Sunday, June 14, 2015

A Peek at Jeffe's TBR List

I'm in Denver this weekend, spending some time with family. Got to do shopping and wine-y lunch with my mom - something we haven't gotten do do in forever - and saw my stepdaughter, son-in-law and grandkids. Lovely weekend!
This week's topic is taking stock of those Mid-Year Milestones, in particular what are we reading right now and what's still in the TBR (To Be Read queue).

That last bit makes me laugh because - seriously? - my TBR is SO long I have no idea how many books are in it. Literally. I'd be afraid to total it up. I even have phases of the TBR. There's the books that I definitely want to read as soon as I can. There's the stuff I "have" to read - friends' books, stuff for critique, books for contests. There are books that I probably want to read, when the time is right. Books in this queue can have lingered there for years, even a decade or more. (My assistant Carien calls these TBR orphans and makes a concerted effort to pick up one at least once a month.) In between, is a more nebulous group of books that are ones that people have recommended to or outright given me. I really want a system of denoting WHY I have a certain book on my Kindle or stacked in my office. Or in my TBR armoire.

(The latter is a real thing. Were I at home, I'd take a photo of it and show you. But it's kind of scary, so maybe this is all for the best.)

My most-active TBR list is best encapsulated by the list on my "device," as opposed to the cloud, on my eReader. I just counted and there are 90 books there.

That should say something about the lower-priority piles.

eep.

All that said, I do keep a list of books read. I started doing that in 2013, as part of a concerted effort to get back into reading regularly and consistently. Writing tends to overtake my reading life, so I'm working to tip that balance back again. In 2013, I read 74 books and in 2014, I upped that to 130 books. So I set the more ambitious goal of 150 books for 2015, which means that now, at 45% through the year, I should be at 67 books read.

I'm at 51. Alas.

I can totally catch up though, right??

So, what am I reading? I'm 26% into The Faery Bride by Lisa Ann Verge, a recommendation from the lovely and talented Grace Draven. I'm kind of on a theme of researching Fantasy Romances and this is an old school one (originally published in the...80s? I can't tell. Maybe 90s. And now republished by the author). I think that next up will be Intisar Khanani's Thorn, which has triggered some talk in my circles that she brings a different take to princesses and fantasy. I'm also tempted to catch up with Nalini Singh's Psy/Changeling series, because the newest book, Shards of Hope, is getting such rave reviews. However, I trailed off on that series about... 3 books ago? So none of them are in my queue, which means I'd need to buy them.

You can no doubt detect the problem there!

 Most recently I read Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking. Really loved it. I think all creative types - maybe everyone - should read it, too. My Goodreads review is here, if you're interested. If you've read it, you'll get this. If not, go read it.

Take the donuts, people!

4 comments:

  1. LOL, your TBR list with its varying piles sounds like mine. There are the 'have to read it ASAP', which I'm almost caught up with. (Sorry I took so long getting to Talon of the Hawk.) The 'want to read it soon', which is huge. The 'I need to read this someday' - which I can't even think about right now. And then, I have to be in the mood for a certain book at a certain time. If I stopped buying books, I could probably get caught up, but we all know that ain't gonna happen. ;o)

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    Replies
    1. Right? It's like being a certain kind of hoarder. I simply can't say no to a book...

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  2. Phases of the TBR pile...yup. i totally get this. Research for what I'm writing seems to get priority....until that one fiction book grabs me and reels me in until I've devoted what's between its covers.

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    Replies
    1. I rarely do deliberate research reading, but I do cast about in my queue, looking for the books that will light me up and feed what I'm writing at the time. :-)

      Delete
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