Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this one for a while, which makes it worthy of being my first discussion post. For some reason, 2015 seems to be the year of the TBR, as in everyone and their mother wants to reduce theirs. There has also been a lot of discussion around whether TBRs matter, book guilt, etc. So are TBRs a thing? Does the number of unread books you own really matter? Should we feel guilty for buying more books when we have so many unread already?
SHOULD WE BUY BOOKS AT ALL?
Okay, that was a little dramatic. I apologize.
Here is where I am leaning with this issue. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong. Basically: do what feels right. You want to read that back log of books you have stashed in your house? Do it. You want to go on an epic spending spree and buy ALL THE BOOKS? Go for it. As long and you’ve got the cash and you’re not hurting anyone, you’re good.
I fell into the book guilt hole earlier this year. I kept seeing posts and booktube videos about getting your TBR down to 0 by the end of the year, and I felt ashamed of the amount of books I own that I have not read. It’s not a small number, that I can guarantee. I also work across the street from a bookstore, which makes buying more books very easy. Payday hits – BAM. A few more for the pile. I felt worse and worse.
I tried to limit my book buying, to little avail. I swore I would power through a bunch of books this year, give away a bunch of books I bought a million years ago that I hadn’t yet touched. Just looking at my shelves made me feel bad about myself. But then I thought: why the hell am I doing this to myself? All I am doing is making myself miserable and ruining the thing I love most. I had to stop beating myself up about what makes me happy and just be.
Yes, I have a bunch of books that I own that I haven’t read yet, and maybe I’ll never get to them all. Maybe I’ll die tomorrow on the way to work, a reading life tragically cut short. Who knows? All I know is that I own some bomb-ass books, and I’m going to read keep reading bomb-ass books until I kick it.
Happy reading, friends.
The Neverending Unread 