My Journey Reducing my TBR pile

I've been working on reducing my TBR pile for a while now and I thought I'd tell you about it. I edited out a lot of rambling, and the sun kept hiding behind clouds.

[MsTerriB]

Managing the books is a challenge, isn’t it! Congrats on managing your TBR! Having many unread books doesn’t stress me as much as not really having room for all my books in my space. Unread books become an issue for me because they don’t allow me to keep the hoard under control. Many books I might read and then pass along, which would keep things tidier, but I won’t know which books to keep or pass along until I read them! I do cull books that no longer interest me, but I’m apparently good at choosing books for myself since there are not too many of those. Keeping a TBR list, instead of physical copies in waiting, is a great help and I’ve been trying to do that more. It’s like I have a fear that the books will disappear if I don’t own them 😂

[ofbooksandtrees]

not going to lie, I am pretty jealous of how small your tbr is.
last year mine started at 23 and I managed to get it to 16 which I was happy with, but now it's back at 26. Ideally I'd like it back under 20, but at the same time I'm okay with this number considering I got quite a few books for my birthday at the end of last year so as long as I don't go overboard with buying and continue reading it'll get down naturally again.
(I don't count ebooks though as a lot of the ebooks that I own I got for free some way or another, or where once part of a humble bundle that I mostly got to support charity (the books where a nice bones and I'm jsut slowly making my way through them.)

[jbsubscribes]

Yay to wishlists as replacements for TBRs!

[treebranch]

Good tip. I like the idea of a wish list. I usually go hog wild in January with getting books I want and then TRY to slow down after that but usually fail. So I’m going to use the wish list idea starting in Feb and TRY to read what I have before they overtake my apartment which in all honesty they already have !

[StudioLindsay]

I keep a wishlist too - sometimes I’ll be excited to read something when I first hear about it but later on I’ll want to read other things. It helps me from impulse-buying too.

[tortoisedreams]

Since I enjoy always having a pile of books to choose from, I don't fully understand your feelings about your TBR, but I can tell that the struggle is real. I agree that periodically I need to weed out the books I'll never get to for a variety of reasons. Best of luck in the new year!

[RogersReads]

Good job on getting yours down to 15! I’m always instituted a new rule that when a book comes in, I read it right away. So far so good. Also working on chiseling down my enormous TBR but adding special challenges on my channel where I read the books on my shelves. Great and inspiring video! 👍

[SixMinutesForMe]

Great idea with the wishlist and getting to books within a year, that seems like a really helpful approach!

[zhyarjasim]

Recently I downed my tbr from 65 books to one book, and I have never been more happier .
Next time that I buy a book I want to read it right away instead of keeping it for a year/years
What I learned about my mistakes with book buying as well was I simply bought books because I heard it or saw it from booktubers and that was a big mistake on my side .

[danecobain]

I've got mine down from about 180 to about 95 over the last year or so!

[FatFazioNguyen]

Just subbed! My tbr is a few dozen books and--if I'm honest--another 15 boxes sitting in storage. It doesn't help that an hour away from me sits the biggest used and new bookstore in the world with 1 million books inside (their claim); Powell's City of Books. I'm working my way through John Le Carre's works; amazingly good writer esp for the thriller/espionage genre (not something I read that often), I'm very impressed.

[Imaginetheday]

I'm actively working on my TBR. I'm giving myself 2 more years to get it down to less than 100. (I typically read more than 100/year.) Last year, I had to unhaul an unread book if I wanted to buy a new book. That worked pretty well. This year, I can only buy a new book if I will read it within a month. If I don't, I have to unhaul 2 unread books in its place. It's early in the year, so I'm not sure how effective it will be. I've bought 4 books and have read one of them.

I really like your wishlist idea and concentrating on reading your TBR within a year. I've been taking a good look at unread books I've owned for years and if I really want to keep them.

[literature_geek]

My lowest number was 12 sometime early 2019. Then there were Thalia 17-20% off of English books sales and now I am up at 28 again. 🙈
As I am doing a general 'low buy' this year I am reducing the TBR again. My thought: 52 weeks, 28 books in my TBR and 2 new books every month - that fits perfectly. 😉
Oh and the goal for me is a TBR lower than/equal to 5. Hope I can manage that.

[BookishTexan]

My TBR doesn't cause me stress, but maybe that's because I have no idea how many unread books I own . . . . hmmmm. That might make an interesting video. I enjoyed learning about your approach.

[laraelwing]

I remember back when you got serious about reducing your TBR and you are a model of success ;) I can see it is possible :D and I'm seriously reducing mine, in about 35 books per year. I hope to reduce it to less than 40 this year and next one, if I continue to control my book shopping (I have been good at it), I can have a short term TBR :) But yes... I couldn't do this if I was living in the UK also! I've been there in May, and it increased my TBR by 8 books :/ hehe

[paulwinchell]

Wish list good 👍 hype bad time test good. Ive just invested in a Kindle i know right i just don't have space in my room for books. Havent opened the box yet.