At the end of 2009, I set for myself the goal of reading mostly from my shelves in 2010. The main reason for this is that I have so many unread books in my house. The only way to keep myself from drowning in a sea of unread books is to read them and then give away the ones that I don’t think I’ll want to reread. I had plans to avoid the library because I can’t leave with just one book, and every library book I check out means another unread book on my shelf. I’m still interested in reading almost every book I’ve acquired in the last few years, so I was content to confine myself to those, Classics Circuit books, any Early Review books I might get from Library Thing, and whatever audiobooks I might rent from Booksfree. I did decide to keep my Bookmooch and Paperbackswap accounts but to only request books that I had already read and wanted for my permanent collection or books that my library doesn’t carry.
And then last week I hit a snag. All the conversation about reading books by people of color got me thinking. When I looked at my shelves, I didn’t find a single book by an author of color. I’ve since realized that there were a few that I hadn’t noticed, but my shelves are still pretty close to lily white. I knew that reading from my shelves would mean reading white, so I purchased a few new books and added a bunch of books to my “someday” list. I took most of these from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list, and I also added a few from authors I’ve wanted to explore. If any of those weren’t available at the library, I also added them to my lists at my book swapping sites. So my shelves will get more diverse, but the inflow of books might not slow down as much as I had hoped.
So now I’m in a bit of a pickle. My goals, to read from my shelves and to read in color, are in tension with each other. And who knows what other goals I might develop over the year that are in tension with these two? What if I join another book club? What if all my favorite authors release books I must read right now? What if I suddenly decide I must finally finish reading the complete works of Thomas Hardy? What if I get a craving for graphic novels? Moods come and go, and I’m just not leaving myself much room to read according to my mood. I have enough on my shelves to suit most moods, but, as my revelation about authors of color suggests, I don’t have a book for every situation.
I’m still sticking with my basic plan for now, but I’m looking at doing some culling of my shelves. If I can get some of these books out of the house, I think I’ll feel less pressure. A lot of the books I own are in fact available at the library, so I might get rid of some of those books and add them to my “someday” list. If, upon reading them someday, I decide they are keepers, I can always get new copies. We’ll see how that goes.
Is this kind of thing a problem for you? How do you balance planned reading with new whims and changing goals?
In other news: The launch of Diversify Your Reading was a great success. In less than a week, we’ve had over 30 bloggers add review links, and almost every category has a least a few authors listed. (The handful that don’t are ones that I thought might not be viable because the populations represented are so small.) Thanks to all who joined in by adding links, linking to the site on your own blogs, and volunteering to help. More help, links, and publicity would be welcome. It occurred to me this week that it might be nice to have a button that participants can display on their blogs if they link, so if any of you are button whizzes who’d like to create something that fits with our colored pencil theme, please let me know.
Notes from a Reading Life
Books Read
- The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois. For the Classics Circuit. Review posting tomorrow.
- The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. For the LOTR Readalong.
Currently Reading
- The Reckoning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. The 15th Morland Dynasty book.
- The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien. For the LOTR Readalong.
- The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (audio). First in the Bartimaeous Trilogy, a YA series about a djinni and an apprentice magician.
- The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry. Poetry lessons. I’m still managing about a lesson a week.
On Deck
- Family Britain by David Kynastan. Social history of post-War Britain. From the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
- The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud (audio). The second Bartimaeous book.
New Acquisitions
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I liked After Dark on audio pretty well, so I’d like to try more Murakami.
- A Mercy by Toni Morrison. Beloved is the only Morrison I’ve read, and I’ve been meaning to read more for years.
- A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee. Lee has been on my mental list of authors to try for a while.
- Silence by Shusako Endo. One of my all-time favorite books. I got this from Bookmooch to add to my permanent collection.
- Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School: We the Children by Andrew Clements. An unsolicited review copy. A kids’ book that looks kind of cute by an author I’ve heard good things about. I don’t know yet if I’ll read it, but I do enjoy a kids’ book now and then, so I’m holding onto it for now.
On My Someday List
As I mentioned above, I added tons of books by authors of color to my someday list, but I’m not going to list all of those because there are too many. A few are in the mail from Bookmooch and Paperbackswap, and I’ll mention them when they come in. The books below are just ones that I saw mentioned on blogs this week.
- Thursday Night Widows. A mystery/thriller from South America that Danielle said reminded her of the works of Barbara Vine.
- The Lie by Petra Hammesfahr. Another thriller mentioned by Danielle. This one is from a German author and involves doppelgängers.
- The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. This review at Fleur Fisher Reads reminded me that I’ve been wanting to read more Tey, and this one was one of the inspirations for Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, which I loved.
- The Gates by John Connolly. Stefanie made this book about a boy named Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell sound just delightful.
- The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. Steph’s review reminded me that I’ve wanted to read more Fitzgerald since I read and enjoyed Offshore.
I try to not plan too far ahead or too precisely- at the moment, I’ve got eight books out from the library that have a good mix of science fiction, historical fiction, and nonfiction. As long as I don’t read the same genre in a row, I feel I’m doing fairly well.
I’m really impressed by Diversify Your Reading, I have to say- I’ll make sure I pass along pertinent reviews.
Clare: Reading from my shelves allows me to mix genres and all pretty well, but it doesn’t allow me to follow an entirely new whim, which I do like to do sometimes.
I haven’t been very good at balancing my reading of new books and what’s already on my shelf so starting tomorrow and lasting until the end of March, I’m not going to buy any new reads or check out books from the library. I have a lot of great books on my shelf that are unread. If I do well, hopefully it’ll help me change my habit of buying books and not reading them.
You should put The Bookshop at the top of your to-read list. I read it years ago and loved it. Have a great week.
Vasilly: I just can’t get the outflow of books to keep up with the inflow. I’ve been on a library ban for a while, but that hasn’t been quite enough. (And I do miss the library.)
A couple of years ago, due to space constraints, I culled some books I had never got round to reading, which were available at the library. So far I haven’t missed them. So I say yes, get rid of some of your stash if it is stressing you. Then you won’t feel so bad about getting stuff you do want to read from the library.
I love getting books from the library…and I love taking them back. There isn’t the burden of buying a book and feeling I have to read it because I bought it.
Miss Moppet: Yes, so many of my books are available at the library that I’m pretty sure I could get by without having them in the house! It’s nice to hear that you didn’t miss the books you culled because I’m seriously considering doing the same thing, maybe posting a few to a swap site each week.
And I usually do read everything I get from the library. I live in walking distance but not super close, so I never take more than I can easily carry, which helps.
I didn’t join a diversity challenge, but the diversity blog definitly has me planning to read more diverse books this year so I can add more links :)
Lenore: I’m staying challenge free this year, but the new blog is encouraging me to be more aware of the mix of authors I’m reading.
Well I’ve long touted that I’m an intuitive reader, meaning I need to read books that suit my current moods, but like you I tend to feel like my backlog of unread books are so great that I can pretty much find SOMETHING to read in my apartment… but like you, the diversity there, while not completely homogenous, is pretty uniform and white-centric. I haven’t put myself on a strict “no book buying”-style ban, but I am trying to read more of what I already own before heading back out into the book store stacks.
I guess we just need to decide what our priorities are when it comes to books and accept that these will shift back and forth over time. Sometimes I’m more dedicated to reading what I already own, and other times I’m more interested in diversifying my reading. It’s a tenuous balance some times, but I don’t think it’s impossible!
Steph: Yeah, priorities shift for me, but taming the TBR stack has been a big one for a while. I’m just thinking I need to take more serious measures beyond slowing the acquisitions!
Well, I didn’t used to plan, but I’m trying to do that this year in hopes it’ll keep me focused and on track. For me, my main and most important goal for this year is to finish all the books on my ARC-alanche pile (I’ve already lost one somewhere… maybe under the dresser they’re sitting on?), and just tried to fold everything else into that. LOL.. of course, there weren’t any LOTR books on my pile, or Sookies and 451s, so a little expansion is putting a big cramp in my style. So, the answer do I face the same dillema is YES!
OH, I wish I were a speed reader with photographic memory! Read it all now, process it later. :D
koolaidmom: Ah yes, the review copies. I don’t request those anymore, except through LibraryThing, because they do stress me out and I like to mix up the old and the new. When I was requesting ARCs, I was reading too much new stuff. I had to unsubscribe from the Shelf Awareness newsletters because I saw too many that looked interesting. Thank heavens I’m not on many lists for unsolicited copies! I’ve only gotten two of those.
I only wish I could find an answer to the question of balance. Inflow exceeds outflow here too. One thing that I would say is that I find queuing systems useful. Desirable books go on a wishlist before buying or ordering from the library. When the list reaches a certain size I pick the top priorities. And I pile up books to go and look at them for a while before thay go to a charity shop. It somehow makes it easier to let go of more books.
fleurfisher: Maybe making a pile of discards is my first step. Off the shelves is one step closer to out the door, after all!
When I was writing about buying books, another blogger left a comment saying I should always get five books out the library a week even if I didn’t read them – it didn’t matter, just kept the libraries in business and hopefully in government funds. But I do the thing of conflicting my goals all the time – or at least adding to my goals in capricious ways. I thought I had this year’s reading mostly sorted, and then suddenly I conceived a huge desire for a blockbuster reading challenge, and wanted instantly to line up Gone With the Wind, The Valley of Dolls and The Thorn Birds. I still want to, but am gritting my teeth and refusing to get them for a couple of months still. It’s painful, though! Alas, the library up the road in my village doesn’t have any of them – I shall have to look further afield. And I will stop by at the diversity in reading site – I’m just such a technophobe I’m afraid I’ll get the posting all wrong. But I will try because it’s such a great idea.
litlove: I know what you mean about the sudden new desires. I’ll see people talking about a particular author or genre, and then that’s all I want to read. Maybe it’s like dieting, where when you’re craving something you’re supposed to drink a glass of water or eat something healthy and then wait a few hours to see if the craving goes away. Maybe with the new cravings, we should wait a few weeks?
And adding to the Diversify blog is pretty simple. Just make a comment like you would anywhere and paste the link to your review in the comment. One of the administrators will add it to the post later.
Girl, let me tell you, I am struggling so much with this concept “read from my shelves”. And I have so many awesome books on there! But the mood strikes, I’m playing around on BookMooch or walking through the aisles at the library and what do you know…I’ve acquired more BOOKS!
I’m a pretty whimsical chick. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Christina: I KNOW! I have books on the shelf that I’m dying to read. But then there are so many other books I don’t have. And for some reason I think that adding them to my shelves will make me read them sooner. Ha!
I think listening to your moods is very important…I do all the time, and it’s why my shelves are full of unread books. But browsing through bookstores is just too much fun, and since I’m almost always in a different mood, I’ll usually find something to take home. Right now I’m reading a book that I bought a couple of years ago. It’s an interesting book, but it is making me wonder just exactly what I was thinking when I bought it!
softdrink: I do have a few on my shelves that I wonder about. But when I take them off the shelf to give them away, I read the back and think “well, I can imagine being in the mood for that at some point.” So it goes back on the shelf.
I have yet to find a balance between planned reading and reading at whim and I’ve been reading for close to 40 years. Maybe I’ll have it figured out in another 40 years! ;)
Stefanie: At least the process of figuring it out is fun–what with all the reading!
I’ve been thinking the exact same thing….I was able to find about 6 or 7 books on my shelves that could count as diversifying my reading, but that won’t be enough to last the rest of the year. I’m going to hope that my book club has some PoC options. And perhaps the Classics Circuit will, too? In my “buy less books” scenario, I am allowing myself one book a month, and I think I will just need to make sure that every book I get that way is something that diversifies my shelves.
dailywordsandacts: Making your one purchase a POC author sounds like an excellent plan!
LOL. this sounds so familiar. My goals are always colliding.
I too decided that for Black history month I’d read something by an African-American from my shelves. It was embarrassing that I had a hard time finding a book that I haven’t already read. I really need to OWN more of the diverse books I want to read.
Rebecca: I know. It made me so sad to see how white my TBR pile was. Totally unintentional on my part, but I think that’s what happens when you acquire willy-nilly as I’ve been doing.
I’m one of the few bloggers I know about who owns very few books I haven’t read. I get almost everything I read from the library, both from principle (I like to support the library even more than the publishing industry, since the library supports the publishing industry for me) and for budgetary reasons. Normally, in terms of mood, this is never a problem — I go to the library about once every ten days to two weeks, and my moods and whims don’t change *that* often. But just this week, I didn’t have anything to read! I have a stack of books ready to go to France that I didn’t want to start, I didn’t have anything out from the library, and I’d read everything else on my shelves except a few large nonfiction tomes that I wasn’t in the mood for. This was the first time in many years that this has happened… Maybe I should mooch a few for emergencies!
Jenny: I can’t believe I went through periods, back when I had no extra money, where all my books came from the library–and a few from friends’ shelves ;-) It was always a pleasure to go browse the stacks.
I live in walking distance of the library and a Books-a-Million, with a Barnes and Noble very close by as well, so getting something to read is never a problem. I’ve come to the conclusion that about a shelf or two of books is adequate to keep me from running out of stuff to read, but getting down to a single shelf is going to take some serious work!