Managing the TBR Pile

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Bookish Thoughts, books, Reading, The TBR Pile

As some of you may be aware, over the last two months, I have been challenging myself to read all the books I own/have out from the library before buying/borrowing any more.

For the most part, I have failed rather miserably in this. The lapses were mainly because I forgot to take into consideration that my birthday is in February, which led to a rather large influx of books…and if I saw a book that was cheap, nothing was going to stop me…and I allowed myself to continue buying new releases.

However, despite this failure, I have learned some valuable lessons in how to manage the TBR pile, but I’ve also discovered that I’m hopeless at following my own advice.

Go One Book at a Time

Pick up a book, start reading. Demonstrate amazing self control and don’t start any other books until that book is done. If the book is frustrating you, then put it down and start the next one.

Life is to short for unamazing books.

Do NOT Under ANY Circumstances Look at the TBR Pile

There is nothing more discouraging while trying to do something than seeing how far you have to go. Looking at and counting all the books you have left to read is a sure way to make you want to curl into a ball and cry.

Don’t do that to yourself.

I mean, seriously, look at that pile.

It’s SCARY!

 

 

Set Yourself Mini-Challenges

With a time limit or without, doesn’t matter. But this is a similar strategy to the previous one. Setting yourself small challenges, and then completing said challenges is a great motivation to keep going.

Make Time For Reading

This is probably obvious, but here’s the thing…I’m one of those people who like to read books in one sitting. And if it is unlikely that I’ll be able to read it in one go, I’m likely to put off reading it until I can.

Unfortunately, this often leads me to spending a couple of weeks obsessing over planning a time to read one book, and not reading anything else.

This is how I fall behind in my Goodreads challenge.

Since I started the challenge, I’ve been a lot better at the whole ‘read for an hour every night’ thing, but I still definitely prefer the ‘read it in one sitting’ thing.

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What do you think? Do you have any more tips for those trying to shrink down their TBR Pile?

(Disclaimer: I have actually read most (not all) of the books in the pile pictured. The books chosen for the pile were chosen for photogenic purposes only. Blame my sister for any inaccuracies.)

How I Rate Books

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Bookish Thoughts, books, Reading

So, the other day I was thinking about reviews and ratings and such, and I began to question why I have so many 5 star ratings, whilst everyone else seems to not.

And then, I figured it out. So I’ve decided to present to you all a fully comprehensive guide to how I rate books.

5 Stars

This is actually my default rating. It took me a while to figure that out, but for me, a book is automatically 5 stars unless it proves to be undeserving of that 5th star.

A book gets 5 stars if I absolutely loved it, and if there were no dragging points in the book.

4 Stars

As mentioned above, there has to be something missing from the book for the rating to be lowered to 4 stars. Something which made me enjoy the book, but not absolutely love it. Usually this consists of parts that dragged, characters I don’t like, etc.

A book will get 4 stars if I liked it, but it was missing something that was needed to make me love it.

3 Stars

This is the rating given when I couldn’t really care for the book. This is actually quite a negative rating from me…like, I legitimately feel bad for giving books 3 stars.

A book will get 3 stars if I was able to finish it easily enough, but I wouldn’t go around throwing it at people telling them to read it.

2 Stars

This is a severely low rating. I haven’t read many books that have earned two stars, but I have to really not like it to be willing to give it two.

A book will get 2 stars if I struggled to finish it because of how much I didn’t like it.

1 Star

I actually don’t think I’ve ever given a book one star. Because 2 stars is ‘I struggled to finish it’, which means that if it’s likely to end up as a one star book, I don’t even bother finishing it. And I don’t rate DNF books.

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So, that’s my system. I know it’s a bit different for a lot of people, but that is honestly how my brain works.

What do you think? Does my system make any sense to you, or do you think I’m completely mental? Let me know.

Reading is Better with People

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Bookish Thoughts, books, Reading

I have always read a lot, but since I started blogging, I’ve discovered something fascinating about reading: It is better when you have other people with you. Here is a bunch of reasons why:

You have someone to flail with

As I’m sure most of you have noticed, flailing about books is so much more fun when you have someone flailing alongside you.

You have someone who understands

While everyone else is telling you it’s just a book, you have people who understand what you’re going through when you read a particularly heart-breaking book, or when you have just experienced a horrible cliff hanger.

You have someone who you can have discussions with

Sometimes, you just need to discuss a book, and sometimes writing a review just isn’t enough. You need to be able to have someone with whom you can complain about what you didn’t like, or discuss why you loved it so much.

And, most importantly, You have someone to tell you what to read next

I think this is pretty self explanatory. When you’ve finished a book, most often you just need to know which book you should read next, and people are good at telling you that.

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Do you agree? Is there anything I missed?