Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week… It is hosted by shouldbereading.wordpress.com
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!
My Monday ramble is about the number of books I own and haven’t read. My thoughts turned to organising my bookshelves when I saw that there was a book challenge from love2readalways.blogspot.com. to clean out your e-reader.
I have spent a good portion of my weekend feeling organising, feeling guilty and so here is a post part confession and part dealing with my problem!
I have lots of books on my kindle that haven’t been read and sorted by genre only
I have no idea how much I paid or what they cost now
I also have books on my bookshelves, in cupboards, bags and other hidey holes that remain unread
I keep buying more kindle books
I keep buying more physical books
Until today I couldn’t face up to the size of my problem
Starting on Saturday I loaded an excel spread sheet and set to work to find out the magnitude of books to be read.
The verdict I have 48 unread kindle books dating back to October 2010
I have 32 unread physical books dating back to I really don’t know
The kindle books would cost £149.22 at today’s prices (good news is I got them for £67.33)
Realistically these 80 books will take me until the end of July 2014 if I don’t read anything else. That would mean no ARC’s and no author reviews; too sad to contemplate. Instead I have taken a few measures to tackle the problem as a compromise.
I have signed up to clean out your e-reader challenge and identified 9 books to be read in November
Click here to join up too
I have also sorted out 11 of the physical books and put them on one shelf in the bedroom. These I will read before the end of the year.
The next step is to exercise some willpower. I am not going to stop reading blogs and coming across books I want to read but I can’t buy every book.
I will not order anything else from my TBR, not even if they are in the daily deal, identified as a price drop on http://uk.ereaderiq.com/ or for any other reason than I am going to read them within the next couple of days.
I will start sorting out the TBR over the next week or so and removing books I don’t really want to avoid the price drop temptation.
I will make proper notes on why I want a book so that I can review these lists regularly.
As penance I will listen to any other book confessions that need to be made by other’s with a similar affliction.
I have two bags of books to donate to the charity shop so someone else can enjoy them.
Related articles
- Behind the Blog Monday: Paperbacks or eBooks? (novelreflection.wordpress.com)
- Get Notified When the Kindle Book You Want DROPS in Price: eReaderIQ (sharechair.wordpress.com)
Cleopatra Loves Books 
I really should follow your example here. My problem is horrendous and a lot of it is due to recent medical problems, I buy things to try and make me smile. I need to actually READ the things I buy. I think I should clean out my bookshelf of books that I will likely never read and bought years ago and either donate them or sell them to a used bookstore for credit (college student needs money). More space, less overwhelming feelings, less guilt.
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I’m sorry to hear you have had problems. I was appalled at the number of books I had that haven’t been read and yet I keep seeking out new ones. I’m going for the ‘baby steps’ approach. Giving your books in for credit sounds like the place to start. Good luck and thanks for popping by!
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I probably won’t be able to leave the used book store I’m looking into without a couple of books, but I just cleared my bookshelf of at least 10-20 and I would limit myself to the credit I got at the store. A small step, but does help with downsizing. 😀
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Baby steps…. If it helps reduce the books then that is definitely a step in the right direction. I have a feeling reading these comments that I am not the only one who is a lost cause! 🙂 Good to know!
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I sympathize! I make an effort to take a couple of bags to my local used book shop 2-3 times each year. The shop I go to only gives cash–not store credit–but I don’t let myself spend any more money than I get for the day’s “haul”. The tough part is looking through the shelves while they appraise my books and not getting carried away!
(I hope this counts as part of your penance! 🙂 )
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We don’t have a used book store on island so it is the charity shops for my clear out. I like to be fair so I spread them across the shops we have and have simply walked in and left – all part of the penance 😉
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Forgot to mention before that I notice you have a copy of “The Dinner” in the group that you want to read by the end of the year. I read that one this summer–it was pretty intriguing, although I definitely didn’t like all of the characters. Hope you enjoy it!
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hmm… I bought it and then my daughter said much the same as you so it got put to one side…. I will give it a go. I have another problem in that a book has to be really poor for me not to read until the end….
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Oh my gosh. I can’t even imagine.
I have the opposite problem. There are soo many books out there to choose from I become overwhelmed and frozen with fear. I’m not sure which one to get, so I end up buying nothing or one or two and then when I’m finished, I have nothing left to read.
A spreadsheet is a good idea though. I might try that instead of just jotting down books I’m interested in on a scrap piece of paper.
Good luck!
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Thank you – all joking aside I didn’t realise I had quite so many. Yes I’m going to use a spreadsheet to track those I add to TBR and then I can see why I chose them and where I found them. The theory being I will only end up buying those I am actually going to read.
Here’s hoping!
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Oh, I can completely sympathize. I have so many unread books…
http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com/2013/09/musing-mondays_16.html
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I think you are joining a very large club – thank you for visiting.
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Ok, I am about to make you feel a lot better about yourself! I just check my shelves (as I don’t have an e-reader – gasp!), and I stopped at 100 books that I own that I have not read. Talk about a problem! Wow! I was only half way done with my shelves too. I stopped counting so as to not get overly depressed…
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LOL you’ve made me feel much better 😉 maybe I can have a couple of brand new ones for my holiday after all?
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Of course you can….but this is coming from someone who obviously can’t help herself!
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Well… there is a really good price drop on the Rachel Hore book that I think will make perfect holiday reading. I have read all her previous books so…. I’m writing this answer instead of pressing that very easy ‘buy with 1 Click’ button 🙂
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I have that same problem but have not organized to find out how many I have unread.
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Wow, good for you for starting to get organized! I don’t have too many books in my TBR pile, but it’s starting to build up. I have to be very careful not to forget ebooks especially, since they don’t sit on my nightstand and stare me down 🙂
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Oh my. I have only one unread physical book, The Casual Vacancy, which I started and it just bored me so I put it aside. But my Kindle? I would be embarassed to admit the number on there.
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In my pre-kindle days I would pile the physical books up and read through them so I could see how many I had… on my kindle it’s been a case of well it is only (insert price) and I’ll read it sometime. Now I have so many books I want to read I’d forgotten why I’d bought most of them.
All under control by excel spreadsheet now though:-)
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I’ve discovered pretty much the same thing – Kindle has not meant fewer books, as my husband had hoped. Instead, I seem to have doubled the number of books – same number on my shelves and now equivalent number on Kindle. I seem to have more unread ones on the Kindle as well, just as you said. Time to shape up and clean up!
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Your strategy is great and I might try it myself. Lately I’ve been in a reading reviewing slump and have about 30 books backlog on both ereader and physical. That doesn’t include books I don’t plan on reviewing. I definitely need to do something. Here’s my MM: http://daystarz.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/musing-mondays-8/
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I’m hoping it will work, at least I know what I have now (and some idea why) I’m so glad I’m not the only one with a large amount of unread books. I think my biggest challenge will be resisting temptation! 😉
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It’s been a year, almost. Would quite like an update on where this went 🙂
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hmm.. I think you are very clever to find this and call me out. Well I have more books than ever on my TBR but seeing as I lost my last version of my excel spreadsheet so I’m not quite sure of the total but I think it is 98!!
1. I don’t click on the daily deal very often now
2. I gave books to the charity shop
3. I read some of the 9 books in November for the COYER challenge
4. I still have most of the physical books identified left to read 😦
On balance not so bad?? I made an effort anyway.
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