See the wood stove they are piled on. The wood stove gets very hot. What has lots of pages to burn? Books have lots of pages to burn!
(Fast forward a few months) Now it is winter. Brrrrr-we need the fire to stay warm! The TBR pile is much smaller now.
It is a bit of a problem.
Here is what my TBR pile looked like at the beginning of June, just after I had read for 48 straight hours.
If you look closely, you will see that some of the books from June are still not read.
So my question is, how long should you keep a book in your pile before you give up on it, unopened, and pass it on to some reader who might cherish it? It's harder than giving up on a book you are already reading, because at that point you know you don't like it. But any one of the books in my pile could be The One...
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Like we do for SCBWI, you give a book fifty pages if you like a premise. But if you don't even get grabbed by the first two pages, I cheerfully put it on my "to-share" pile. Someone else ALWAYS likes it, and frankly, passing it on to someone else who could review it is just sharing the bounty.
ReplyDelete*gasp* Pretty, pretty books. *strokes*
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice stack, Charlotte. And if you're me, you don't ever give up. Even when you probably should. Ah, well.
Charlotte, I am having this very same dilemma! And unfortunately, I think my TBR pile is even bigger. So many books to read and not enough time...I don't know when to just give up and move on either. Ah well, there could be worse problems in the world I suppose!
ReplyDeleteGood question! I've kept this one book for about ten years unread. But I recently read it (Sophie's World) and found out that I loved it!! So any book could be the ONE...the only way to find out is to strap on yourself to a comfy chair and start reading!
ReplyDelete--Sharry
Never give up! Neverrrrrrrrr! Or at least not til you've tried a chapter or two :)
ReplyDeleteTHIS made me think of you.
ReplyDeleteI had my pile down just last week but a few arcs have come in, so its back up again. Though its not nearly as large as yours. Before I give an unread arc away, I read a few pages. If it doesn't catch me I pass it on. Hopefully the book will find a good home.
ReplyDeletePreview first you don't want to give away an unfound treasure.
I'm re-shelving my library to make it more blogger friendly, and I find myself wondering how, just how, did I end up with sooooo many books? And the To Read pile is now three full shelves... I think my local library is about to have a very happy day, and I'm going to try to stop the insanity. Well, I'll never really recover from being a book-aholic, but maybe I can slow down a tad!
ReplyDeleteI admire those who have only a few shelves of unread books around the house. Honestly, I've been carting around books I've never read from apartment to apartment for twelve years, waiting for the day when I'll get to them. Plus two boxes of summer reading from my school library (some returned from the previous summer) and about fifty library books. The backlog ever grows...
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