SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Members' Chat
>
How do you manage your TBR pile?
date
newest »
newest »
:-p I don't! Actually the reason I joined Goodreads was to try and organize my stashed and piles of books and ebooks. All I've managed to do since joining, though, is read some really great books, and add MORE to the the piles. Oh, hey, joining gr did inspire me to reactivate a long-dormant library card, so there's a bit of help there. I'm *trying* not to buy loads and loads of new books to read ;-).
Chris wrote: "Hi everyoneI have an absolutely enormous TBR list, and no way to manage it - what does everyone use to keep track of their pending reads?
I ask because I have literally hundreds of ebooks and DT..."
Chris,
It is admirable to be ambitious and aggressive in establishing personal goals for any endeavor. However, I have opened my memory vault and come up with some advice from the management career from which I retired twelve years ago.
Never overwhelm your subordinates (in this case yourself) with goals that are impossible to achieve. It causes distress which gradually deteriorates into depression, and evenually total surrender.
With that in mind, you may want to stop adding to your inventory immediately. Then create a list of the books you already have; prioritizing them by genre and personal reading preference.
Now the difficult part: Hold yourself accountable by strictly adhering to the list and reading the books in the established order; perservering for as long as it takes to finish them all.
Others may have a better idea; I certainly hope so. I do not envy you this task.
Good luck.
Jim
Chris, that is funny, because I struggled with that too. I looked at bookshelves worth of books I had read and not read and made some hard decisions. I kept a handful of VERY special reads, I mean like less than five. Then I took all that had been read and all likely to never read, and traded them in. What a used bookseller would not take went to Goodwill and the library. I felt GREAT. Next I began a system of reading three-five books, taking them back to the used bookseller, and trading them in for one or two. I still have 30-40 to read, but I want to read them all and have a clear system for replenishing the TBR shelf. Matter of fact, the other night I was trying to decide what my next read would be, so counted them all in order, and asked my wife to pick a number from one to thirty. My rationale was that I wanted to read them all, I really did, so which was next was as good as the next. My wife said "18" I counted again and I am now enjoying that book.From a minimalist stance, I felt great about what I did. I "freed" dozens, maybe hundreds of books back into the stream of commerce or at least on a shelf where someone might read and my dusty pile of books has turned into a manageable and interesting single shelf.
Thanks everyone for your advice, although it wasn't quite was I was looking for. I don't want to escape from the oncoming tsunami because it's a tsunami of squee, if you get my drift - I really want to read every one of the books on my TBR pile, I just want to work out some way of sorting them into most made of awesome at the top, and so on...
I use Goodreads for those purposes. I have multiple sticky lists on here, the general tbr and then a tbr soon and tbr que (which are the books currently sitting next to my nightstand). These lists can be rearranged as you please, and I do that to my "que" list all the time (they can be numbered just like that big tbr list that we get on here). I'm not sure if this will help or even if I understood your question right. I just like having the multiple exclusive lists so that I can arrange my books based on reading priority (and from what I can tell we can have an unlimited (or at least more than three :P) amount of such lists).
Yeah I thought about using goodreads but the thought of manually typing 1000 books into it gives me the willies
Chris wrote: "Yeah I thought about using goodreads but the thought of manually typing 1000 books into it gives me the willies"You can scan barcodes of your physical books.
MK wrote: "Chris wrote: "Yeah I thought about using goodreads but the thought of manually typing 1000 books into it gives me the willies"
You can scan barcodes of your physical books."
Awesome. That will cover 0.5% of my books :-)
You can scan barcodes of your physical books."
Awesome. That will cover 0.5% of my books :-)
That's like asking "how do you steer the universe?" Both are too big to manage.
Nah, having 1000 unread books makes me feel special :-)
Well you are probably going to end up having to do it with whatever you decide to use. It is obviously going to be a pain but i have found the GR list to be much easier to use than anything else i have tried. You can also import your spreedsheet but think you have to have the ISBN number.
I would take Jim's advice in general - to wit, make a resolution to stop adding to your list immediately, and keep it at least as best as possible, and commit to reading books only from the list - adding, however, a little caveat.Because we humans are creatures of preference, arranging the books on your list by order of preference may easily cause you to disregard the second half of the list, say, or the last, third; in short, those books that are least appealing. If you want to reduce your entire reading list, I would suggest arranging it by date of addition, earliest books in front, and committing yourself to generally reading as many of the earlier ones as you can, with perhaps only occasional deviations.
I've found the system generally works for me. My TBR pile has gone from utterly unmanageable to appearing to have an end in sight, within a couple of years and, though I was still adding and purchasing books, the tempos I did so in were nothing like the ones I used to have.
I find it very important to actually have a small-ish to-be-read list, because it is my opinion that, when such a list goes to beyond a hundred books or so it becomes meaningless. It no longer indicates what it is you are going to be reading but, rather, this "pile" of books you feel no real commitment towards. So I wish you luck with this enterprise.
As for adding books, my only real solution when adding my rather large "read" pile at the time of joining Goodreads was to go through lists - for example, a list of classics, a list of detective fiction, etc' that readers here have compiled, and clicking anything I've read, or opening up the page of a specific author and going through all of their books. It is still, admittedly, tedious, but it's better at least than typing the name of every single book manually.
Genia wrote: "I would suggest arranging it by date of addition, earliest books in front, and committing yourself to generally reading as many of the earlier ones as you can, with perhaps only occasional deviations."
Yeah that is good advice, thanks. I know that the old books get overlooked in favour of new books which are OOOOH SHINY!!!!
Perhaps I should just plan the next 12 months worth and by then I will have written some software to manage the next 900 books :-)
Yeah that is good advice, thanks. I know that the old books get overlooked in favour of new books which are OOOOH SHINY!!!!
Perhaps I should just plan the next 12 months worth and by then I will have written some software to manage the next 900 books :-)
My husband's suggestion: Don't have a list of 1000 books. Have a TBR list of 20 books, and then 20 books, and then 20 books... Pull 20 books onto a table somewhere, and try to go through them as fast as possible. Say to yourself "I will read these 20 by... summer, by... my birthday, whatever" Set small, manageable goals that can be attained and don't seem so daunting. Plus adding each 20 to your Goodreads shelves will seem a lot less like a chore.
Genia wrote: "My husband's suggestion: Don't have a list of 1000 books. Have a TBR list of 20 books, and then 20 books, and then 20 books... Pull 20 books onto a table somewhere, and try to go through them as fa..."
Ok thanks, I might try that
Ok thanks, I might try that
Genia wrote:"Have a TBR list of 20 books..."GoodReads has really helped me with managing my TBR list. In a similar way to Genia, I've sorted a top 20 list and below that a 'shortlist' of about 30 books, which I feed into the top 20 list as the books are read - it seems to work for me.
Chris wrote:"Yeah I thought about using goodreads but the thought of manually typing 1000 books into it gives me the willies"
If some of your books are written by the same author, then it's easier to just type in that author's name and a list of their books will appear so you can just add to your 'Want To Read' list.
I also use Goodreads to manage my to-read list. When that got a bit too big I started adding smaller sub-shelves which is a good way to prioritise books. I also cull books from my to-read list every now and then.I think any method you choose will involve going through all your books and entering them into whatever app or book or program you choose in the end. Perhaps do a few every day or few days when you feel like it and have the time, it'll take some time but it'll get done eventually.
I too use GR to manage what I have read, am reading and want to read. I am slowing adding to my already monumental TBR list, that have previously been on various lists. Having them all in one place makes life easier, and since I have discovered that I can amend the order in the TBR then I can instantly see what to read next.
I agree with the method of going by date of addition to the TBR list. That way you are encouraged to read the older additions in order to get to the Oooh Shiny! new ones. You can also then re-evaluate each addition to see if you really did want to read that.
I long ago gave up managing my enormous TBR list. It was unwieldy and too much hassle. That's one of the reasons I read all the club books, gives me more direction. As for everything else I read I just choose them by what I feel like at the time.
Ok thanks everyone for your suggestions!
I'm a lot like you. Too many DTBs and Ebooks to manage.I use Book Collectorz: http://www.collectorz.com/book/
I pulled a .CSV file from GR and then (by hand but there are easier ways) entered into BC.
Once in BC, I sort by "read" so BC lists all of my unread books first.
I LOVE this. Now I can shop inside my book collection.
I simply update BC every time I grab a new book and everything is perfect.
I started a spreadsheet about 15 years ago to keep a record of books I wanted/bought/read (mainly b/c I'm a geek and love lists!) but it gave me insight into what I was/was not reading, and it also prevented duplication!Including e-books (and Kindle more recently) that list is now HUGE :p but I still find it a useful tool to use and keep me up to date.
Like MrsJoseph, I acquired Book Collector - to use as my database when I opened my second-hand bookshop (scared me silly when I realised my collection had grown to 10,000 plus books and I'd read probably 99% of them!!), but it is very useful in keeping check of what has been sold, and what is still on the shelves!
My GR book listing is purely personal, and is a good reminder for me for recommendations and future publications. And I do reviews (as and when I see fit - or have the time) mainly to remind me of the books I have read.
My "To Read" list here is verging on 600+ (which again scares me silly) but it does remind me that there are loads of wonderful books out there still to be read - and probably I haven't a chance in hell of getting through them all!
The knack is to not panic; your TBR list will always get bigger, but it does give you much more choice (you'll have added books because you thought them interesting - time and distance does change that sometimes!)
I paste titles I'm interested in onto Notepad,then into email Drafts according to genre.I have far too many to ever read in what years I have left,but I enjoy hoarding them as I do my 792 freebies on my Kindle.
I am always reading something off my TBR list,though.I just have no method to choosing which to read next,just whatever I am in the mood for,except sometimes I take spells where I want to read everything I can find on a subject,lol!
Carole-Ann wrote: "Like MrsJoseph, I acquired Book Collector - to use as my database when I opened my second-hand bookshop (scared me silly when I realised my collection had grown to 10,000 plus books and I'd read probably 99% of them!!), but it is very useful in keeping check of what has been sold, and what is still on the shelves!"OMG. *jealous*
I would love to own a bookstore. But I might have problems actually selling the books, lol.
I'll take a wild stab at answering... I've never tried this before, but I think it might work.Chris, if any of your ebooks are on a Amazon account, you could possibly create a Shelfari account, link your Shelfari to your Amazon account and let the auto-import do its thing. Then export your shelves into a CSV file and then bring them here to Goodreads and import the file. (Or any other book cataloger you settle on.)
Afterwords you could then close or suspend the Shelfari account if you didn't want to maintain it.
If I were starting from scratch for a list, I would follow the advice of searching for books on GR and adding them to My Books, then exporting that list to an excel spreadsheet. Then you just have to keep up the spreadsheet, or keep up GR and export again. I keep a spreadsheet which I started 6-7 years ago, and it is still the easiest, quickest and best way to keep track of books. I have 2400 entries, categorized by read/not read, owned/library, author, title, series, brief synopsis, comments.
I look at my list periodically and weep softly as I force myself through volume #27 of "Swords of the Pl'yxfr'rt: The Further Adventures of Toby the Wizard Accountant, an Erotic Vampire Tale"
I don't manage it. I just pick a book I want when I finish one.
Again, thanks everyone for your suggestions
I usually just put it on the shelf and read whichever book I feel like I want to read the most when it comes time to read a new book that I am not choosing randomly from my to-read shelf.
Wow, chris, that sounds like fun. I, too, have thousands of books to manage, mostly paper, but now ebooks that I've downloaded willy-nilly.I got Booxter for my Mac and my new iPod, started cataloguing and realized the Mac program will only export to 'classic' iPods (ticked).
I sorted and catalogued the books in my bedroom (so far 497), and took two 102 litre containers to the basement, with the ones I've finished. The rest are on one wall, by author and title, back in bedroom. Now I'm reading what takes my fancy.
The problem is, I've still got books I've ordered from the library coming, four authors I've been editing for, and three new ones I've agreed to look at new books.
Anyway, I think most of us will have to live to at least 150, to get through our wish lists.
Art wrote: "... I think most of us will have to live to at least 150, to get through our wish lists..."Hehe. Readers, possibly more than anyone, need the singularity! ;)
Well I use GoodReads as well as a few other similar sites, but none of the book sites has everything I want/need, so my primary/master way of managing my TBR list is with the free program Calibre.It really is a multi-purpose program. You can manage your ebook collection, convert ebook formats/strip DRM, and create a database to track your reading or manage your TBR pile. In order to add a book to your Calibre library that isn't an ebook you would just add and "empty book". It also has a way to search Amazon for books to add and it might be possible to add other search engines with plugins.
Calibre is extremely customizable as a database. It includes a number of default fields, but you can hide any that you don't like and create as many custom fields as you like.
The fields I currently use are Series, Title, Author(s), Planning to Read, Currently Reading, Read, Times Read, various Date Read fields, Own, Wishlist, Favorites, and For Display.
It's also possible to tag your books with this program and set up custom searches to make navigating your library easier.
I haven't completely finished imputing my entire TBR list into my Calibre library, but I've got a couple hundred books in there right now. Perhaps I'll get around to adding more of the several hundred ebooks I have when I've worked through a good portion of what I've already entered or if for some strange reason I'm just not in the mood to read anything I've already entered into the database.
I hope you'll give Calibre a try. It truly is an awesome program for this sort of thing and again, completely free.
Calibre? Yikes! Now there is a good example of why programmers should not design user interfaces! It may be a good program but what a terrible UX!
I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about. In what way is the interface terrible? I've had no trouble at all using it.
How is the interface terrible? It's just really clunky looking, the menus are awful, it's really un-intuitive to use for new users and it's full of weirdness - for instance the 'jobs' button has the spinning radar symbol next to it the whole time, even when it's not doing anything. It's one of the weirdest programs I have ever used. Can you imagine Apple or Microsoft producing a program with menu items that have so much text in that they stretch right across the screen?
Many years ago I ran Linux and I remember software on that platform worked well but was hideous to look at. Another example is the photo editor GIMP which is disgusting to look at but works well.
Programmers really shouldn't design user interfaces!
Many years ago I ran Linux and I remember software on that platform worked well but was hideous to look at. Another example is the photo editor GIMP which is disgusting to look at but works well.
Programmers really shouldn't design user interfaces!
Well I didn't have much trouble at all learning to use it right off the start. I have never experienced what you say about menu items that have so much text that they stretch right across the screen.I will admit the interface isn't the prettiest thing to look at, but it seems neat and clean to me. I'm curious, is your opinion about Calibre in regards to a recent version, or did you try it years ago? If it was years ago, then you might want to take a look at it again. Calibre is always putting out updates and in the time I've been using it they've made some improvements that I've really liked.
In fact that is my only complaint about Calibre, that they do updates too often and it gets to be annoying when pretty much every time I open the program there is a pop up telling me a new version is available for download. I realize that I don't have to install every little update, that I could wait for a few to come out before installing a new version, but I guess I'm often a bit obsessive about that sort of thing.
If your opinion about Calibre is about a recent version then please disregard my statements and I'll be happy to agree to disagree.
Maybe you would be happier with the program Book Collector that a few others have mentioned even if it isn't free. Though I tried a free trial of that and a couple of other database programs geared towards books and I hated them. I thought they were very awkward to use and didn't give me nearly enough customization options.
I use calibre now, current version and I hate it :-( I don't consider software to be well designed if it looks horrid.
The menu I was referring it is under Add Books and one of the menu items is:
Add books from directories, including sub-directories (One book per directory, assumes every ebook file is the same book in a different format)
I mean, seriously? They could have just had an 'add books...' button and then in the subsequent dialog, have a checkbox for 'combine duplicates' or something like that.
The menu I was referring it is under Add Books and one of the menu items is:
Add books from directories, including sub-directories (One book per directory, assumes every ebook file is the same book in a different format)
I mean, seriously? They could have just had an 'add books...' button and then in the subsequent dialog, have a checkbox for 'combine duplicates' or something like that.
Well I guess the program looking "horrid" is a matter of opinion. I personally don't mind how it looks for the most part. I looked at the specific menu you mentioned and it's funny how I never really noticed that before. I mostly just use the add empty book option even if I'm adding an ebook(I'll attach the ebook file later), so I guess my eyes just skip down to that option and filter out the stuff I don't need. I suppose it's a habit I learned from my 10+ years of playing text mud games where there's such an overwhelming amount of text on the screen that you sort of have to learn to just scan for what you need and filter out the rest.
I agree that menu stretches far wider than necessary. If not what you suggested, I suppose at the very least they could have split the long options into two lines so it wouldn't have been as wide. Well in any case as I said, it was something I never really noticed, so it didn't bother me, and I'm not going to let it bother me now since it's not something I'm going to see unless I pull down that particular menu.
So you use Calibre even though you hate it... Do you just use it to organize your ebooks and send them to your device?
One last idea I have, on the off chance that you are good with Microsoft Access or an equivalent program, you could use that to build yourself a custom database to track your TBR list which might have more functionality than a simple spreadsheet. I attempted to do this myself with Access, but it was just way too over my head since I hadn't used that program since I'd taken an introductory class on it over 10 years ago. I have heard of people doing it though.
I use Calibre to strip the drm from kindle files so I can put them in my iBooks app on my iPad where I am collecting my favourite books after I read them
I am an intermediate level Filemaker database developer, I may end up developing something but to do it properly is a lot of time and trouble where I should probably be reading and reducing my TBR pile :-)
I am an intermediate level Filemaker database developer, I may end up developing something but to do it properly is a lot of time and trouble where I should probably be reading and reducing my TBR pile :-)
Well, I created an Access database. I have 2800 ebooks in my Amazon library. I have created reports, so I know how much I have spent, how many I have read(400) how many I have not read (2400). I think it is one of the best things I have done. It has put my library in perspective.
@ChrisYeah I strip the drm as well. I used to use my Kindle, but after I decided to use Moon Reader on my Android tablet drm stripping is necessary.
I don't blame you for not wanting to waste the time trying to make your own database. That was why I gave up on Access. Calibre does pretty much everything I want it to do though except for one or two minor things I can live without.
@ Karen
That's very impressive that you were able to do that. I envy your Access skills. Chances are I probably won't give it another shot though unless I find a blank book database template out there.
Chris wrote: "Hi everyoneI have an absolutely enormous TBR list, and no way to manage it - what does everyone use to keep track of their pending reads?
I ask because I have literally hundreds of ebooks and DT..."
I'm an old school list manager: I just pick something out of the pile and start reading.
If it gets so big that it crushes me, problem solved.
Trike wrote:"I'm an old school list manager: I just pick something out of the pile and start reading.If it gets so big that it crushes me, problem solved."
Excellent, you get to play Jenga each time you pick a book!
@Kythe42It has taken me about three years to put my Kindle library in a database, and I am not quite done (I try to do a couple of books a day).
Hi, Trike!I see your pile is spawning little piles. Be careful or soon you will be drowning in piles of books. They are like Tribbles, you know.
Trike wrote: "Chris wrote: "Hi everyoneI have an absolutely enormous TBR list, and no way to manage it - what does everyone use to keep track of their pending reads?
I ask because I have literally hundreds of..."
How come you have two copies of Hard Spell?
I have an absolutely enormous TBR list, and no way to manage it - what does everyone use to keep track of their pending reads?
I ask because I have literally hundreds of ebooks and DTBs that are a result of unrestrained ebook and DTB buying for half a decade and too many free ebooks I have downloaded. I do read a fair number but my unread pile is threatening to bury me so I am looking for software to manage this. I have tried all manner of list apps on my ipad, but once my pile grew beyond about 750 books it overwhelmed my apps. I currently have most of them on a spreadsheet but that's really awkward to rearrange because I like to have a list of the next few months books that I can play with and rearrange when I feel like it.
Any ideas? I suppose I should really write some software to do this, if nobody has any suggestions I will look at that.
Cheers
Chris