While you all have stacks of books TBR, I have shelf upon shelf of books already read and so many years ago that I have completely forgotten many of them. I had always thought that when I retired I would re-read every book I have, but those pesky authors will keep writing new ones and RPers keep recommending others. What to do? What to do? Thank goodness for the library.

I am so glad that other people have admitted to being bookaholics! I have taken the step of keeping a list on the computer of books that sound interesting, and I'm past 250 titles now. I do go through it every month and check at the library for 1-4 books, or even inter-library loan if my library doesn't have something. That way, I'm not spending a ton of money if I don't like a book (just because a review makes it sound amazing, doesn't make it so).

I try really hard to keep the TBR pile at a reasonable height. Like Rosefolly, I give lots of books to the Friends of the Library each year. Here are some titles currrently in my stack ... some I bought, some were passed on to me:
Haroun of the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie (no clue where that came from. I tried to read Midnight's Children and couldn't get into it. I may try again someday.)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai - it sounded good at the time. :(
Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett
Dragon Bones Lisa See
Mockingbird - Charles J. Shields
Mayflower - Nathaniel Philbrick
Night of Many Dreams - Gail Tsukiyama
Our Lady of the Forest - David Guterson

Hmmm - I need to get reading.

joseph, thanks for the information on picture posting. The DH has pointed me in the direction of photobucket which should make life a little less complicated with code copying as I am something of a technophobe.

When US RP'ers talk about 'library sales' I understand that you mean a general sale of books, usually donated by well-wishers to raise money for library funds?
Over here a 'library sale' is a sale of old, ancient, falling-to-pieces library books that have well and truly passed their lend by dates. Unless you know well in advance that such a sale is taking place (which I never do) and so are the first to arrive the books are hardly worth buying.
Vicki, join the vast numbers of readers who have never made it through anything by Salman Rushdie. ;-)

Vee-yes, Library book sales are fundraisers. Here in my county, the Library and its branches are supported by a group of volunteers known as "The Friends" who work all year in a donated warehouse collecting, sorting and cataloguing donated books. The "best of the best" and the collectibles now are posted on eBay and have brought megabcuks in, but the twice-yearly, 3 day sales held in a roller rink bring in the most. Parking is a madhouse, people arrive with a pile of huge canvas bags, and spend hours trolling the tables. Last time, I spent a total of about $25 and took home about 40 books. When I tell you that the sale made nearly $200,000 you can see how many books were there.

I have letting go issues. Even if it is a book that I didn't like, I think I might want to read again someday and maybe I'd feel differently. I have quite a few of those, I should let go of, but just can't bring myself.

Oh, Georgia, I have "letting go issues," too. My own crude self-analysis points to a basic insecurity: What if I want to reread something and I won't be able to find it again? It's a holdover from the days when books disappeared from library shelves or went out of print, so that I had to search and search, for years and years, all over the world, literally, to find them again. I've told the story of scouring book shops for I Capture the Castle and Before the Sun Goes Down for thirty years. Then the Internet happened and what took years now takes minutes, so why should I still be apprehensive about letting a book go? I don't know unless it's because it was engrained into my psyche.

As silly as it sounds, I admit that I get very attached to certain covers and I prefer to read those than new, clean copies with different art. I have a battered old paperback edition of A Spoon River Anthology that I swear reads better than the handsome hardbound I also own. Then there's the time I ordered a used "good condition" copy of The Human Comedy that looked like the one I read as a teenager, but when I received the parcel a brand new, different cover-art edition was substituted -- to my terrible disappointment. The words inside were the same, but it wasn't the same...if that makes any sense.

Betty MacDonald described hoarding as a mental quirk. She was talking about home canning, but I think it applies to book saving, too -- in my case anyway.

We not only have all the library book sales in the several cities in my area, several times a year, but also gift shops within the public library itself, near where I live. This makes it all too tempting to pick up books for a dollar or two in mint condition, spines uncracked, to give as gifts, or to hoard. I also pick up "used" CD's and videos in the same shop. It is staffed by volunteers, part of the "Friends of the Library", who also host the various booksales. My area is a true feast for bibliophiles....

'Letting go' of books is almost impossible for me.
I have tatty old paper backs, with the pages falling out and yellowing paper and I still hold on to them.
Many of the TBR's I know I will never read but I keep them gathering dust.
Only once did I give a few books to a local church sale. No-one bought them and for several years they turned up at later sales, limp and smelling of damp reproaching me for letting them go.

Mary you are so lucky to have this abundance of good quality second-hand books. In an area such as this almost no-one reads anything more mind-stimulating that the average woman's magazines or the daily paper. In many houses, instead of finding bookcases full of books they are now used for DVD's and videos. I wonder when people have the time to watch them as they are probably glued to the ordinary TV during the evenings.

Having read all the wonderful posts on the TBR..well I won't call it a problem I'll call it a hobby..I have to say I can probably identify with Rosefolly most. I can easily part with books I know I will never read again or didn't care for. I actually usually only buy books I have already read and know I cannot live without ....well, I'd live probably but not happily. I have 2 three tier bookcases near my bed and one smaller one across the room. I am going to buy a five tier this month as books are piling up. My actual TBR hobby is located in a large basket on the floor next to my bed with about 10 books in it at this time and 3 library books. There is a Dearest Dorothy,a Beverly Lewis,a Miss Read, the Mother Teresa book, plus some other novels picked up at book sales by authors I don't know, but there are other TBRs lurking around the shelves, eyeing me.

gbg

Vee,

There are many TBR piles in our house because S. is even more of a reader than I am - I dare not walk him past a bookshop without a blindfold on! But apart from the TBR piles, even worse are the Have-Been-Read stacks. Since there is so little space left on shelves for the putting away of books, and since we can only rarely be bothered to cull the shelves (and afterwards, even though we've got rid of 3 boxes of books, there's only the same amount of room left.... how can this be?) HBRs tend to just lie around, rather folornly, until someone has a tidying spree and starts a pile. It's the bedroom HBR piles which are the worst: not only do these gradually mount up on bedside tables, but then one day you find one on your dressing table, amongst the makeup and the perfumes; and once just ONE book finds its way there, others sneakily appear until the dressing table is taken over; then the tops of chests of drawers...... The bathroom has its own stacks of light literature and mags to read in the bath.... but the HBRs then start to make their way there...... Further places are the Welsh Dresser in the dining room, little tables at various points all over the house... but when HIS HBR piles start to appear in MY office, where there's not even enough room for my own stuff(and he's got a whole office to himself anyway), fur can fly; dustbins or drowing can be threatened (Prospero was goiing to 'drown my books', wasn't he) or Farenheit 451 might take place for real.

Dido

For Yvonne

My 'Books To Be Read'
Are next to my bed
In teetering piles of intention
With so few of them read
Things come to a head
When the library wont grant an extension.

Vee, what is a "Welsh Dresser." (Just curious.)

Dido, I brought the subject of multiplying books up some time ago when I cleared some shelves and had precious little more room when I finished. It's my opinion that they multiply like rabbits in some secret orgiastic manner and then laugh quietly while we go off to buy more bookcases.

I only have about 1/5 of the books I've ever owned. Now that I'm settled, I wish I had them all back. Even if firemen or EMTs have to throw them out the window to get to me.

Mary,

A 'Welsh Dresser' is a piece of furniture which is usually found in a kitchen, hallway (if Big) or dining room. It's about 6ft tall, say 4ft wide, has solid cupboards in the bottom bit - about 3ft high - and has a narrower bit above, with shelves, where people usually store their precious plates for display purposes. Does this raise any pics in your head? They originated in Wales (where every Grannies' kitchen had one), but are owned and sought-after everywhere now - England, the continent, you name it. Lovely pieces of furniture. Very versatile. The really old ones, made of precious wood like mahogony, cost a bomb!

Carolyn, amazing, isn't it!

Dido

Mary see below for some rather beautiful eg's of Welsh dressers. I expect you have similar furniture in the US but you probably call it by a different name.

When we moved to this house in 1980, in the kitchen there was a Welsh dresser, painted bright red (a room in the house had been used as the village Post Office and the owners had obviously pinched the 'PO red' paint used on all UK pillar/post/mail boxes). This W dresser was filthy dirty, with black rings where the cups were placed and layers of mouse droppings in the draws.
I was in a delicate state of pregnancy and couldn't stand to be surrounded by all this muck and grime so we 'donated' it to the local pub.
When it was collected it hadn't been moved for very many years and the original house-owner looked at the piles of dusty bones revealed by the move "We used to wonder what the cats did with the birds and mice they caught" he quipped merrily.

Here is a link that might be useful: Welsh Dressers

Called a "hutch" or a "kitchen hutch" in the US.

Vee,

I bet if you'd stripped said Welsh dresser of its redness, you'd have found beneath something of value and beauty. But in your delicate state then, I don't suppose you'd have wanted to mess around like that.

Disputantum,

I like the designation 'Welsh Dresser' much better - and they originated in Wales anyway. A 'hutch' is surely where you keep rabbits! Well, we do, anyway.......

Dido

Those Welsh Dressers are quite impressive! We often see similar ones in New England and call them "hutches". (I am not sure why).

Thank you for the Welsh Dresser, I am always happy to add a new word to my English vocabulary. The other day I was looking for the English word for the piece of furniture in the hallway where my TBR pile goes when there is no more room by the bed. I know now that it is called a "what not" (why?), a four tier freestanding shelf, an ideal place for stuff best out of the way until one can decide what to do about them permanently. Some books now in it are Brick Lane by Monica Ali, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser (the last two are too long to begin casually, I'll save them for next summer), Inheritance of Loss by Kieran Desai, Treasured Perennials by Graham Stuart Thomas, A Man and Two Women by Doris Lessing, Life of Pi, and several books in Swedish.

Excellent little ditty, Veer!

I love seeing my TBR tower. As some others have said, it's the feeling of knowing that something terrific (fingers crossed) awaits me when I am done with whatever is occupying my eyes (or time) at the moment.

I think of my TBR tower as "art." For my bedroom stack of books (there's a regular old bookcase in the finished basement, too), I chose one of those cool verticle "spine" bookcase shelves, with a "footprint" of not more than the size of a folded New York Times. (And sometimes I sneak a few to the guest bedroom's end-table shelf when I've gone crazy at the library sales.)

Currently, the "spine" bookcase is filled--A Miss Read book, a few Gail Tsukiyamas (Women of the Silk, Language of Threads), more Jeeves books, latest Fannie Flagg, some Alexander McCall Smith mysteries, and many other titles that you folks here have recommended at one time or another.

Here is a link that might be useful: CB2's Array Bookcase

I have a Welsh dresser although mine is a newer piece of furniture my husband refinished over 20 yrs. ago. It is my very favorite piece of furniture.
re-TBR piles-as some of you know I moved house about 3 yrs. ago and now own about twenty percent of the books I used to. It was traumatic saying good-bye and they are beginning to 'pile" up again, BUT I was determined to have a more "uncluttered" house. I do try to frequent the library, visit the PBS site and donate to the library-also I usually have a book garage sale every summer. I still find myself looking for a book I no longer own or buying a new copy of one I no longer have...don't know what the answer is. I tend to "collect" many things aside from books so hoarding must be in my nature.

Found this thread of how many of us have tottering TBR piles and feel much better. I am among friends alike here!

:-)

I re-read this thread and was not quite surprised to find that my TBR piles have not DEcreased in the last two years, but have INcreased exponentially. Still no hurricane or snowstorm or ice storm can find ME unprepared, at least not in respect to my reading!

PAM

And I've bought two more bookcases, and they are full; but I've read all the books and made a quick trip to my branch library this afternoon for a few to hold me over the weekend.

Wow, this thread is like Bookaholics Anonymous! I am glad to hear I am not alone.

I'm too scared to count how many books I have that I have not read yet and, sadly, I have accidentally bought the same book twice, although luckily from second-hand stores so they wasn't too expensive. I hope this has happened to someone else - I felt so silly!! I have taken to putting some books I have not read yet into clear storage bins (so I can see the titles) and keeping reference-type and history books on the shelves, then filling the space remaining with TBRs. Books that I have read and want to keep also go into storage bins.

I was going to stop going to the library and dig into my owned books, but I have made the excuse that the weather is too lovely to stop making my once a week walk back and forth and I will stop in the winter.

Since I last posted on this thread I have added a spreadsheet to my library database to keep track of my unread books. I just checked, and as of today I have 863 TBR books, out of a total of about 1900.

My TBR stack is growing by leaps and bounds these days, because my grandmother is getting rid of her book collection and has allowed the family to choose whatever volumes we want before the books go to new homes. Whenever I have time, I go through a few boxes, and I always come away with several books.

Netla -

In your message, you wrote that you had 863 books - does this mean that you OWN 863 books? Or these are just the ones that you would like to read, but don't actually have in the house just yet?

Just curious.

Having started this thread 18 months ago, I am ashamed to admit I still haven't read the books I mentioned and have added many more to the list. These are in sub-piles in different areas of the house. I keep them apart in the vain hope that they wont breed; it never works.

Another great discussion.

Well, lessee...the last time we moved ('97) The Wife and I counted our merged collection at 6000+ volumes. If we assume that 2/3 are mine (I have more paperbacks than she), then I'd estimate that I've read about 1/2-3/4 of my collection, about 2-3,000. I buy a lot of scifi/fantasy on speculation, and a lot of non-fiction because I collect on the subject; right now the main contenders are folklore and mythology, Japanese literature, history, culture, and popularized science. I'm trying real hard to weed down the scifi/fantasy by reading and dumping, but since I reread anything I remotely like it's hard...

Lemonhead, I own about 1900 books altogether. The 863 are just the TBR portion of my collection.

My TBR master list is currently somewhere around the 2000 mark. At my current rate of reading, it should take me about 12 years to work through it.

Had a spare moment yesterday so thought I would peruse the piles of books on my nightstand. Here is about half of the pile. Any that are really good that I should start right away?

* Class Matters - writers from NYT
* The Pirates - Margaret Cezair-Thompson
* Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
* Letters from Lavendar Cottage - Victoria Seymour
* Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood - Gwen Raverat
* Barrow's Boys - Fergus Fleming (NF re: English explorers in late 19th c)
* Barchester Towers - Trollope
* In fact: The Best of Creative Non-Fiction - ed Lee Gutkind
* A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
* Shantatam - Gregory David Roberts
* The Model Wife: Nineteenth Century Style - Rona Randall
* Inside the Victorian Home - Judith Flanders
* Class: A Guide through the American Status System - Paul Fussell
* Tell Me where it hurts - Dr Nick Trout (a tale of a day in the life of an animal surgeon)

I plan on reading them this autumn to clear the decks, so to speak for the FOL book sale.... Any suggestions for where to begin?

Liz, I listened to Brooklyn on Radio 4 'Book at Bedtime' set in 1950's Ireland/New York. You need to be into the Irish-American scene.
Period Piece was a book recommended here at RP by Frieda, about the Darwin family, I enjoyed it.
Letters from Lavender Cottage correspondence during/after WWII between an elderly spinster and a niece(?) who sent food parcels from Canada . .. very simple but moving.
How do you get into bed at night? ;-)

Vee - Luckily, I have a foldable ladder that I can climb to get over the mountain of books.... And keep in mind - this is AFTER I got rid of all the library books that were kept on the floor around there... It was a veritable minefield of knowledge.....

:-)

In May I set myself a challenge to read as many of my TBR books as it takes to be reading them faster than I acquire them. As I mentioned earlier, my gran is giving away her books and so my library is growing by leaps and bounds, much faster than I can read them, so the challenge now is to read some of the books that have been TBR for over a year, because they kept getting passed over for newer and more tempting books. I started with a list of 50, and have read 18 so far and culled one half-read. The good news is that if it weren't for my gran's generosity, I would be reading them faster than I acquire them. Still, I expect to hit the 2000 mark before the end of the year. Then, I will either have to start stacking bookcases in my bedroom, or buy a new apartment.

OK, RP friends...

Fess up. Anyone made much progress in the height of their TBR piles?...

This was a fun thread to read through again, and although my TBR pile may actually have become higher, at least my titles are different-ish...

My goodness, since starting this thread nearly five years ago I notice that I have at least read Ethan Frome, Remains of the Day and Barchester Towers but have probably collected many many more TBR's spread about the house.
Just looking at how many RP'ers took part in the thread. Where are they now and have they been 'replaced' by a new, younger fitter/older wiser bunch?
An interesting topic seems to bring in SO many more people . . . message to ourselves . . . must think of things that get people talking/writing. ;-)

Hmmm.

Well, I notice I only admitted to my copy of Moby Dick which I haven't read. And it's still unread....

My TBR pile is still just as bad, and still has some of the same books I mentioned in 2009 sitting in it. I did finish all my Georgette Heyers, though :)

Martin -

It might be time to admit defeat with the whale...

:-)

Martin, you don't need to read Moby Dick any more, but listen to it as lots of 'famous names/voices' are reading the whole book over the next few days. And if you speak whale you'll hear the leviathan of the deep adding a few comments of his own. Sorry about the ads at the beginning.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tilda Swinton David Cameron et al

So, here is the list that was my nightstand in 2009:

* Class Matters - writers from NYT - not read
* The Pirates - Margaret Cezair-Thompson - no recollection :-)
* Brooklyn - Colm Toibin - read
* Letters from Lavendar Cottage - Victoria Seymour - read
* Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood - Gwen Raverat - still not read
* Barrow's Boys - Fergus Fleming (NF re: English explorers in late 19th c) - read
* Barchester Towers - Trollope - read
* In fact: The Best of Creative Non-Fiction - ed Lee Gutkind - still not read
* A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - tried to read but failed
* Shantatam - Gregory David Roberts - ditto above
* The Model Wife: Nineteenth Century Style - Rona Randall - read
* Inside the Victorian Home - Judith Flanders - read
* Class: A Guide through the American Status System - Paul Fussell - read
* Tell Me where it hurts - Dr Nick Trout (a tale of a day in the life of an animal surgeon) - read

Hmm. Not too shabby and happy to say that about half have been removed from house to other loving homes... The other half, on the other hand....

I have several small TBR piles upstairs. Sometimes these books wander from the pile, and can be found in the weirdest places. I have to corral them every so often.

I have a paperback copy of The Brothers Karamazov which has been sitting on my bedside table for at least five years, complete with a reproachful bookmark at about page 250, which is where I finally packed it in. I took reading this book very seriously, and kept a notebook in which I wrote down the names of all the characters, etc. I will try reading it again, some day.

I loved Moby Dick, though it is not for every reader. I found it bracing, profound, and made me seriously wish I came from sturdy New England stock. (Alas no. My American ancestors came from Pennsylvania and New York state, not a salty sea captain among them.)

Re Moby Dick, try Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. It's very readable and has one of my favorite opening lines: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last."

2012 TBR update from me...

YES! My stacks HAVE shown vast change since 2005. Most of the books on my 2005 TBR stacks on the FIRST floor and SECOND floor have been moved to basement (dry, fine for books). Now my TBR stacks are full of NEW books and/or titles. (new purchases... not necessarily recently published, many are classics) So I suppose, in actuality, the number of TBRs in my house has doubled. Goody-goody gumdrops. Because again, in a snowstorm, if I lose power, the Kindle will eventually go dark. Books to the rescue, as always.

Like Francis MD said almost five years ago (to the day), at least I do not collect cars or pianos.

PAM

Wow, PAM. It is quite an honor to be quoted after five years! I do still frequently remind myself of that fact as my nonfiction TBR books continue to pile up. The one change I have made is that most (not all) of my newly acquired fiction TBR is now on the Kindle.

I have been hoping for books for Christmas while my TBR pile totters over me...it has grown by leaps and bounds as I have unpacked and decluttered (I know that sounds contradictory) and visited the used bookstore too many times, in addition to a great sale we had at church. Oh dear.

My mother has sent me a number of mysteries that I never get around to reading and about which I feel horribly guilty. She is elderly and goes to so much trouble to get them, pack them up, get them into the post...I really should read them...

This summer I tackled our storage room. We have been in this house for over 25 years now and things have a way of being stashed in the storage room to be sorted through later. I steeled myself by saying "If my husband and I were to die, what would my kids do with this?"
We took many trips to the garbage dump and got to know the friendly people at the Salvation Army and SPCA thrift stores. I came across cardboard boxes of hundreds of yellowing paperbacks which went to the recycle bins. Titles of books which I had loved years and years ago but needed to be euthanased. Boxes of kids' books went to local elementary schools though I did save some of the special hardcovers and one tattered and very much loved copy of "Goodnight Moon". (One day I hope to be a Grandma :) )
I had an enormous number of outdated travel books and some hardcover expensive uni books that I just couldnt throw out earlier. Off to the recycle bin.
So now I am left with one bookshelf of favs (many were RP discussion books - "The Crimson Petal and the White" for example, I remember discussing with Siobhan.) I have a few plastic bins still but I need to go through those too. Also some bags of books from these charity book sales that allow you to fill up a bag for about $3. I vow to restrain myself at these sales in the future.
I give a lot of books away, I dont know how they keep accumulating. It's like that old Star Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles."
And now I have an ebook. I downloaded about a hundred classics and old favs on that but the problem I have is that I dont really like the ebook except when travelling. It's been a lifesaver then, in terms of baggage weight allowances. So I have an invisble TBR pile on that gizmo.

An old thread, but still valid. I would like to find and read more books on the Middle Ages in Europe. Here are 3 in no special order that I have set as goals to read, not to mention the many re-reads I want to achieve:

I want to finish Josept Ellis' "American Sphinx".
I want to begin two by Barbara Tuchman: "The First Salute" and "A Distant Mirror."