I always say I’m not chuffed about how many books are on my TBR… but it turns out I don’t like having over a thousand books on it 😛 Looking back in my book blogging folder, I’ve done this at least three times, creating docs to track which books I removed in Dec 2020, Jan 2018, and Dec 2015. However, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this process publicly. So that’s what today’s post is about!
When I started this project on December 29, I had 1,028 books on my TBR. Ideally, I’ll hack it down to about 990.
I started with my to-read comics shelf. I decided to remove only one book from there: Harley Quinn (2013-2016) #1 (added Apr 2014). Then I moved on to my to-read-favorite-authors shelf.
- Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
- Scorpion Shards by Neal Shusterman
- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago
- The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
- A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
- Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
- Yes, I am mostly over Murakami and his every day nonsense and his sexualization of women
Finally, I moved on to the classic strategy: open my to-read shelf, sort by date added ascending, and work my way through the list. At this point, I started taking better notes as to the position and date added of each title.
- Russia and the Soviet Union by John M. Thompson (#1, 18 Jun 2012)
- I’m finally letting this one go! It’s a textbook last updated in 2021. I hought it would be a good overview/introduction but reviews suggest it is meh. Realistically I was never going to read it…
- Cloud and Ashes by Greer Gilman (#33, added 7 Jan 2013)
- Apparently this has a lot of sexual assault – no thank you.
- Utsubora by Asumiko Nakamura (#96, added 19 February 2014)
- Too Murakami-esque, not interested in this type of story (thriller, mysterious woman, lots of sex and suicide)
- Big Questions from Little People: And Simple Answers from Great Minds compiled by Gemma Elwin Harris (#49, added 16 October 2013)
- Sounds too twee and fluffy for me
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Chronicles IV: Cloaks & Daggers by Daneil Falconer (#101, added 3 March 2014)
- Six of these books were published to accompany The Hobbit films. For some reason this was the only one I couldn’t get a copy of. It doesn’t need to be on my official TBR.
- Mountain Girl River Girl by Ting-xing Ye (#114, added 9 April 2014)
- IIRC I added this to my TBR when I was taking a course on Chinese literature. I had read a different title by the author in grade school and had returned to it for the course. I’m not that interested in this story, though.
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith (#120, added 18 April 2014)
- Honestly not sure why I ever added this to my TBR… probably as one of those books I felt I ‘really should’ read
- The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen (#121, added 4 May 2014)
- I went through a spate where I added a bunch of books about the history of Japan to my TBR. This one (as do a few that follow) sounds too dry and too long for me to ever actually attempt.
- History of Japan by Richard HP. Mason and John Caiger (#123, added 4 May 2014)
- Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo (#126, added 4 May 2014)
- Japan: Its History and Culture by W. Scott Morton and J. Kenneth Olenik (#128, added 4 May 2014)
- Little Adults by Anna Skladmann (#140, added 18 May 2014)
- Seems to be an odd little book of portraits of Russian children of oligarchs. Not sure how it got on my radar but I don’t think I’d ever be able to get a hold of a copy.
- The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler (#142, added 27 May 2014)
- I have read enough middle grade since adding this to know I probably wouldn’t enjoy it!
- Fat & Bones: And Other Stories by Larissa Theule (#163, added 6 September 2014)
- Another odd slim short story collection that’s probably not to my taste and would be difficult to get a hold of.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (#232, added 23 March 2015)
- Added this to my TBR as a way to better understand Tolkien’s religion. I am never going to sit down and read through the entire catechism lol. Maybe I will flip through some of it some day…
- The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (#227, added 12 March 2015)
- When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen (#254, added 3 June 2015)
- The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (#261, added 15 July 2015)
- I have learnt since adding this to my TBR that Sanderson-style fantasy is not for me.
- Children of Earth And Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay (#320, added 24 May 2016)
- Ditto above.
- A Short History of the Danish Conquest by Eleanor Parker (#367, added 30 November 2016)
- The Child Thief by Brom (#379, added 26 December 2016)
- Shadows of the Master by Emily Rodda (#390, added 16 January 2017)
- I never read Deltora Quest, so this can go.
- The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente (#422, added 2 Mar 2017)
And that brings me down to 993! (I also moved a few books to reference shelves, instead of TBR shelves.) I still have quite a bit of ways to go through my TBR (I’m at #409) but that will take a few more hours and I want to publish this post. So this will do for now 🙂
What’s your strategy for maintaing your TBR, if you have one?
Do you ever give it a ‘deep clean’ like I do?
This is very cool and something I should probably do one of these days. I currently have 3954 books on my Goodreads TBR! Obviously I’ve been adding books for years and never removing them. Lol help!
Ooh, it might be an especially fun task if you’ve never removed any – might be neat to see how/if your tastes have changed.
I do not have great strategies for revisiting or weeding my TBR list (5627 titles and counting), but I really need some! Thank you for the ideas. I’m also loving how I can filter my TBR list with StoryGraph, I think that will help a lot if I ever set aside time to work through it!
Jessica
Glad you found this helpful! 😊 I assume you have a lot more picture books on your TBR than I do? One thing I did that I didn’t mention in this post is place holds on a bunch of older PBs on my TBR so I can quickly flip through them and see if they’re now dated and can go. Not sure if that is a helpful tip for you haha but there it is.
No real strategy, but I love the idea of giving it a “good clean,” especially since it feels overwhelming at the moment.
I recommend it! It is satisfying to give a good clearing out, and know you’re left just with what interests you most.
While my TBR is not as extensive as yours, I did a similar cleaning at the end of last year! I think I got close to 100 books off it – feels so much lighter!
That’s a good amount removed! It is nice to feel like you only have books you’re truly interested in on your TBR.
Even though I lost my TBR list back in the October Goodreads Fiasco (where I deleted all of my books), I’m back to around 250, which is pretty average. I don’t deep clean, but I do go through and see why I haven’t read books if they have been published. Can I not get a copy from the public library? Why didn’t they order it? Is it really that appealing? Things don’t stay on the TBR for longer than a year or two. I don’t ever buy books, so it’s never a matter of discarding an actual book. I’m glad that you made progress in your list; it does make things seem less overwhelming!
I do read or give away periodically. I’m doing that this year with 101 books from my shelf.
101! That will be a satisfying amount to work through.
i think i was at around 800 books on my TBR so last month i just… deleted them all. it was scary but soo freeing. i’m trying to keep mine at 50 for now and i have an additional ‘on my radar’ shelf for newer releases. i do miss having so many options but it is nice that it feels more manageable now!
Ahhh that is really impressive! It sounds radical but I can imagine how that could work. 50 still gives you plenty to choose from for your next read without feeling the weight of 800.
I definitely want to do a deep clean, though I usually only do that when there’s a challenge that Shealea’s spring cleaning. And I’ve had the same feelings with Murakami, I don’t have any interest in continuing reading his books
Ooh yes, I remember seeing you post about that challenge! Maybe I’ll participate this year to get through the other half of my TBR.
There’s so many other great Japanese authors in translation nowadays; I think we won’t miss much by skipping Murakami…
[…] Removed +30 books from my TBR as part of my New Year TBR Tidy […]