Bring down your 'unread books' number

[Irene]

I currently have 225 books on my shelves that I haven't read yet. 225! I think we can all agree that that's an insane number! I dream of one day having just 20-30 unread books on my shelves. Now, if I read 100 books a year, that's still more than two years! And let's just be honest: I'm not gonna stop buying books. Sequels, new releases etc. What I need is a plan on how to bring that number down.
How many unread (physical) books do you own and how do you try to keep the number down?

[Heather]

I own 70 physical books and I just try to participate in a lot of challenges that will get them read or organize a ton of buddy reads.

[Irene]

I'm seriously considering blocking pages like book depository just to make it harder to buy books lol

[Connie]

I have 200

[Irene]

Glad I'm not alone :-P

[Heather]

It doesn't help when GR advertises never books on the side bar either though.

[Mei]

I have 16 unread physical books, and most of them are first in a series (Unwind, Eon,The 5th Wave, etc.). I don't really know how to lessen them :/

[These Violent Delights]

I have around 200+ physical copy books and ebooks I have yet to read. I try not to get more books, but if I see a free ebook or a new book is releasing that I want, I can't help myself.

[Heather]

Mei wrote: "I have 16 unread physical books, and most of them are first in a series (Unwind, Eon,The 5th Wave, etc.). I don't really know how to lessen them :/"

Buddy reads help me...I have a ton of ebooks on my shelf to read as well :/

[Irene]

@Mei - I'd like to have 16. That'd mean I had enough to still choose whatever I'd like to read at a given time. I'd like to have somewhere between 20 and 30. I'll have to bring it down by 200!

@Robin - Same goes for me. I think maybe I should try the "read 10 books, buy 1" technique. That means I can still get a book a month or so. I'd still allow myself to get books I need for study or my bookclub though! :)

[Irene]

I just went through my shelf and got it down to a 207. Yay!

I'd like to see your unread shelves if you have any. Here's mine: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[These Violent Delights]

Here's my physical copy books I have yet to read that I own, I have way to many to read ebooks that I own to add all of them lol

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Oh dear, if you think 200 is bad you'd die if you came to my house, I have so many unread books that I have lost count, there's definitely over 1000 though.

These are the pictures I took of my shelves in march
3 here - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

and then more here - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


Those are probably only 1/4 of the books I have though. Most of them are unread. I'll never get round to reading them all, I've got boxes and boxes of other books as well that are unread. I have a slight shopping addiction, I buy most of them used though because I like a bargain ☺

[These Violent Delights]

Oh wow Sarah! That's a lot! Will you be participating in this upcoming clean your bookshelf challenge? You have a lot of good books to read :)

[Dezra]

Oh wow! I have about 100 unread books on my shelf and that's not including my ebooks.

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Abbie and I are going to be reading the GBR books which are all off our TBR's and then we're going to catch up on some sequels, not sure how much we'll get read while we're moderating the challenges. The non-reading one and Hangman will need one of us to be around all the time.

Funnily enough I hardly got any of my own books read last time we did the challenge, I kept seeing books on other people's shelves that I really wanted to read and read those instead! I'm easily swayed ☺

[Heather]

I have 32 ebooks I need to read and then at least 70 on my shelf physically. Sarah we have some books in common on our tbr if you wanna read them sometime during the challenges.

[Sonia]

omg you guys have so much unread books! I have only like 10 physical books that I've not read. Mostly books that I bought in a rush at the airport and that turned out to be the 2nd or the 3rd book of a book series I'm not reading...

[Tati]

I have around 200 on my Kindle... But I don't really mind, it means I have plenty of options to choose from LOL

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Don't even get me started on ebooks. I have 18,000 books on my kindle cloud.

[Heather]

Sarah wrote: "Don't even get me started on ebooks. I have 18,000 books on my kindle cloud."

HOLY CRAP!

[Joi]

Robin wrote: "Oh wow Sarah! That's a lot! Will you be participating in this upcoming clean your bookshelf challenge? You have a lot of good books to read :)"

When is the clean your bookshelf challenge? I think I might want to participate.

[Heather]

Joi wrote: "Robin wrote: "Oh wow Sarah! That's a lot! Will you be participating in this upcoming clean your bookshelf challenge? You have a lot of good books to read :)"

When is the clean your bookshelf chal..."

July the whole month

[Joi]

Heather wrote: "Joi wrote: "Robin wrote: "Oh wow Sarah! That's a lot! Will you be participating in this upcoming clean your bookshelf challenge? You have a lot of good books to read :)"

When is the clean your bo..."

That is awesome. Thank you Heather. I ran out of bookshelf space, so I have books in boxes all over my house. I can't wait to just get through some of these books. I'lll do a count of all the books and let you all know how many I have to read.

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Here's the sign-up page for the clean-your-bookshelves challenge - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Joi]

Thank you. I put my name on the list but haven't posted pics yet.

[Connie]

I want to make a list of all my unread books that I already own and put myself on a ban until I buy more shelves...but books...

[Tati]

That's the thing with ebooks... They're cheap and don't take up physical space, so there's no real reason to not get them LOL

[Heather]

yeah lol i have over 30 on my phone waiting to be read

[Connie]

It doesn't help that I also have a kindle :P

Just so many books

But so little time

[Heather]

Connie I use the kindle app on my phone and my county library does ebooks with 1000s to choose from so as you can imagine I download a lot of them to read

[Connie]

Oh my days

That would be like heaven and hell for me :P

My library only do physical copies and I've limited myself to 2 at a time :P

[Heather]

lol i currently am reading a physical copy of a book and I have 2 checked out from that app that are ebooks from the library which are Throne of Glass and Caleb+Kate

[Connie]

I'm currently reading my two library books

The Graveyard book and Across the Universe

[Heather]

awesome. Holy crap! I just went to the ibooks store and they have Shiver for free!!!

[Kathleen]

Yay! Thx heather! I've wanted to read shiver for a long time and I didn't know it was free!

[Heather]

It is this week only so you better go and grab it up :)

[Kathleen]

I just downloaded it! I'm so excited to start reading!!!

[Heather]

me too!

[Dana]

Tatiana wrote: "That's the thing with ebooks... They're cheap and don't take up physical space, so there's no real reason to not get them LOL"

In Canada most ebooks are just as much if not more than the hard copy version!I miss the good ol' days before amazon split up their kindle store by country. All I can say is thank God for Netgalley.

[Heather]

epubbud.com is amazing!

[Dana]

Mei wrote: "I have 16 unread physical books, and most of them are first in a series (Unwind, Eon,The 5th Wave, etc.). I don't really know how to lessen them :/"
Read Eon it's amazing!

[Dana]

thanks for the recommendation Heather.

[Irene]

18.000! :O That's a lot! I mean, I have a lot of ebooks too, but not that many! Haha

[Heather]

haha I may be putting her in a run for ebooks soon

[Sarah Elizabeth]

Irene wrote: "18.000! :O That's a lot! I mean, I have a lot of ebooks too, but not that many! Haha"

I'm addicted to freebies. Most of those are purely kindle freebies or freebies from smashwords.

[Heather]

haha wow Sarah are there any good ones from smashwords? I haven't tried it yet

[Tati]

Y'know, I always take a look at the freebies on Amazon, and there is not that many that I like LOL

[Sarah Elizabeth]

You can actually get some real gems from smashwords, you just have to strike it lucky. Have you got this one Tatiana - I just got it free on amazon ☺

[Heather]

I love smashwords now lol