How do I read thee? Let me count the ways…
If you were to ask me how many books are on my to-be-read list, I couldn’t give you a simple answer. The truth is, I have several.
Physical books: 16 (not including ones bought/owned by family members)Complete books on Kindle: 96Complete books on Google Play: 63Book samples on Kindle: 90Books highlighted on my library’s e-reading app: 31Books on my Goodreads TBR: 74So how does one make progress on that many different fronts? Well, I’m still working on that.
Physical books are easy to start. They’re sitting there, stories full of potential awaiting only the turn of a page, cover art enticing me whenever I walk past. That’s why I don’t have so many of those unread; I more or less keep up with them.
All those digital books, however, are easier to overlook. But if I say I’ll get to B books once I finish with A books, then I’ll never end up reading the B books. So, around the beginning of last year, I finally started tackling the complete books on Kindle, and followed up a little later by dipping my toes into the ones on Google Play.
A lot of the Kindle books came from free Bookbub promotions, before I started getting selective about which ones I acquired that way. I have no attachment to those authors or titles; as a result, I’ve already DNFed a good few of those.* (Play Books I use when I am given a straight ebook file download.)
* To be fair, I’m pretty quick about DNFing any book these days, regardless of author or book.
I’ve only recently started using my library’s (current) ebook app—largely because very few of the books on any of the other lists are available digitally through my library—hence the lower number there. It’s also mostly graphic novels, as the app has recommended several to me since I started using the app by reading a manga series that caught my eye.
There is some minor overlap between some of these: a handful of my TBRs on Goodreads I already have in Kindle or Play Books. Largely, though, these lists are entirely separate of each other. So, I’m trying to divide my time between physical books, Kindle books, and Play books (aside from the occasional library indulgence).
But that still leaves some lists stagnating. My Goodreads TBRs have languished largely ignored since I started leaning into downloading samples of books of interest to Kindle, and certainly is no accurate indicator of the actual list of books I want to read. Since I’ve started consolidating my digital books into Kindle or Play Books, I should go through my Goodreads list and add those as well.
Last week, I also had that I’m never going to read these at this rate realization looking at my collection of book samples on Kindle. This is my default method of marking a book ‘I want to check this out later’. There are a lot of books from authors I’ve met at events, as well as whatever titles might catch my eye at bookstores or are recommended to me. Samples are free, so I figure I’ll read that much and if it catches me, I’ll pick up the full book.
Only I haven’t been doing that. Again, it’s easy to justify—why read just a part of a book when I can dive in to one of these dozens of complete books I already have? But there’s a reason I added all those samples. I am genuinely interested in giving those books a try.
So I started doing that. And hey, it’s much more efficient that way: I DNFed two samples in a single evening and am currently waist-deep in another book I sampled on Saturday and am now 70% through. Aside from the fact that it feels good to make progress in a previously untouched list, this book in particular has turned out to be just as entertaining as the title made it seem when I added it several years ago.
There are still some lists that are getting ignored—I don’t have a written list of big-name SFF books I’m curious to try, classics, or the next books in various series I’m following—but I am gradually working through my TBR; all of them.
Just don’t ask me how many video games I have in my backlog.
