A Glimpse of my TBRs

Published on by Margaret

This post was inspired by FictionFan’s Stroll Around her TBR:

The definition…

My TBR is made up of books I own, both paper and e-books, but haven’t yet read, no matter when I acquired them, whereas the books I record for Bev’s Mount TBR Reading Challenge are books that I have owned prior to January 1 2019.

The current total…

I don’t have an accurate figure of the total. I have 387 books currently listed on LibraryThing as TBRs, but that’s not counting the many e-books I have unread on my Kindle!

The target…

I like having books waiting to be read, having books to choose from, so I’m happy to have some TBRs, but just not as many as at present. The difficulty is that I’m adding books more quickly than I’m reading them – the numbers are going up rather than down.  Maybe I should go through them and decide whether to keep them – or not, always hard when I’ve bought them – but maybe those free e-books could go ….

The breakdown…

It’s a mix of mainly fiction with some non-fiction. I like to vary my reading so it’s a mix of genres too. My records aren’t detailed enough to break the numbers down into genres.

The oldest book…

There are two books listed on my LibraryThing catalogue that I’ve owned since 4 February 2007 – A Dead Language by Peter Rushforth and Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man by Claire Tomalin. I did start to read both of them years ago, but put them aside for a while – and that’s where they both are.

I bought the Rushforth book as I’d loved his first book, Pinkerton’s Sister, but A Dead Language doesn’t have the same appeal, although I can’t bring myself to the point of actually abandoning it. Whereas I really want to read the Hardy biography …

The newest book…

The Good Daughter by Karen Slaughter

Good Daughter

I haven’t read any of Karin Slaughter’s books, but have wondered if I would like them. After reading Jules’ review of her latest novel, The Last Widow on her blog onemoreword  I decided to try one of her standalone books and bought The Good Daughter. 

The review copies…

Currently standing at 18. The oldest review copy is Blood on the Tracks by Martin Edwards which I acquired from NetGalley on 10 April 2018. It’s a collection of short stories subtitled Railway Mysteries. I’ll be reading it soon as I have included it in my 20 Books of Summer list.

Blood on the tracks

The newest review copy, also from NetGalley, is The House by the Loch by Kristy Wark, due to be published 13 June. It’s a family drama set in Scotland on remote Loch Doon.

House by the loch

The 200th book on the list…

According to LibraryThing that is The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a book I thought I’d like to read after reading The Brothers Karamazov years ago. I don’t know when I’ll get round to reading it though as it’s nearly 600 pages of small font – an e-book might be more manageable.

The Idiot Wordsworth Classic

Blurb from the back cover:

Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky’s own views, afflictions and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of the Russian ruling class of his day who have created a world which cannot accommodate the goodness of this idiot.

A Selection of the books I most want to read and can’t understand why I don’t just do it…

In no particular order:

(not counting the books on my 20 Books of Summer list or my NetGalley review books)

 

I’d love to look around your TBRs if you fancy having a go too.

 

21 thoughts on “A Glimpse of my TBRs”

  1. You have such a great TBR, Margaret! I love the variety. And how nice to know I’m not the only one with a set of ‘I really want to read these, so why don’t I just do it’ books. And that’s not to mention my never-ending wish list of books that just haven’t made it to the TBR yet. There’s never enough time, is there *sigh*?

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  2. I feel better about my own TBR now that I know yours is even bigger 🙂 I add new ones quicker than I read too. I seem to do well for a few months then my purchase habits go out of control again. The Tomalin book on Hardy is one my husband read and found it rather slow and dull (a surprise to me because I read her book on Pepys and it was superb).

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    1. I’m delighted I made you feel better 🙂 I read Tomalin’s biography of Pepys years ago too and was fascinated by it. I think my difficulty with her Hardy book is that I haven’t read all his books and whereas the Pepys book is about his life and times, Tomalin discusses Hardy’s books as well as telling his life story. I put it to one side to read more of his books before returning to it – a mistake, I think.

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  3. So many tempting books here! I love the cover of A Dead Language – it looks as if it should be a gothic horror story, but the blurb makes me think it’s not, plus it’s over 600 pages, so maybe I won’t! But the Hardy bio sounds great – you must read it and tell me whether I should! 😉 I’m thrilled that your TBR is way worse than mine – that makes me very happy! I did cull a lot of the free Kindle books off mine at one point – I got totally carried away when I first got my Kindle and had loads of books on there that really didn’t appeal. Of your “really want to read” ones, I enjoyed the Val McDermid very much, and also the Peter May, although I wouldn’t rate it as one of my favourites of his. Reginald Hill of course is a must read! And I enjoyed Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace, although again I’ve enjoyed a couple of her other books more.

    I loved peeking into your TBR, so I’m glad you did this post! And thanks for the link. 😀

    Oh, and I’ll be interested in hearing what you think of Blood on the Tracks – one of the BL books I missed when it came out, so I could be tempted to catch up on it if you recommend it…

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    1. Hurray, you’re the second person I’ve made happy! I’m thinking I will go through the free Kindle books and cull what I can (not the classics though), but it all takes time when I could be reading! I bought Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace because I loved The Suspicions of Mr Whicher! and Reginald Hill (as is Peter May) is one of my favourite authors – I’m aiming to read all his books.

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  4. This is a fun post, but I don’t think I have the energy to look at my TBR books. I have many more than you do on shelves and in boxes, and I have the same problem of adding books much more quickly than I’m reading them. I gave in and bought The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle just recently and hope I read it sometime this year.

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  5. What a fun post, Margaret! I used to keep a immense spreadsheet for my TBR but it required mega-diligence to keep on top of it, and I have been rather neglecting it recently, so thank you for the nudge to bring it up to date! Meanwhile, I have not come across LibraryThing before – would you recommend it?

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    1. I’ve used LibraryThing since 2007 and found it very useful to catalogue my books. It’s free to use for up to 200 books and after that there is a fee to add more books. Later on I uploaded the catalogue to Goodreads and then removed the TBRs as I don’t need them on two sites. If you don’t already use Goodreads I would suggest that.

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  6. My physical tbr mountain was considerably diminished when I moved because so many books had to go. However, if I was to add up the tbrs In my head as books I want to read then goodness only knows what the total would be! Do get round to The Children’s Book. It’s a very solid read but definitely worth the effort.

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  7. The railway short stories are excellent, one or two a bit average but mainly good.

    Like you I have between three and four hundred tbrs but also like you that doesn’t include the hundreds on my Kindle and Nook. And I too have added a lot this year. My TBR chalenge is going well but I’m pretty sure I’ve added as many as I’ve read. And possibly the reason you just don’t get on and read the pile you most want to read is because there are so many you don’t know which to choose first. That would be me anyway…

    Fun post, nice to see someone else is as bad as me. LOL

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    1. Oh, I’m so glad I’m not the only one with a huge backlog of TBRs. And I do have great difficulty choosing what to read next – so many to pick. 🙂

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  8. You’ve made me happy too – why is reading about other people’s tbrs so interesting? 😀 You and FF now have me thinking about how I organise my tbr/wishlist and I realise that mostly when I say tbr, I mean wishlist! The wishlist is huge! I think I need to catalogue my actual tbrs more carefully, which is when I’ll really know how many books I own that I really want to read and somehow just don’t get around to. And on that note, I hope you get around to Evelyn Hardcastle which I have read. I’ll be interested in your thoughts.

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    1. I’m so pleased you enjoyed the Evelyn Hardcastle book – I borrowed it from the library and started to read it but couldn’t renew it as someone else had reserved it before I finished it. So I bought it for my Kindle – which is fatal as once a book goes in there it’s like going in a black hole and may never be seen again. I’ll have to dig it out:)

      Good luck with cataloguing you actual TBRs!

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  9. Pingback: Inside my TBR: the good, the bad and the downright ugly | BookerTalk

  10. I’m putting my foot down & telling you to stop what you’re doing & read The Children’s Book NOW!!!
    My colleague put me into this book about 8 yrs ago. I don’t know how I missed it when it first came out. But it was my favourite read of 2012 (or whatever year it was I read this!!) I hope you adore it as much as I did (do).

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    1. I’d love to Brona! I did start it when I first got it, my bookmark is at page 78, but I’ll have to start it again. At least after reading your comment I’ve taken it off the shelf and am very keen to get going with it – maybe now is the time to read it …

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      1. Ohhh I hope so Margaret. I have such fond, fond memories of this book & really want to reread it one day. The gorgeous cover was a delight to live with for the 2 or 3 weeks I too over reading this too 😉

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