The Unseen TBR pile

When physical books were my go-to, my TBR (To Be Read, in case you aren’t familiar with the lingo!) pile sat on my nightstand. It started with one or two books as a young, busy mom. It morphed into half a dozen as the kids spent time at school. Beyond that, I had to find a new place to stash them. I’ve moved those TBR books around over the years, but while living in the condo in Austin, we found a leaning bookshelf that became our spot for books waiting to be read. 

When we moved into this house, that shelf went into our bedroom along with another small bookshelf—one for his TBR pile, one for mine. (Yep, mine is the big one above.) Then, suddenly, I ran out of space! What to do? I cleaned out one side of the cabinet along the wall next to my bookshelf and gained two more shelves! Hooray! Now I can tell myself I don’t look as addicted to books as I actually am.

But here’s the thing. Ebooks came on the scene. From the beginning, I had so many books I’d downloaded to my Kindle that I had to make a folder called Next to dump the new books into so I wouldn’t forget to read them! 

Thus began my unseen TBR pile—those on my Kindle waiting to be read (vs. those on my wishlist waiting to be purchased).

In the beginning, this folder sat consistently around half a dozen titles. One day, I realized it had morphed to twenty or more. And it continued to grow.

Here is the current state of my Next folder.

What??? Clearly, my reading pace isn’t keeping up with my book buying in the electronic realm any more than in the physical realm! My only consolation is that my Kindle TBR pile remains unseen by most, meaning the evidence of my addiction is not readily on display for all to see. 

Perhaps I should have given up buying books for Lent. Sigh. 

Do you have an out-of-control TBR pile or are you better than me about buying a book, reading it, then buying another one?