The Next Best Book Club discussion

My waiting-on-my-shelf shelf contains 179 books. I'm sure the real number is more than double that.

This challenge is an effort to motivate me to read the books I have rather than borrowing new books from the library or friends.
You are welcome to join me or cheer me on.

Good luck on your plan! I also have a TBR pile that I must get through, but those other books I just happen to find are so tempting! I must admit though I have nowhere near 179. :) Good luck with your challenge..

That is a great goal, Esther. Good luck with it.

Yes! Finished my first today - Frankenstein!
I'm creating a new shelf to kept tracks of the books I have read from my own library.

Thats a great idea, Esther. I'll jump on board with you and try to do this myself. I have alot of books to read on my shelf and have tried to read a certain number before buying any new ones, but I never have been able to do it. Making a separate shelf like that is a great idea. Maybe that will motivate me too. Good luck to all of us with this goal!

I will join you Ester. I'm so ashamed to admit it but I have over 1,00 books that I own. :{ But before y'all gasp at me I Have read alot of them. I've kept them because either I want to read them again or because they are so good that I want to pass them down to my daughter and the gradnchildren I hope to have one day. Also alot of them are still one schools cirriculum (sp?). lol

Karen wrote: "I will join you Ester. I'm so ashamed to admit it but I have over 1,00 books that I own. :{ But before y'all gasp at me I Have read alot of them. I've kept them because either I want to read them a..."
I like to keep a lot of books but now I do the 'Will I read it again?' test. If the answer is 'no' I put it on bookmooch.

Esther wrote: "I like to keep a lot of books but now I do the 'Will I read it again?' test. If the answer is 'no' I put it on bookmooch..."

It's a good test, Esther!
My test is the 'Will I be willing to pay for the shipment when I move again?' test. I used to own all the books I had ever bought, but I had to sell or give more than 90% of them away when I moved across the continents, which I have done a couple of times now. If I'm willing to pay to keep them with me, they sure deserve to be on my bookshelf!

I'll be joining you Esther - I have 126 books in my house that I have to read, plus the one that I'm reading now, plus Mockingjay which should be in the mail to me next week. So no more books until Christmas and by then, maybe I'll be able to get my pile into the double digits :)

Thanks you guys for keeping me company.

I have put aside Angel's Game (library book) for the moment and will finish Northern Lights from my own shelf.

I am trying the same thing right now. Unfortunately, I have over 300 books. I want to be able to spend some time with my own books. So about a week ago, I took all my books back to the library and am trying to keep to my own books.

Good Luck, Esther!

choco wrote: "Esther wrote: "I like to keep a lot of books but now I do the 'Will I read it again?' test. If the answer is 'no' I put it on bookmooch..."

It's a good test, Esther!
My test is the 'Will I be w..."

In my lifetime of 82 years I have disposed of 3 libraries of books "I can't part with". Now I have 23 SHELVES of books that I MUST weed out. Problem is, sometimes I have to buy one back to reread.

Good luck, Esther!!! I'm doing the September Book Ban in an effort to read some of my own TBR. I haven't even recounted my TBR since my last book sale. I'm afraid of the new amount.

I've recently made a list of the books I own that I have not read yet. Will be trying to get through a few in the next few months before Christmas.. *crosses fingers*

Sam wrote: "I've recently made a list of the books I own that I have not read yet. Will be trying to get through a few in the next few months before Christmas.. *crosses fingers*"

Sam I'm doing the same thing! I'm going to go through withdrawals since I'm not checking any books out from the library!! Good luck to you!

Karen wrote: "I will join you Ester. I'm so ashamed to admit it but I have over 1,00 books that I own. :{ But before y'all gasp at me I Have read alot of them. I've kept them because either I want to read them a..."
Karen, will not gasp. I have over 3000 on my shelves and around 576 on my kindle before I stopped counting. The number of books I haven't entered on Gooodreads is growing because I can't get them entered as fast as I buy them, much less the ones I already owned that I haven't entered. I almost ordered a few books I already have, because the publishers had changed the covers, so I didn't remember them.

This is a good plan, but still won't catch me up by Christmas. May do it in two years of daily reading, maybe.

This is a wonderfully treacherous obsession.

My at-home library is not that large but I have about 32 books that I recently bought (used) that I want to read. Of course I do have more books that I am keeping that I will re-read at some point. I'm not sure what type of challenge I would give myself to read these, as I know that there are other books that I will read in-between as well. Maybe before New Year's?

What gets me is the free ebooks for kindle. I always wanted a classics library - now mine has grown so big because of free ebooks that I need another lifetime to tack onto this one to get them all read. I should have at least stopped smoking.

LOL-I hear you on that one Yorby!!! :)

Yobi, I am astonished. Now I don't feel so bad. I did moe into an effiency in December which only has alittle over 550 sq ft so I had to get rid of a whole lot of books. However I did make enough money to buy more. I have them in the living and bedroom part ( that's all one big room. They also take up one whole side of my closet, almost half of my pantry and part of my kitchen. Fortunatley, I live alone, so there is no one that I have to answer to. I do have a few library books which I want to finish before I start this challenge, but it won't take me very long. I do know that I won't have alot of my already owned books finished, but I will be making a good dent in them.

Susan wrote: "Sam wrote: "I've recently made a list of the books I own that I have not read yet. Will be trying to get through a few in the next few months before Christmas.. *crosses fingers*"

Sam I'm doing ..."

Thank you and good luck to you as well! I'm hoping I'm going to be fine when I've at least read a few off my tbr list - then I woon't feel so guilty about buying a few new ones! Haha!

I also have an excel spreadsheet with a list of the books I one on it. But I have since weeded through them a couple of times in order to get rid of them, so I'm not real sure if I have all the ones on my list. I don't want to add the wrong edidtions. I'm also starting a spreadsheet of the books that I've read just this year. I'ts going to be very interesting to see how many I end up with. Unfortunately, most of the books that are on my to-read list are not ones that I own. (Shame on me:))

Karen wrote: "I also have an excel spreadsheet with a list of the books I one on it. But I have since weeded through them a couple of times in order to get rid of them, so I'm not real sure if I have all the one..."

I've given up on spreadsheets. I keep forgetting which one is current and needs to be updated. I just keep creating shelves here on GR and make sure that here I am always up to date.
I having yet listed all my books because some of them are a little inaccessible but every new book through the door gets listed on GR.

Esther, the problem that I had with that was that sometime I would purchase books that I already had but hadn't read yet. I'm just going to start picking the first book I see off of my floor (need to get those cleared out first) and read it. Right now I'm reading In the Woods by Tana French.Unfortunately it is not one that I oen. I want to at least read the few that I have from the library before I start this. I do have one of my own that I just finished and three more of my own that I'm currectly reading. Two of them are extremely hard to read and not sure if I'll finish them. I'm going to have to look at you shelves, if I can and you don't mind or do we have to be friends to do that, and see how you have them set up. I would like to keep track of the ones read this year, ones I own and by genre. Is it possible to have the same book on two or more different lists. Also I don'tknow if it's possible, but I have tried to redo some of my shelves a little at a time, but I can't seem to move any books from one shelf to another without deleting it and adding it to a different shelf. And if I want to move a book that I have reviewed to another shelf I have to hand copy all the review info when I add it to a different shelf. Okay I'm done compalining! Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Happy reading y'all.

I suppose I am technically joining in on all of this, although I am including my mom's books in this, too, since she has so many that I want to read. I did a good weed-out when I moved from Texas to Pennsylvania after graduating from college, but I'll need to do another before my next move, and the best way to figure out which books to keep is to read them. I do know my Harry Potter books will always stay with me, as will a lot of my fantasies, but goodness, that's only about half of what I have sitting around. I currently have over 50 books stacked up on my bed (it's a futon with flat-topped wooden arms just wide enough for books) right now, and I haven't read the majority of them. They're mostly there because I'm trying to move toward rearranging my bookshelves so things are easier to find.

I haven't got a clue how may books I'll be able to read before Christmas, since I'm a slow reader unless I am really interested in the book, but I'm going to give myself until February to get through as many of my books as possible. By the time February comes around I'll know if I need to start weeding out books then or if I get to wait another ten months to weed them out.

Karen wrote: "Esther, the problem that I had with that was that sometime I would purchase books that I already had but hadn't read yet. I'm just going to start picking the first book I see off of my floor (need ..."
What a great idea, seeing how others set up their books. I need one that is just for Kindle so I can put them both under their catagories, and Kindle. Has anyone noticed that with Kindle you have postition instead of page numbers? How many agree that goodreads ought to make it where we can enter either?

Caity wrote: "I suppose I am technically joining in on all of this, although I am including my mom's books in this, too, since she has so many that I want to read. I did a good weed-out when I moved from Texas t..."

Reading slowly is great. We would think deeper if we read slower, kind of like eating a great meal instead of gobbling a great meal on the run and missing the whole experience. We are only in competition with ourselves, and maybe we don't even need to compete there.

Quality, not quantity. You are doing great.

Erika wrote: "Yoby wrote: "Has anyone noticed that with Kindle you have postition instead of page numbers? How many agree that goodreads ought to make it where we can enter either? "

You can do that now! I just..."What if you read it on your ipod touch?

Yoby wrote: "Caity wrote: "I suppose I am technically joining in on all of this, although I am including my mom's books in this, too, since she has so many that I want to read. I did a good weed-out when I move..."

The problem is that it can take me 3-4 minutes to get through a single page unless it's something simple, short, or I am completely fascinated by it. I can easily comprehend something I read at a much faster pace, and I used to read a lot faster than I do now, but head injuries before high school and whatnot screwed me up. When I was in school if we had to read something in class I would be the last one finished and people started treating me like I was stupid if I couldn't finish in time, including teachers. I hate being treated like a child because I can't get through 10 pages of Crime and Punishment in the five minutes allotted.

Caity wrote: "Yoby wrote: "Caity wrote: "I suppose I am technically joining in on all of this, although I am including my mom's books in this, too, since she has so many that I want to read. I did a good weed-ou..." At least you can read crime and punishment. My son had severe learning disabilities right off the bat, and didn't learn his alphabet till he was in fifth, only read at a third grade reading level when he graduated. He is now starting a class on college algebra, and his reading keeps improving, but he still has to have lots of help.

He will graduate with an electricians apprentise degree so he can work on the wind generators T Boones Pickens is erecting in the Texas Panhandle.

It takes what it takes. he could construct a working radio out of the radio shack kits before he learned his alphabet or his math facts.

I taught him to read by having him read out of Bass Pro and Cabelo's catalogues if he wanted a new fishing lure.

He's intelligent, if only to survive all the numskulls who called him retarded. It doesn't take a genius to be unkind. Only heartless.

Okay, I have 10 physical books (as opposed to ebooks) that I haven't read and would like to finish before Christmas. Ten isn't that many, but the problem is I don't feel too excited to start reading any of them. They are all in my "currently reading" folder, and I'm wondering (only wondering!) if anyone can "sell" any of these ten books to me so that I may get a tiny bit more excited??

Karen wrote: "Esther, the problem that I had with that was that sometime I would purchase books that I already had but hadn't read yet. I'm just going to start picking the first book I see off of my floor (need ..."
I have an amazing memory for trivia - half the time I don't use bookmarks becuase I remember where I am - so despite have 600+ (it might be more, I've stopped counting) books on my shelves I have never accidentally bought/received a book I already own.

Feel free to check out my bookshelves - I am a bit of an organization freak so I have a ton of shelves and each book is on several. I have also created several extra 'exclusive' shelves because one 'to-read' shelf just didn't satisfy my needs.

Caity wrote: "...When I was in school if we had to read something in class I would be the last one finished and people started treating me like I was stupid if I couldn't finish in time, ..."

I understand this. I'm an excellent reader in English and acting experience means I read out loud quite well too.
But for more than half my life I haven't lived in England and when taking classes I always avoid reading out loud because the first couple of times I did if I made mistakes people burst into hysterical laughter.
It made me feel like yelling " You trying reading this in your third language and a totally different alpha bet!!' but that wouldn't help.

choco wrote: "Okay, I have 10 physical books (as opposed to ebooks) that I haven't read and would like to finish before Christmas. Ten isn't that many, but the problem is I don't feel too excited to start readin..."

So, I would recommend throwing Captain Corelli at the wall right now. It will save you both time and frustration :0)

The two Ken Folloet's my mother has raved about and despite this I still want to read them because the historical aspect really grabs my attention. Also the fact that he normally writes thrillers should make them 'pacey'.

But my top recommendation must be for Wolf Hall. I am currently reading this and gave back a borrowed copy in order to buy my own. It is not a fast read - the language needs to be savoured and you have to think to figure out POVs etc (she isn't obscure but she does play with you) Even though I haven't yet finished it I know I will read it again.

Esther wrote: "my top recommendation must be for Wolf Hall. I am currently reading this and gave back a borrowed copy in order to buy my own."

Wolf Hall it is! Thank you, Esther!

Yoby, that is so awesome for your son. I hate it when people are treated stupid because there is one thing they are not very good at doing, but have proven themselves to be very smart in other areas. What may have annoyed me even more in college was the look I got when I said I was a film major. It always accompanied with something along the lines of "oh... well that's fun!"

I always wanted to tell them "Yeah, it's really fun spending 24 out of 28 straight hours sitting in an editing lab trying to stay awake because final cut has decided to quit cooperating and compressor keeps failing. The other 4 hours are all spent in class. Forget eating or sleeping."

Back on topic now. I'll be starting this madness with The Art of Devotion because I won it in the give-away thing on the TNBBC blog and I am actually REALLY excited about reading and discussing it. I'm not sure where to go after that, or how to organize my shelves, hahaha.

What do you do when you have a book that you wone in a giveaway and your having a very difficult time reading it? The plot sounds good, but it's hard to follow and some of the sentences run on so long that I forget what the start of the sentence said.

Write a review about why you chose to not finish it.

Thanks Kaion. I needed a good swift kick in the butt to do what I really wanted to.

Caity wrote: "Yoby, that is so awesome for your son. I hate it when people are treated stupid because there is one thing they are not very good at doing, but have proven themselves to be very smart in other area..." They watch movies and flicks, you are editing films. My friend Michael is a film major (or was, I think he graduated)) with a double in drama. I always go to him for film suggestions or to tell me what to look for, just like we look for methodologies in fiction writing. You are doing great.

No one has to understand but you. Everyone thinks their own world is the most important, so blow them off, they only do the oneupmanship thing to feel better about themselves. Read instead of thinking of organizing. Unless you have tons of books or just really dig organizing, it isn't a priority. You have wonderful adventures you are already on.

Yoby wrote: "Caity wrote: "Yoby, that is so awesome for your son. I hate it when people are treated stupid because there is one thing they are not very good at doing, but have proven themselves to be very smart..." I've learned with great regret that approval is highly overrated. Don't be like me and waste the first 50 years of your life waiting for someone to believe in you - that puts the power for your destiny in their hands, including, in their hands on a very bad day for them when they might say something hurtful just out of frustration , anger and fatigue or business in their own lives. Half of the harsh things and unthinking, unkind things people say they would take back at another point if they could. ?If people were perfect, you would have nothing to make films about, or read a book for. If everyone were perfect, there would be no reason for novels to exist. Imperfection of human interaction is our job security. A blessing in disguise.

Last night I couldn't sleep so I catalogued one of my shelves. Although I had read more than half the books 'waiting on my shelf' has hit 200!
I have 4 more shelves in that bookcase - it is not going to be pretty!

How big is your shelf? Are they hardbacks or paperbacks? Are you saving the ones that you have read for a reason? I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read most of the 1000+ books that I do own. :{ This is a very good challange for me. I need to have more pantry room. :)

Karen wrote: "How big is your shelf? Are they hardbacks or paperbacks? Are you saving the ones that you have read for a reason? I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read most of the 1000+ books that I do own. :{ Th..."

The shelf is only about 70cm long but they are double stacked.

I have two sets:
The Poldark books which are in reasonable condition. I keep them for nostalgia - I remember seeing the original series as a small child and I'm sure they are the reason I love Cornwall so much.

Gerald Durrell's books about his animal escapades. They are falling apart but I love reading them and can't yet bear to throw them out. Another year or so and they will spontaneously disintegrate.

Oh and I nearly forgot my Daphne du Maurier collection which I do reread.

And that is just one shelf

I actually threw out 2 and put 4 for bookmooch.

I'm happy to see that someone else has books that they can't part with. My sister thinks that I'm crazy, but she has never read a book twice so I know that she has no idea how fun it is to read one more than once. I'm going to have to figure out how long 70cm is. Ionly learned feet.
And I do applaud you fot parting with 6 books. :)

Karen, 70 cm is a bit over 2 feet long. A more exact (but still not quite exact) estimate is 2 feet, 3.5 inches. I'm a big time math nerd (although I'm never moving beyond calculus 1, haha. too lazy to force my brain to do that much).

I wish my mom's shelves didn't have so many temptations hidden on them! AAHHH!

You didn't say if they were paperback or hardcover. My major shelves are about 4ft long and have 7 shelves. Between that, half my pantry (which is walkin) and ahlf of my walkin closet I now understand how and where my collection of over 1000 books. But I live alone so I only find I don't have anyone else's shelves to look at for hidden temptations. :( But I do have a sister that has an actual library room in her house. So I can go over and raid her shelves (like I really need to) if I want.
As far as math, I never finished high school. I got my GED instead. I waited for a few years to take the test, but after I did everyone at work keep asking me how long and what books did I study to take the test. After I told them that I didn't know that there was material out there to study for it I was in panic mode until I got my results. Whew, I passed. I couldn't believe it. Would you believe that I then went one to become financial office manager. All without any college. Definitely a Big Blessing. But I am also very thankful that I had to retire early. MORE READING TIME. hahaheehee

Also if your doing this challange you have to read only the books on your bookshelves. Your mon's don't count. Her's are for next year. lol

I won't be around my mom's books next year. I plan on moving out in February some time if I get into AmeriCorps NCCC, which will have me gone for 10 months with limited space (I have some eBooks on my laptop, but I actually really hate eBooks), and then once I am done with that I will be getting a job and an apartment and whatnot in a city hopefully far away from my mom.

If I don't get in, I'll be skipping straight to the get a job and apartment portion of that plan as soon as humanly possible.

So if I don't read what's on her shelves now, I won't get to at all, and I have to get some of what is on my own shelves read, as well, so I can get rid of some of the books I own (those I don't plan on rereading, basically). Since we basically have an agreement that I can borrow her books whenever as long as I am here, I'm stretching this out a bit for myself.

All right you can count your mother's books. :)
What's Americorp NCCC? I want a Nook for Christmas. I've heard really good things about it. I love the actual books themselves too but the book prices are much cheaper and they don't take up alot of space, so that you can keep more of your really favorites. And if you find that the book is a keeper then you can buy it instead of wasting money on one you won't keep.

I wanted to get far away from my mom when I was younger also. I don't blame you. But make sure you keep in touch, you never know what will happen. What city or cities are you looking at?