Andrew's Kindle Overfloweth

[Andrew]

I currently, as of September 8th, 2017, own 32 unread books. My goal is to own fewer than 15 unread books (hereafter called Own-TBR) exactly one year from now, and I plan on using New Year's Day 2018 as a progress check. It might not sound all that challenging to lower my Own-TBR pile by only 17 books, but keep in mind that around 40% of those are the first in a series......meaning they come with additional book buying/reading responsibilities, which obviously slows progress down.

I've broken up my Own-TBR list by categories representing the top reason I've yet to read them.

[Andrew]

Category: Part of a series that I've already started reading

To read: 6
Red Country
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
Never Send Flowers
The Man With the Red Tattoo
Zero Minus Ten

[Andrew]

Category: Book that I received for free, but probably would not have bought with my own $$

To Read: 0, category complete!!!

[Andrew]

Category: First book in a new series

To read: 8
Gardens of the Moon
Leviathan Wakes
Three Parts Dead
The Emperor's Blades
The Darkness That Comes Before
Traitor's Blade
The Thousand Names
Heroes Die

[Andrew]

Category: Sequel in a series that I haven't started yet

To Read: 2
The Unholy Consult
Tyrant's Throne

[Andrew]

Category: Waiting on the author to release more of the series before I start reading it

To Read: 5
The Way of Kings
Words of Radiance
The Black Prism
The Shadow of What Was Lost
The Poppy War

[Andrew]

Category: No excuses, just read it already

To Read: 4
Tigana
River of Stars
How to Archer: The Ultimate Guide to Espionage and Style and Women and Also Cocktails Ever Written
Man, The Dwelling Place Of God

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

Sweet! Glad you got it working. Looking forward to seeing what you create. :)

[Andrew]

And now that I'm fully inspired to knock out some old books, I think I'll go read one that's been on my virtual shelf for two years.

[Andrew]

Crap. Django Wexler's Thousand Names was a Kindle Daily Deal today. $1.99...and I couldn't say no. *sigh* Well, now I'm at 33 owned/unread.

[Tammie]

Andrew wrote: "Crap. Django Wexler's Thousand Names was a Kindle Daily Deal today. $1.99...and I couldn't say no. *sigh* Well, now I'm at 33 owned/unread."

Yep, that's how it happens. Free or Kindle deals always get me.

[Andrew]

Well this is going poorly. My library was selling the first three books of The Black Company, in mint condition hardcover, for $1. How am I supposed to say no to that? I mean really...

[Miche]

Tammie wrote: "Yep, that's how it happens. Free or Kindle deals always get me."

Me too...

[Andrew]

I'd say this is close enough to New Year's Day to do my progress check, especially since I don't think I'll be starting or finishing any new books before then.

From a strictly overall numbers perspective, I didn't do very well. Starting point was 32 books, goal is to be down to 15 within a year, so at this point I really should be down to something in the 25 or 26 range; instead I'm sitting at 31, which appears that I'm failing. However, a deeper dive shows some promising tidbits:
-I read 11 books from the overflowing TBR shelf, including three of my biggest nemesis...the infamous "first book in new series," which I always buy and never actually read.
-Speaking of the ol' nemesis, I only bought two more "first in series," which is serious progress compared to normal. And both of those I'm OK with. Thousand Names is high on my list of desired reads and was on sale, and Black Company came in an omnibus with the second and third in the series for only $1. Those are both great purchases, and I was able to say no to many other tempting books. Progress!
-The rest of my purchases were all sequels in a series of which I already own the first book. In other words, they were books that I would have bought soon anyways, I just happened to pick them up at a time they were on sale. Again, progress!
-Overall purchasing went well. I spent only $24 in the past 3.5 months on books, $21 of which was spent on Buddy Reads for two books that I read immediately upon purchase. The other $3 brought in 7 books. I look at that and see that my spending is now where it should be--I'm only buying books when I either plan on reading it rather than shelving it, or it's ridiculously cheap/free and I know I'll eventually read it.

Overall I'm encouraged by the progress I've made, even if the overall number doesn't reflect that. Cheers to a new year of great reading!

[Niki Hawkes, I made it past GOTM... barely]

That sounds like great progress to me. The total tally doesn't do justice to the good habits of reading things you buy right away and saving your money for the awesome books and good deals. Here's hoping your good system gives you great results in 2018! :)

[Andrew]

I was making such good, consistent progress. Then Amazon had to have a C.S. Lewis sale. $17 and 8 new books later, and I'm basically back to square one. At least the books are all short, so I should be able to knock them out in short order. They'll probably take the role of my "filler series" a.k.a. the books I read when I have a one or two day gap between Buddy Reads.

[Andrew]

Well, it' officially been a year. The goal was to be down to 15 owned but unread books, and I'm currently sitting at 25. So...failure. Cue the sad trombone!

[Siobhan]

Depends how you look at it... Could be a failure. Or could be awesome that you have 25 books to read! Yayyy! :D

If it makes you feel better, I have 375 owned unread books 🙈🙈

[Andrew]

Siobhan wrote: "Depends how you look at it... Could be a failure. Or could be awesome that you have 25 books to read! Yayyy! :D

If it makes you feel better, I have 375 owned unread books 🙈🙈"

Holy cow, that's a lot of unread books! That would take me about 7 years to read, assuming I exclusively read from that stack of books and never bought anything new or went to the library. Quite the collection!

[Siobhan]

Andrew wrote: "Siobhan wrote: "Depends how you look at it... Could be a failure. Or could be awesome that you have 25 books to read! Yayyy! :D

If it makes you feel better, I have 375 owned unread books 🙈🙈"

Holy..."

And you would think I would try to do that. I reckon I could get through them in 4/5 years. Except no, I keep buying more!!

So yeah, you're doing great! 👍 :D