Book Addiction Has Never Been So Pretty

My name is Sarah and I have a problem.
I buy books. A lot of books. I buy them used, new, paperback, hardcover, electronic. I don't discriminate. I try and read what I buy. I do. But sometimes I buy three books at once and I only make it through two before I go shopping again.  That's not to mention the times where I read a review and I can barely wait the three minutes it takes to one click buy the book on amazon. It's a sickness. My bank account hates me. I'm running out of room on my shelves.

The point I'm trying to make is that I have a ton of books that I haven't read. What's worse is that I have a ton of books that I'd forgotten that I own. I needed a way to organize my To Be Read list. Which is why when I saw this post on Book Riot I immediately texted my mom to see if she had any unused mason jars. Thankfully she had one.

The idea is that you write down all of the books you want to read and throw them in the jar (or whatever container you want, the mason jar looks nice in my room) and pick one out when you don't know what to read. So last night I spent way to much time going through my bookshelves writing down all of my unread books on colorful pieces of paper. It was a revealing exercise. Like I said before I have a lot of unread books.

After a two hours and a lot of reminiscing I'd made it through all my shelves.  Instead of being embarrassed by the number of unread books I have, I was actually quite proud of the number I have finished.  I split up my shelves by color. Classics in yellow, contemporary fiction in blue, the only sizable genre I read is historical fiction so that's in pink, and then the odds and ends (like nonfiction, young adult and fantasy) are in orange.

Had I done this months, or let's be real years, ago I'd have noticed some trends that would probably have saved me a lot of money. For starters I'll buy any classic so long as I don't already own it and think there is some slight chance in Athena's heaven that I'll ever get to it. Second, I need to stop buying historical fiction novels at rummage sales. Third, if I don't like an author once I'll be hesitant to try them again (There's no need for me to have four Zadie Smith novel's when I can barely make it a hundred pages into them). Lastly, while my young adult and nonfiction selves take up the least amount of space in my personal library they are also the ones with the highest percentage of finished books. Basically the lesson I learned was that if I'm not super into a genre I'm more critical of what I pick up. If I buy a memoir it's usually because I'm going to go home and read it that day. I should take that discipline and use it for the other sections of my library.

 

Now all my unread books are jumbled together in an antique mason jar. I officially can never say "I have nothing to read" as an excuse for well, not reading. My goal is to never go more than a day in between books. I'm hoping having everything color coded will allow me to find books I'm really in the mood for instead of forcing myself through Hemingway when all I really want is to read one of the many a killer thriller.  I think I'll draw from the jar at least every five books. That way I can still read what I want and make a dent in my personal library.  Here's hoping that this is a system I can stick with!

Do any of you have strategy for cutting down on unread books? What about ever growing TBR lists? I'm all ears!