked up at used bookstores and library sales over the years. I really need to read more of those. Unfortunately, I didn't think much of this one, but at least it's one more off the Pile!

Time for the end-of-the-month summary, I guess.

JUNE 2010

Books read: 12
Pre-2010 books read: 8
Books acquired: 10
TBR change this month: -2
TBR change, year to date: -11
Number of books on TBR Pile: 417

Hmm. If the second half of the year is the same as the first, that'll be 22 books off the TBR pile by the end of the year, which falls short of my 28 book goal.

Well, at least the 2:1 old-to-new books ratio is nice.

First book of July and book #79 for the year: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher, which I've had for a couple of years. Kind of a disappointing take on what should be an interesting topic, but it, too, gets to come off the shelves now.

Next up is Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr., which I did get new this year.

Well, I finished Everything Matters! and also read Dave Barry's I'll Mature When I'm Dead, which I just bought a few weeks ago. And I've now followed those up with an actual off-the-shelf book, Infinite Requiem by Daniel Blythe. It's an old Doctor Who novel that I've had sitting around for years. Now that the current season of the show is over, I figured I should get back to reading those, if only in hopes of staving off the withdrawal symptoms.

And that puts me more than halfway to my goal of knocking 28 books off the TBR pile by the end of the year, which sounds very encouraging except that, um, yeah, I did just order a bunch more books. Again.

And, indeed, the first of said bunch of books has arrived: Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities by Russell Ash & Brian Lake. (For which the touchstone apparently is not working.)

Bragan,

As a great example of TBR decluttering, do you count books that you started but did not/will not finish?

What are these unfinished books of which you speak?

Alas, I am disturbingly obsessive about finishing books once I start them, so for me it's not really an issue. :)

That explains it! I am not that obsessive (about finishing books at least). I was reading one of my TBR books while waiting for an appointment yesterday and about 4 chapters into it, I realized that I had no interest in finishing it. Such a disappointment! Plus it left me at loose ends for the rest of my wait time. Sigh.
Now I must decide, do I count it against my final total or not? I think not.

Well, that does count as getting it off the TBR shelf, at least...

Makes room for more :P

Well, one new book came in: The Order of the Stick: Don't Split the Party by Rich Burlew. And I just finished one: The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. So, for, for the moment, the TBR pile remains unchanged.

American Unreason has not been around long enough to count for "off the shelf" status, but it was part of a rather fun experiment. My wishlist has gotten so long, and my memory for what's actually on it so poor, that I thought it might be an interesting exercise to periodically select a wishlist book at random to add to my next major book purchase. Because, let's face it, there's always a next major book purchase. Also, I've been trying to learn some programming, and writing a program to pick out random books for me seemed like good practice.

American Unreason was my second random wishlist book. The first was Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf. And I'm already amused by the contrasting books this method is picking: Fantasy Freaks is largely a celebration of pop culture, while Susan Jacoby sniffily looks down her nose at it.

Anyway, the rule of this game is that I'm not allowed to by the next random wishlist book until I've finished the previous one, so of course this had to come off the Pile sooner rather than later.

And now I've finished Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which had been sitting on the TBR pile for several years, at least.

Now added to the Pile: The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt and What Bothers Me Most About Christianity by Ed Gungor. The latter is an ER book I won over a year ago that only just now arrived. I'm feeling less interested in reading it than I was a year ago, alas, but I'll get to it eventually anyway.

Meanwhile, I should finish Don't Split the Party today. I started that the same day I got it because it's kind of a large book, and it wouldn't fit comfortably on the TBR shelves. Since I couldn't put it away properly, what was there to do but read it?

Just finished book #86 for the year, The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall, which I've had since some time in 2008.

I'm a mean book-reading machine this month, apparently. :)

Got my ER copy of Mary Roach's Packing for Mars today, so the TBR ticker goes back a notch. Still not doing badly, though! Except that I think it may be a little while before I get back to the older books, with ERs and other shiny new things to read...

I may be reading like crazy this month, but the TBR Pile seems to have reached a state of equilibrium. Today I finished Feed by Mira Grant (which I only just recently got, so it doesn't qualify as "off the shelf"), and acquired The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner.

And five more books showed up today: Ring for Jeeves and Jeeves in the Offing by P.G. Wodehouse, WTF?: How to Survive 100 of Life's Worst F*#-ing Situations by Gregory Bergman & Anthony W. Haddad, Columbine by Dave Cullen, and Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion by Al Seckel. Damned discount book catalogs will be the death of me!

Anyway, that puts my lovely progress ticker back down in the single digits again, but I still have time to get a lot more reading done this month.

I read Columbine earlier this year. Highly recommended.

I was originally a little leery about that particular book, as in my opinion a lot of the commentary on Columbine has been misguided and annoying, but everything I've heard about it indicates that it's thoughtful and very much worth reading.

Check my review, if you like. I'm sorry, I haven't mastered link-setting yet.

Just took a look at it, and it certainly makes it sound like the one work on this topic that I will actually want to read.

So, I read several several more new-this-year books before getting back to something older: Feed by Mira Grant, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (which was an ER book), and A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, finally followed by True Names... and Other Dangers by Vernor Vinge, which had been on the Pile for I don't know how long.

That last was book #90 for the year, by the way, and I still am 16 books short of getting the TBR pile down to my target goal.

Don't worry - it's only July, you've got lots of time!

So I've been telling myself! Of course, at the one step forward, a whole bunch of steps back rate that I've been going...

Yeah, backwards is an easy direction to go with books and TBR shelves. I think my TBR count is close to what it was in April.

Read What Bothers Me Most About Christianity, my long-delayed ER book from last year, and followed it up with Borderland, an collection of stories set in a shared universe. That's another one that'd been sitting on the TBR shelves for longer than I can remember.

And now I am back to halfway to my goal for the year. Again. Too bad it won't last...

I read four more books: WTF?: How to Survive 101 of Life's Worst F*#!-ing Situations, Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities, Solar and Iron Council, but they were all of them books I got new this year.

And since I'm pretty sure I'm not going to finish anything else in the next few hours, the end-of-the-month roundup:

JULY 2010

Books read: 18
Pre-2010 books read: 5
Books acquired: 11
TBR change this month: -7
TBR change, year to date: -18
Number of books on TBR Pile: 410

So, not a great old/new ratio, and I have to admit that this was, shall we say, a very uneven month, quality-wise. But at this point, I'm doing pretty darned good at kicking those books off the TBR shelves! Go, me!

You are doing great. It must be nice to see you TBR actually getting smaller, mine's going the other way. I seem to acquire books faster than I read them!

I've had to establish painful limits on my book-buying to get to this point. It's rewarding to see that it's paying off.

OK, book #1 for August, and #97 for the year was Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler. I've had this one since 2009, so it does count as "off the shelf!"

Having gotten my TBR pile down this far, of course, I naturally cannot resist the urge to build it back up again a little. A quick trip to the local used bookstore today netted me How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel H. Wilson, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, and a third book I am not at liberty to reveal because I'm reading it for the this month's Club Read "adventurous reader" challenge. The idea there is to pick up a book you've never heard of, by an author you've never heard of, and go into it knowing nothing more about it than what's on the cover. So, no telling people what it is, lest they be tempted to discuss it with me!

I also just finished Sailing to Byzantium/Seven American Nights by Robert Silverberg & Gene Wolfe. (It's actually two novellas by two authors, collected in one volume.) That one's been on the TBR pile for several years, at least.

Yay! You are doing so much better than me about clearing your TBR pile. *sigh* congratulations.

I'm telling you, it's painful! I tend to blow my strict monthly quota of bookbuying at the very beginning of the month and then to spend the next 30 days or so feeling an addict's cravings. But it's very, very heartening to see it actually having an effect!

I'm pretty sure that I read what your monthly quota is somewhere on your thread, but I forgot where it was. How many do you allow yourself?

The deal is that I'm allowed to buy ten books per month, or the number of books I read in the previous month, whichever is lower. (Interestingly, I've somehow managed never to read fewer than ten per month since I've started this, although it wasn't unheard of before that, so it seems to be an incentive that works from two directions.)

I've been known to fudge that number a little -- there've been several months where I had 11 books coming into my home, since I've been very lucky requesting Early Reviewer books -- but for the most part I'm sticking to it pretty well.

One more book came in the mail today: On Her Majesty's Occult Service by Charles Stross. Which puts the TBR Pile at 412. Still not doing too badly...

>Oh, my! That wouldn't work for me, I guess. I brought home 6 today from the used book store and it's only the first week in August. *Bad, Velma, bad.*

I've, um, been known to blow my entire quota at midnight on the first of the month. :)

Lol.

I just brought 6 home from the used book store too. They had a whole series when I just had lonely #1 on my TBR shelf.

I think I need to use your system of buying the number of books I read the previous month or a maximum.

It really seems to me to be the only effective way of doing it. Merely telling myself, "Man, I need to buy fewer books" just didn't help. :)

But...but what if you find this really great deal on books you've been searching for forever and.....yeah, guess you're right. It's the best way. I have no willpower.

Willpower is SO overrated...

I... have been known to make occasional exceptions. But I try not to. And it hurts. *whimper*

And, by the way, may I just say how refreshing it is to talk about this stuff with people whose response to "I only let myself buy ten books a month" is, "How do you have that much willpower?!", rather than to look at me like I'm completely insane because, geez, who reads that many books in a year?

But, Bragan, that IS willpower.

I know! But so few people seem to appreciate it. :)

Just added to the TBR Pile: Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner and Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth by James M. Tabor.

That puts it at 413 books. I turns out the 4 books I ordered from Amazon this month are delayed until probably the middle of next month... I'm wondering if I can manage to hit the coveted 400 level before they get here

And on the progress-making end of things, I finished The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen which doesn't count as an older book, and A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, which very much does. At times like this, I'm very glad that this challenge is prompting me to pick up more old books off the TBR shelves than I might otherwise get to, because I have no idea when I would have gotten around to that one otherwise, and it was very much worth reading.

I think that the main problem is that there are so many more books that look interesting published every month than I could ever read. But it's somehow tragic to look at a book that looks good and know that I will never read it. All those worlds and thoughts and ideas that I will never experience.

I know! People need to stop writing books so I can catch up.

That's it! Nobody move!!

Except for our favorite authors of course. They can move; in fact they should move faster.

True. I will begin drawing up a list of exceptions.

OK, I've read three more books: How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel H. Wilson, The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman, and Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell. None of these three count as pre-2010 books, alas. But, this puts my TBR count down to 409. I'm nine books from my goal! That's single digits! Of course, I still have books coming in the mail, so I'm certainly going to have to read more than nine to get it down to the elusive 400. But still! I'm very excited!

We'll have a party when you reach 400!

We should! I might make a cake. :)

I'll bring the ice cream. *smiles*

One more down! I just finished Ursula K. Le Guin's Gifts, which I got in December as a Christmas present, so it just qualifies as "off the shelf" for me.

I read two more newer books: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain by Barbara Strauch and Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin, followed by an older one: Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet by Paul Raeburn. Current TBR total: 405!

I've been reading something like a book a day lately. It is utterly absurd, and it will not last. But, oh, it's been nice! And what progress!

All right, going a bit backwards again, though, as two books just came from Amazon, earlier than they originally said they were going to ship: Skellig by David Almond and The Incident Report by Martha Baillie. So, 407 now.

Sill chugging ahead! Finished two more new-this-year books, Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin and Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa Sanders, and one more (very short and quick) off-the-shelf book, Star Trek Speaks, a collection of quotes from the original Star Trek series.

TBR Pile now stands at 404!

Read another new book, Ring for Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, and one that I've had for at least several years, What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert L. Wolke.

Down to 402 now!

Great going, Bragan! I sense a party coming on. *does happy dance*

Soon! Very soon! Oh, the anticipation...

So, I have now finished The Incident Report, which is a new-this-year book and thus doesn't count as "off the shelves," and SuperFreakonomics, which I got last year, and which does. But that is not the important thing. No, the important thing is:

I DID IT!!!!

My overarching goal for the year -- heck, for longer than that -- was to get my TBR Pile down to 400 books. For a while, I seriously doubted that I was going to manage it this year at all, never mind pulling it off by late August, but thanks to truly painful amounts of self-control, a veritable orgy of reading, and a convenient shipping delay on the part of Amazon, I DID IT!

*releases confetti and balloons*

And I'm going to keep it below 400, too. For a while now, I've been thinking of doing a little culling on the TBR shelves. The truth is, as much as I hate to let a book go once I've got it in my hot little hands, I have realized that there are books on there that I honestly don't want to read. Science books that are so out of date now as to be useless, misguided gifts, books on hobbies I've lost interest in, sequels to books I turned out not to like... All in all, I figure I might end up purging a couple dozen, which I plan to box up up and donate to the local library for their next book sale. I didn't want to do it before hitting the big four-double-oh, because, well, that would have been cheating. But I feel pretty good about doing it now.

And then, as a celebration and a reward, I believe I will pretend that there is an extra month in this year -- Augtember! -- and allow myself to buy another month's quota of books. As long as I stay below the magic number...

Wow congratuations on finishing your challenge! You deserve to go out and buy some more books.

I am within two books of reaching my goal, and I will celebrate by setting up a new thread and setting a new goal - this challenge really forces me to pull books off my shelves and read them - which is great cause then there's more room for new books!

Whoo-hoo! Congrats to you on your impending victory, as well!

I don't think I'm going to set up another specific goal for the rest of this year... I'll continue posting the older books I read here, because that does give me a bit of incentive to remember to read them, but I feel as if I can quit tracking my TBR pile quite so obsessively, at least on this thread.

Next year, I think my goal here is going to be reading a certain number -- maybe 30 or 40? -- of books that predate my joining LibraryThing, because I think that'll help me get some of the really old stuff off.

Congratulations on reaching your goal! It is amazing how many books you went through.

Thanks! I'm pretty amazed, too. I normally read at a pretty good clip, but the last couple of months, my pace has been ridiculous. Not that I'm complaining!

Bravo! *flowers and champagne*

Yay! Thanks!

I did do the small TBR purge, too. I ended up decommissioning 30 books, which puts me down to a nice, round 370. And then, of course, I did go and order more. :)

Well, of course!

Good for you. I managed to grow my TBR this year by over 100 books, which seems unbelievable. I think I'll just celebrate your success tonight with a glass of wine and a library book.

TBR Piles, if you don't watch them carefully and ride herd on them constantly, tend to jump up like that when you're not looking. Why is it so much more effort to get them down than up?

Congratulations, Bragan, on a job well done!!

Hoo, boy, I did go out and order a whole bunch of new books. Um.

Well, nothing to do but work on reading some of the older ones! I just finished Zamper by Gareth Roberts, which I've had for... I don't know. Possibly as long as ten years, which is kind of a frightening thing to find myself saying.

Congratulations!!!! What an accomplishment you've made.

Thanks! Thank you all! :)

I really am quite happy and pleased with myself, I must say.

We are also quite happy and pleased with you! Congratulations!

Guess I might as well keep doing a monthly wrap-up!

AUGUST 2010

Books read: 20
Pre-2010 books read: 9
Books acquired: 12
TBR change this month: -11 from reading, -30 from TBR purge
TBR change, year to date: -56
Number of books on TBR Pile: 372

Wow, I'm glad to find you here and just in time for your victory lap, congratulations! Kudos for the purge, too, I bet it feels freeing. I have a bunch that I'm on-the-fence about reading, haven't ever entered them into LT so that's kind of telling...

I like your in/out/rolling inventory idea, that would keep me more mindful.

Just catching up on threads and wish to add my kudos to the rest. I never really started a monthly recap this year, but I have hopes for next year. Might frighten me enough to slow my acquisitions. My TBR pile is getting totally out of control

Thanks for the kudos, guys!

I find that keeping careful track of the ins and outs of the Great Book Pile really does help a lot in keeping me aware of just how out of control my book-buying habit gets. It led pretty directly to me putting a cap on the number of books bought per month, too, and that's helped a lot in getting it back into control. I used to keep track of it in a notebook, but LT has made it all much easier and more interesting.

And the purge does feel kind of freeing. It was wonderful to see that To-Read number drop so precipitously, even if it is going to go right back up again. And just getting it into my head that, no, really, I'm not obligated to read all those books if I don't want to, and that it's OK to admit it and to set those unwanted books free... Very liberating. :)

It's not the monthly purchases that get me in so much trouble - it's those darn library sales!

Oh, yes, those can be dangerous!

Hey! Just saw you reached your goal. Congratulations. I'm nowhere near mine this year (50-Book or Off the Shelf). C'est la vie. :)

Thanks! I'm feeling quite pleased about it! It certainly took me long enough...

All right, so, after I reached my TBR goal and decided I'd start just keeping track of the pre-2010 books here, I spent the beginning of this month reading a whole bunch of newer books. But I did just finish Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction. I have no idea exactly how long that's been on the TBR shelves, but it's been there at least since I joined LT in 2007.

Just finished Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson, which I've had since late 2007. So that's at least two older books this month, anyway.

How did you like it? I have it in my TBR pile.

I liked it. Here, I'll cut 'n' paste the review I did of it, since it's short:

There's not necessarily a whole lot of biography in this short biography of William Shakespeare, simply because it tends to stick as close as possible to the known facts about the man, and there are precious few of those. But the mystery that surrounds Shakespeare's life is itself interesting, and so are the attempts of scholars to tease tidbits of knowledge and vast realms of speculation out of small scraps of historical information. Bryson also does a good job of giving the reader a vivid sense of what Shakespeare's time was really like, in all its vibrancy and squalor. And, as always, his writing is lively and readable. It's not laugh-out-loud funny as many of his books are; with the possible exception of the amusing final chapter in which he wittily slams conspiracy theories about who really wrote Shakespeare's plays, that's not the effect it's going for. But it is definitely entertaining, as well as educational.

Rating: 4/5

Thanks!

Just finished Forge of Heaven by C.J. Cherryh, which does count as an old book off the shelf, so that's one more.

But, man... Letting myself buy all those extra books after I met by TBR goal and did that little purge of my shelves may have been a bad idea. It seems that once I let myself relax the self-imposed restrictions and go a little nuts, it's hard to stop. This month, I keep finding myself coming up with increasingly problematic justifications for buying more books. (But... But if I'm buying something from Amazon and I add a book, I'll be able to get free shipping! That means I have to!)

I think I need help. :)

Hi, my name is Judy and I order books. Yeah, once you let the floodgates open, well, you get really wet. I justify by saying I'm only ordering from Paperbackswap, but the books still end up on the shelf, don't they?

I blame it on an attempt to read something other than murder mysteries. It's like a chocolate addiction - sooner or later I find myself head first in the mystery pile, my little feet wiggling to push deeper in.

We really ought to start a support group! Although I guess maybe that's what this group is. But, yeah, the problem is that no matter how you justify it, the book-buying always ends up with more books on the shelves. Me, I blame it on wanting to read everything. If I don't get that interesting-looking book I just saw, what will I be missing out on? I'll never know! I hate not knowing things!

The rest of this year is going to be extra-difficult, too. Next month is the biannual Friends of the Library sale. In November, I'm going to visit my sister in Oregon, and there's already a trip to Powell's planned. And then, of course, comes Christmas, when people are likely to give me books... and when it's hard to resist treating myself to a little something on top of it.

Man, it really is like a chocolate addiction. I can't stop with those once I start, either. And that, too, gets worse around the holidays...

Heh. Tonight I'm going to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library Really Big Book Sale (and they aren't exaggerating)! My mouth is watering already ...

Despite all my complaining about buying too many books, I am still jealous.

:-D

Will report back later, on the state of the haul! I have brought my rolling file box, an indispensible accessory for such expeditions.

OMG! I'm so going to try and go. I have a friend who is another bookaholic and I'm trying to get her interested (I don't like driving in the city - crosscountry OK, but no cities).

I hear you, mamzel - but I had lots of fun. Haven't started entering the books yet, but I filled my file box. Some of them are for giving away, though, so they won't all be put in LT. (How someone could discard a copy of Fabric of Society I do not know.)

Okay, they're all in LT - the tag is Big Book Sale 2010. Total of 17 books, plus three that I got to give away.

Looks like a nice haul of history, there!

Yeah, I only had two hours there, so I concentrated on the World History and Biography tables.

We are now making this a yearly outing! Thanks for the nudge. Friend, daughter, and I spent 3 hours and didn't see everything. I filled four bags of books for my underfunded H.S. library and a bag of books for myself. My daughter found some antique classics and is starting a collection. We managed to fill my friend's trunk with books.
I also liked how spacious the space was and relaxed and laid back the atmosphere. My public library's sales are crowded and rather frantic feeling.
Maybe next year we can meet up in the cafe area and compare finds.

That would be excellent!

One thing that's always fun at this sale is how eager the check-out clerks are to see what you found - I always get lots of oohs and ahhs!

I went to a sale on the weekend and the clerk ended up with one of my books because she needed it for a course! I was happy to oblige because, well let's face it, the last thing I need is another book. But I agree that it's neat when the things one picks up encourages comments from the clerks (aka the peanut gallery).

Speaking of library sales, I just took a couple of boxes full of the books I purged from the TBR down to the local library to donate for their sale next month, and even though I'd decided I didn't want those particular books, I still kind of miss them. Clearly the only remedy is to replace them with other people's discards when the sale rolls around. Hey, it's important to keep the book ecosystem thriving!

LOL!

Or, you could do what my Mom did. She bought back the books my Dad and I had donated to a school fundraising sale. Unknowingly! She thought they looked like the kind of books we enjoyed. Maybe our names on the inside covers gave her a clue?

Heh. I have a friend who says she once bought back the very books she donated. I'll try not to do that. Even though as soon as I took some of those don't-want-to-read books out of my catalog, LT immediately started recommending them to me.

How can any of us read all the books recommended here! (oh, except for a few people I know in the 75 group!). I've never felt more the legend 'so many books, so little time'.

#124 - keep the book in your inventory but as "read not owned". That's what I do so I don't keep getting recommendations for them.

>125 ffortsa:: Man, they can carve that phrase on my tombstone! I read far more than 75 books per year, and it's still so, so not enough to keep up.

>126 Yells:: I do have a "read not owned" collection, but it's very small, as just keeping up with the books I have is hard enough, never mind borrowing more. I've only been getting rid of unread books that I've decided I don't actually want to read, though. The ones I've read, I hang on to. I like having a house full of books. :)

And the September roundup:

Books read: 14
Pre-2010 books read: 3
Books acquired: 26
TBR change this month:+12
TBR change, year to date: -44 (thanks largely to August's book purge)
Number of books on TBR Pile: 384

Finished Toy Soldiers, a Doctor Who novel by Paul Leonard a few days ago, and forgot to include it here.

Also, WHY CAN'T I STOP BUYING BOOKS? *whimper* I was doing so well for so long, and now I've completely fallen off the wagon. I'm just desperately hoping I don't drag it up past 400 again and undo all my good work.

I blame the Edward R. Hamilton catalog. That thing is deadly!

Well, at least I finished another pre-2010 book, Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold. I got this book several years ago, realized it was actually the 14th book in the series, went back and slowly read the other 13 -- which were terrific -- and have only just now caught back up to it.

oh no! Another series? sigh.

An EXCELLENT series, ffortsa! I highly recommend them, and am looking forward eagerly to the imminent publication of the next installment!

It is, indeed, a truly excellent series, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who likes science fiction, or even just fun plots with great characters and a good sense of humor.

LOL - this reads a bit like weight watchers for books. I still haven't read Bujold, but she's in my TBR too. And she's local, so I really must get around to it. Huge series though! I hate committing to them.

>134 cammykitty:: Yeah, I'm with you on the long series. Bujold's is worth committing to, though. :)

Okay - I'll push it up to the top of the pile. :)

Just finished another old one! The Deep Space Log Book: A Second Season Companion by Mark A. Altman & Edward Gross, an unofficial companion book to the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. I think I bought it when the show was still on the air, and just never got around to reading it. Now, some 15 years later, I'm working on re-watching the series on DVD, so suddenly it was relevant again.

Noooooo! Not another series!

Well... It's a very fast-reading series, if that helps? :)

Finally finished another oldie! Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King. It seemed like it would be a nicely creepy read to lead up to Halloween with, though it was a bit less successful on that score than I might have hoped. Regardless, off the shelf it comes!

Well, the good side is you won't be tempted to keep it if the creep factor wasn't high enough. Once you've read a lot of horror, it is much harder to find one that surprises.

Oh, I tend to keep everything, creepy or not. For me, just getting stuff off the TBR shelves is an accomplishment. :)

But, yeah. Horror's not even a genre I've read huge amounts in, comparatively speaking, but I've apparently read enough that a lot of it feels kind of unoriginal.

And another: The 2004 Rhysling Anthology: The Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Poetry of 2003. I'm not entirely sure whether I can even reasonably consider this a book -- it's held together with staples -- but, hey, it was on the TBR Pile with all the other books, so I'm counting it.

Hey, books with alternative bindings are still books!

It's hard to know where the dividing line is between books and magazines, but I am semi-arbitrarily putting that one on the book side. :)

True, especially annual publications and monographic serials. Could go either way!

Spec Fic poetry is hard to find. I've followed the blog of one of the guys behind that Rhysling publication. Tiny and stapled, it still took a lot of work and dedication to put it together.

I agree on just moving things from unread to read. It shocks me how unbalanced my shelves are if you are comparing read to unread. :O

And tiny, stapled thing that it is, it's still a rather nice collection. I'm a little sorry that that's the only year I have. Not that I need more of them to put on the TBR pile...

I read well over 100 books a year, but was having trouble reading a 12 page report at work. My staff offered to bind it for me!

I'll have to keep my eye out for them. I go to a few cons where the Spec Poetry people hang out.

>149 LynnB:: Reading stuff for work is always harder!

>150 cammykitty:: It's probably worth looking for! I also checked on Amazon, and it looks like they have a compilation of the winners available, too. One more for the wishlist...

>149 LynnB: lol!

Oh, look, October is over already. Let's see where I am now...

October totals:

Books read: 16
Pre-2010 books read: 5
Books acquired: 23 (oops!)
TBR change this month: +7
TBR change, year to date: -37
Number of books on TBR Pile: 391

And I've just finished the first book of November, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin. LT tells me that I've had this book since 2008, which kind of surprised me. I really hadn't thought it'd been that long since I bought it. Time flies when you're reading, I guess.

As a relative newcomer to this group I've just read through your thread for the first time - WOW that's a lot of books!
I barely manage 30 books a year and I'm so envious of people who can get through so much more!
That's a very impressive list you've got!

I find Temple Grandin interesting. She seems more willing to venture an opinion that isn't proven than some scientists. I appreciate that.

>155 Pedrolina:: Thanks! I'm lucky enough to find myself with a lot of time to read, and I've been making a real attempt to get through the TBR stacks. And yet, said stacks are so out of control that as fast as I run, I'm still barely able to keep up!

>156 cammykitty:: Her willingness to venture opinions that aren't proven is something I felt kind of wary about while I was reading, actually, because if you go too far in that direction you can find yourself embracing all kinds of useless or even dangerous things, especially if you're desperate to treat a difficult condition. But I think she's generally pretty good about pointing out what's scientifically understood and what's uncertain or unproven, and very level-headed about how she recommends people proceed with trying things that might or might not work. She's certainly very clear about the fact that nobody should expect a "quick fix" for autism.

bragan> I work with kids with autism, and to be honest, I don't see her book as being that helpful if you're looking for advice on how to handle your kid. It's more a descriptionof what it feels like from the inside. You're right though. There are a lot of people willing to try anything, & that is a bit scary.

I defer to your experience on the advice. Most of it seems to be more about approaching things with the right mindset and the importance of paying attention to what works for your own kid rather than anything very concrete and specific, anyway. Although I know I often find that a better understanding of how someone feels from the inside can make a real difference in how I relate to them, which I think is part of what she's trying to achieve with the book. So I can certainly imagine finding it helpful on that level.

bragan> I agree. It is really helpful just to be able to read first-hand accounts from people who have autism, and also to be able to point out success stories. Even if her experiences aren't easy to translate to various children.

And other oldie off the stack: Eat the Rich by P.J. O'Rourke. That one had been hanging around for a good long while.

I'm doing pretty good with the older stuff this month! Three of them off the TBR shelves in six days! Just finished White Apples by Jonathan Carroll. Strange, strange book.

The good news is, I finished another book that'd been sitting on the shelves for several years, at least: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. The bad news, at least for the state of my TBR Pile, is that I got a little nutty at Powell's while visiting my sister in Oregon over Thanksgiving week. Well, at least I managed not to go back over 400 again. Just.

Powell's!!! I've heard so much about Powell's. It sounds like it's worth buying a plane ticket to go there. :) How much damage, may I ask?

It is pretty wonderful, I must say.

I actually managed to limit myself to ten books, to keep myself from hitting the Big Four-Oh-Oh again. And then I realized that I was only at 398, and Powell's had a small branch in the airport, and I somehow ended up buying book #11 before I escaped the city. But, man, I could so easily have spent twice as much. At least.

Restraint!

Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR takes up a whole city block and is multi-levels. They give you a map so you don't get lost...but I really enjoy wondering aimlessly and losing myself in the books. Used books and new books are all together on the same shelves. Can't say enough about Powell's.

Leaving Powell's with only 10 books is AWESOME restraint!!!

I kind of managed to get lost, anyway, but it was the good kind of lost.

And, you know, that actually was some pretty awesome restraint! :)

I'm not ready for it to be December yet! But I guess it is. So...

November totals:

Books read: 14
Pre-2010 books read: 4
Books acquired: 21. (Yeah, so much for that quota system...)
TBR change this month: +7
TBR change, year to date: -30
Number of books on TBR Pile: 398

And for my first book in December, I finished another real oldie: Cities in Flight, Vol. 1 by James Blish. Eventually, maybe I'll even get around to vol. 2.

Wow! I haven't thought of that Blish series in a while, but I really loved it when I read it oh so many years ago!

I think I probably would have liked it better if I'd actually read it many, many years ago, when I meant to. I remember checking it out of the library, possibly a couple of times, when I was in high school, but it was a huge omnibus volume, which I guess intimidated me a little, and I never actually started it. Kind of a pity, as it struck me as pretty dated now, and would have been at least a bit less so then.

You'll finish the year without going over 400, with the exception of Christmas gifts, over which you have no control. Kudos to your iron control!

It's the Christmas gifts that are worrying me. Especially as, you know, I could make sure of staying under 400 even without them, if I exercise a bit of extra self-control this month, but I don't want to!

So, uh, yeah, about that not going back up over 400 thing? Current to-read total is now 401. Sigh. I can't even blame Christmas books, as I haven't gotten any yet. (Or rather, I'm pretty sure I have, but they're still in the wrapping paper. And then there's SantaThing books still to come, too.) I really am a hopeless addict. Must read faster!

Oopsie! Any books undeserving of being on your shelves? Or perhaps if you put them under your bed, they won't be on your shelves and therefore won't count.

I already did my purge of the undeserving. I did seriously consider just "forgetting" to catalog the most recent batch until I'd finished a couple more, but I wouldn't really be fooling myself if I tried it. :)

But we'd never know then. ;)

OK. I'm still being really bad about reading older books this month, but at least I'm back down to 399 now. We'll see how long that lasts. :)

Until Xmas?

It might, if I don't open any presents before then. I can't see myself having that much self-discipline with the SantaThing package, though. Maybe if I read really fast in the next few days...

Or start counting books as tenths instead of wholes??? Creative mathematics?

I'm not sure I have that much creativity. :)

try this: ER books don't count; if you have to read it for work (or if it relates to your work) it doesn't count; if your Mom gives it to you, it doesn't count.....

Hmm, well, that would eliminate a couple...

LOL! Many exceptions can be found!

Wow, I sure haven't been around here much lately, have I? See, I knew that, come December, I was going to be buried under a full year's worth of shiny new reading. I was hoping to at least slip in one more oldie before the stroke of midnight, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be happening. So, my final monthly round-up for this thread:

December totals:

Books read: 11
Pre-2010 books read: 1
Books acquired: 11
TBR change this month: 0
TBR change, year to date: -30
Number of books on TBR Pile: 398

Well, at least I did meet my stated goal of ending the year with less than 400 books on the TBR Pile, even if I did so by much less of a margin that I expected to after I did that big old purge of my shelves. I should probably be thankful for the delay on the SantaThing books, or I wouldn't have made it, either.

To those statistics, I will also add:

Total books read this year: 171
Total pre-2010 books read this year: 80

That last is a pleasingly high number, really, even if a lot of it was books I bought in 2009, rather than truly old stuff. Getting to more of that will be my goal for next year. Stay tuned!

That's a ton of books! Yes, I'll stay tuned.

And here's my 2011 thread to stay tuned to!

Well, I'm impressed that your overall TBR went down. I think you can count this year as a roaring success. After all, if you only read off of your TBR, you'd have less that two years of reading, which actually seems kind of dangerously low.

Well, two and a fraction, if I actually managed to keep up this pace. I have, in fact, attempted to convince myself with the argument that a couple of years' emergency supply of books is a good thing to have on hand. But, of course, the problem is that I just can't stop adding to it!

That's an impressive total to me. And I have about 16 years of books on the shelves at the rate I'm reading. Maybe once I retire, I can pick up the pace. Look forward to following you again next year.

I AM retired - and all it means is I have more time to browse bookstores and buy new titles.