Pick-a-Shelf discussion

✂️trim✂️

/trɪm/

verb: make (something) neat or of the required size or form by cutting away irregular or unwanted parts.

noun: an act of cutting something in order to neaten it.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

A regular bookshelf has 4 sides so we are going to "trim" its 4 "sides" (ie. 4 different ways).

1. How many?!?!
Look at the total number of your TBR, take the last digit and read that many books off your TBR. If you have a "0", read 10 books.
Try to read what's already on your TBR prior to starting this challenge. You may concentrate on a certain TBR shelf if you have a number of TBR shelves.

2. Share the love
Sort your TBR by one (1) of the following options:
✂️ "num ratings"
✂️ "avg rating"
✂️ "date added"
✂️ "date pub"

and read:
a. Books with the highest number / most recent date
b. Books with the least number / oldest date
Try to read the same number of books (for a+b) as you did for (1) above, if not more.

3. Monstrosity
Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR.
Yes, the biggest book and just the One. If the thickest is 1,000+ pages but the 5th thickest is only 300+ pages, DO choose the book closest to 1,000+ pages

4. Catch Up
Read that last book in the series!
Or at least, catch up to the latest instalment.
You must have read at least the first book before October 2024. Again, try to read the same number of book you read for (1), if not more.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

This is an open ended challenge so you're welcome to start anytime and finish anytime you like.

Any book on your TBR counts for this so let's get that number down!

My TBR ends with a 1 right now! That's a first. Lol!

Trim That TBR 2024
1 Oct 2024 - 30 Sept 2025 (my choice of dates)

✔1. How many?!?! (281)
Look at the total number of your TBR, take the last digit and read that many books off your TBR. If you have a "0", read 10 books.

Radar Girls, Sara Ackerman, 25 Dec 2024

✔2. Share the love
Sort your TBR by one (1) of the following options:
✂️ "num ratings"
✂️ "avg rating"
✂️ "date added"
✂️ "date pub"
and read:
a. Books with the highest number / most recent date
b. Books with the least number / oldest date
Try to read the same number of books (for a+b) as you did for (1) above, if not more.

3.56, The Body of a Young Man, Mildred Walker, 22 Dec 2024
4.64, Now or Never, Janet Evanovich, 11 Dec 2024

✔3. Monstrosity
Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR.

A Free Life, Ha Jin, 27 Jan 2025, 660 pp.

✔4. Catch Up
Read that last book in the series!

Den of Iniquity, J.A. Jance, 17 Oct 2024, latest book, #26 JP Beaumont series, first book read 2008

Count me in!

Trim that TBR (2024)          (1 October 2024 - 2025)         (7 of 16)

1. How many?!?! 185 ~~~> 5       TBR shelf ✔
- The King of the Castle read Oct 21, 2024 ✔
- The Ghost Stories Of Edith Wharton read Oct 23, 2024 ✔
- Muchos cuerpos, una misma alma (Same Soul, Many Bodies) read Nov 21, 2024 ✔
- Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales read Nov 29, 2024 ✔
-

2. Share the love (sorted by "date pub")

a. Books with the most recent date:
- Un instante en la oscuridad (Nov 2023)
- La redención del camarada Petrov [Comrade Petrov's Redemption] (Apr 1, 2023)
- Proyecto Hail Mary (Project Hail Mary) (May 4, 2021)

b. Books with the oldest date:
- Hamlet (1601)
- The Dead Secret (1856)
- In a Glass Darkly (1872)

3. Monstrosity
-

Thickest:
- 1Q84 Libros 1 y 2 (1Q84 #1-2) (744 pp.)
- Duma Key (731 pp.)
- Crímenes duplicados (The Man Who Watched Women) (619 pp.)
- Los Tommyknockers (614 pp.)
- Dreams of Gods & Monsters (613 pp.)

4. Catch Up
- Juego de espejos (Comisario Montalbano #22) read Oct 8, 2024 ✔
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #2) read Nov 24, 2024 ✔
- A Pocket Full of Rye (Miss Marple #6) read Nov 28, 2024 ✔
-
-

Planning to begin once electric power restored.

1. How many?!?! (Wishlist TBR - 1293)
Reading: 3
1. Fallen
2. Watch Me Die
3. Jesus Out to Sea

2. Share the love
Option:
✂️ "date added"
a. Books with the most recent date (2024)
1. Gorillas in the Mist
b. Books with the oldest date (2011)
1. The American Heiress
2. A Young Wife

3. Monstrosity
Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR (Owned)
1. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All - 875p

4. Catch Up
Catch up to the latest installment.
1. Love Lies Bleeding
2. The House at Sea's End
3. The Long Way Home

28/28 as at 03/23

9!!!

1. How many?!?!
📚 Spice Road (The Spice Road Trilogy #1) by Maiya Ibrahim -Read 10/21
📚 The Place on Dalhousie by Melina Marchetta -Read 11/02
📚 Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik -Read 11/13
📚 LIFEL1K3 (LIFEL1K3 #1) by Jay Kristoff -Read 11/16
📚 The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley -Read 11/19
📚 Baudolino by Umberto Eco -Read 12/10
📚 Treasure & Dirt (Ivan Lucic & Nell Buchanan #1) by Chris Hammer -Read 12/16
📚 Are You There, Buddha? by Pip Harry -Read 12/20
📚 The Only One in the World: A Sherlock Holmes Anthology -Read 12/23


2. Share the love
✂️ "date added"
a. Most recent (up to 10/1/24)
🔼 The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (added 9/24/24) -Read 10/04
🔼 Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (added 9/18/24) -Read 10/05
🔼 When Among Crows by Veronica Roth (added 10/02/24) -Read 12/25
🔼 The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki (added 09/22/24) -Read 12/27
🔼 I Want to Die but I Still Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee (added 10/12/24) -Read 01/02

b. Oldest
🔽 Half-Blood (Covenant #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout (added Apr '12) -Read 10/07
🔼 The Storyteller's Daughter by Maria Goodin (added Dec '12) -Read 12/24
🔼 Catch Up With the Sun: How I Rode Through Australia with a Short Fat Horse, Two Grumpy Camels and One Feral Kelpie by Heidi Douglas (added Oct '12) -Read 12/30
🔼 Partikel (Supernova #4) by Dee Lestari (added Feb '13) -Read 01/17

3. Monstrosity
📚 Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens (817p) -Read 03/23

4. Catch Up
🔗 Spy x Family, Vol. 7 by Tetsuya Endo -Read 10/06
🔗 Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #2) by Alexander McCall Smith -Read 10/10
🔗 The Fates Divide (Carve the Mark #2) by Veronica Roth -Read 10/30
🔗 Stargazer (Evernight #2) by Claudia Gray -Read 12/14
🔗 Prisoncorp (Orphancorp #3) by Marlee Jane Ward -Read 12/18
🔗 Fabled Kingdom (Fabled Kingdom #2) by Queenie Chan -Read 12/23
🔗 Fabled Kingdom (Fabled Kingdom #3) by Queenie Chan - Read 12/24
🔗 Kaldoras (The Medoran Chronicles #6) by Lynette Noni -Read 12/26
🔗 Supernova: Petir by Dee Lestari -Read 12/28

Trim That TBR, starting 10/5/24

How Many? (6)
✔1. Lost Cause fin 10/20
✔2. All the Seas of the World - fin 11/3
✔3. The Adventures of John Blake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship - fin 11/10
✔4. Emergency Skin - fin 11/18
✔5. A Memory Called Empire(Teixcalaan #1) - fin 11/26
✔6. [Distances] - fin 12/3

Share the Love (sorted by date pub)
✔1. Service Model, pub 7/4/24 - fin 11/1/24
✔2. The Bezzle, pub 2/20/24 - fin 12/11
✔3. The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti #2, pub 2/13/24 - fin 11/19

oldest
✔4. A Great Deliverance, pub 1988 - fin 12/1
✔5. A Calculated Risk, pub 1992 - fin 10/26
✔6. Rio Grande Fall, pub 2011 - fin 1/25

Monstronsity
✔Natchez burning( Penn Cage #4), 791 pages - fin 11/10

Catch Up (series)
✔1. The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games #2) - fin 10/25
✔2. Cruel as the Grave (Justin de Quincy #2) - fin 11/7
✔3. Missing in Death(In Death #29.5) - fin 11/9
✔4. Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy #3) - fin 11/15
✔5. The Earth Awakens - fin 11/16
✔6. The Last Dance (The Seer #2) - fin 12/11

COMPLETED 1/25/25

Thanks, Tien! It's great to have this to think about just as I'm getting close to finishing both Shelf Builder and By the Month.

Trim That TBR starting October 2024
TBR = 20+16+183=9 :-o
Finished 3 of 4 groups

1. How many?!?!
added before 5 Oct 24
✔ 1. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth, 13 Oct 24
✔ 2. The Desperate Remedy: Henry Gresham and the Gunpowder Plot by Martin Stephen, 18 Oct 24
✔ 3. The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West, 21 Oct 24
✔ 4. One Woman's Year by Stella Martin Currey, 26 Oct 24
✔ 5. The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg, 25 Oct 24
✔ 6. Dog Stories by Diana Secker Tesdell, 28 Oct 24
✔ 7. The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1: The Golden Days by Cao Xueqin, 7 Nov 24
✔ 8. Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon, 10 Nov 24
✔ 9. Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu, 11 Nov 24

2. Share the love
Sort your TBR by one (1) of the following options:
✂️ "num ratings"
a. Books with the highest number
✔ 1. Watchmen by Alan Moore, 2 Feb 25, 568,257
✔ 2. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, 19 Oct 24, 317,105
✔ 3. The Circle by Dave Eggers, 11 Jan 25, 221,655
✔ 4. Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney, 15 Feb 25, 203,220
✔ 5. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, 17 Nov 24, 155,296
b. Books with the least number
✔ 1. Medieval Women in Their Communities by Diane Watt, 13 Feb 25, 6
✔ 2. The Yogins of Ladakh by John H. Crook & James Low, 31 Dec 24, 22
✔ 3. The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker, 24 Mar 25, 27
✔ 4. Dead Man's Hand by Mark Lock, 18 Nov 24, 51

3. Monstrosity
Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR.
Yes, the biggest book and just the One. If the thickest is 1,000+ pages but the 5th thickest is only 300+ pages, DO choose the book closest to 1,000+ pages
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, 983 Tried but hated it, DNF
Tombland by C J Sansom, 866
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, 672
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Lao Guanzhong, 672

4. Catch Up
Read that last book in the series!
Or at least, catch up to the latest instalment.
You must have read at least the first book before October 2024. Again, try to read the same number of book you read for (1), if not more.
✔ 1. Cut Short by M.W. Craven (Washington Poe #3.5), 6 Dec 24
✔ 2. The Mercy Chair by M.W. Craven (Washington Poe #6), 14 Jan 25
✔ 3. Joseph the Provider by Thomas Mann (Joseph and his Brothers #4), 21 Nov 24
✔ 4. The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid (Karen Pirie #3), 10 Oct 24
✔ 5. Out of Bounds by Val McDermid (Karen Pirie #4), 24 Oct 24
✔ 6. Past Lying by Val McDermid (Karen Pirie #7), 30 Oct 24
✔ 7. Joe Country by Mick Herron (Slough House #6), 27 Jan 25
✔ 8. Slough House by Mick Herron (Slough House #7), 7 Feb 25
✔ 9. Bad Actors by Mick Herron (Slough House #8), 26 Feb 25

Trim that TBR 2024
Read: 25/25
Completed May 2025

1. How many?!?! 988
✅1. Yellowface - 11/4/24
✅2. Beartown - 12/31/24
✅3. Kalooki Nights - 11/17/24
✅4. Gap Creek - 11/2/24
✅5. Controlled Burn: Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men - 11/29/24
✅6. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - 1/19/25
✅7. Recursion - 2/13/25
✅8. The Vanishing Half - 2/15/25

2. Share the love - ✂️ "date pub"
a. Most recent date
✅1. A Thousand Recipes for Revenge - 11/17/24
✅2. Neon Roses - 12/7/24
✅3. What Moves the Dead - 10/23/24
✅4. This Time Tomorrow - 11/23/24

b. Books with the oldest date
✅5. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon - 1/30/25
✅6. City Boy - 12/13/24
✅7. Things Fall Apart - 5/22/25
✅8. The Outsiders - 10/28/24

3. Monstrosity
✅1. 4 3 2 1 - 1/19/25

4. Catch Up
✅1. A Local Habitation (October Daye 2) - 11/23/24
✅2. Mastering Lexie (Stronghold Doms 3) - 10/23/24
✅3. Tongues of Serpents (Temeraire 6) - 11/25/24
✅4. Heaven's River (Bobiverse 4) - 12/24/24
✅5. The Waste Lands (Dark Tower 3) - 1/5/25
✅6. Crucible of Gold (Temeraire 7) - 12/25/24
✅7. Die Trying (Jack Reacher 2) - 1/22/25
✅8. Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Sea 2) - 1/21/25

Trim That TBR
January - December 2025

My Trim That TBR Challenge (msg 10)

Books Read ❱❱

1. How many?!?! ❱❱ Take the last digit of your TBR total and read that many books off your TBR



small tbr shelf (in calibre) = 526
🔺System Collapse ❱❱ 02.11 ★★★★
🔺Adverse Possession ❱❱ 04.09 ★★★★
🔺How to End a Love Story
🔺A Wild Card Kiss ❱❱ 03.12 ★★★★
🔺Bananapants ❱❱ 02.18 ★★★★
🔺Driven ❱❱ 01.26 ★★★★

2. Share the love ❱❱ Sort your TBR by date published and read:

🔺

a. Books with the most recent date published
🔺Jan 2025 ❱❱ Once Smitten, Twice Shy
🔺Dec 2024 ❱❱ Back in the Saddle ❱❱ 04.21 ★★★★
🔺Nov 2024 ❱❱ The Mirror
b. Books with the oldest date published
🔺Jan 1979 ❱❱ The Millionaire Meets His Match
🔺Feb 1982 ❱❱ The Belligerent Miss Boynton
🔺Feb 1988 ❱❱ Irish Rose ❱❱ 01.25 ★★★★



3. Monstrosity ❱❱ Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR
🔺689 pp ❱❱ Shadowfever

4. Catch Up ❱❱ Read that last book in the series! Or at least, catch up to the latest instalment



🔺Destiny ❱❱ Return to Destiny ❱❱ 03.14 ★★★★
🔺Dr. Samantha Owens ❱❱ What Lies Behind ❱❱ 03.27 ★★★★
🔺Barefoot Williams ❱❱ No Kissing under the Boardwalk ❱❱ 03.23 ★★★★
🔺California Romance ❱❱ California Sunrise
🔺Corps Security ❱❱ The Long Way Home
🔺Hard Ink ❱❱ Hard to Serve

I finished quickly because for the first time since I started doing this yearly challenge, I got a TBR ending in 1!

Trim That TBR 2024
1 Oct 2024 - 30 Sept 2025 (my choice of dates)
COMPLETED 27 Jan 2025

✔1. How many?!?! (281)
Look at the total number of your TBR, take the last digit and read that many books off your TBR. If you have a "0", read 10 books.

Radar Girls, Sara Ackerman, 25 Dec 2024

✔2. Share the love
Sort your TBR by one (1) of the following options:
✂️ "num ratings"
✂️ "avg rating"
✂️ "date added"
✂️ "date pub"
and read:
a. Books with the highest number / most recent date
b. Books with the least number / oldest date
Try to read the same number of books (for a+b) as you did for (1) above, if not more.

3.56, The Body of a Young Man, Mildred Walker, 22 Dec 2024
4.64, Now or Never, Janet Evanovich, 11 Dec 2024

✔3. Monstrosity
Read 1 (one) of the 5 thickest books on your TBR.

A Free Life, Ha Jin, 27 Jan 2025, 660 pp.

✔4. Catch Up
Read that last book in the series!

Den of Iniquity, J.A. Jance, 17 Oct 2024, latest book, #26 JP Beaumont series, first book read 2008

Finished! Updated in Message 6 above.

Finished! Updated above. But somehow, my TBR is now 996 instead of going down.