Faye’s Thoughts On… TBR’s

I am constantly creating mini-TBRs and talking about the books on my massive TBR and so today I wanted to talk a little bit about TBR’s in general.

The Overall TBR

For those of you who don’t know, to clarify a TBR is your To-Be-Read list or pile or bookcase. For me, books on my TBR are ones that I own either in physical format, in ebook format or that I’m currently borrowing from the library or friends. Any book that I don’t have to hand goes on my wishlist. For the sake of clarification, I probably have over 500 books on my current TBR. Which is a lot. It’s more books than I read in a year and will probably take me over 5 years to read through them all. Thus, to make it more manageable, I generally make min-TBRs.

The Mini-TBRs

There are many reasons that I make mini-TBR’s. There’s the monthly TBR’s that I make because those are the books I want to read. The season TBR’s, the read-a-thon TBR’s and the book-buddy TBR’s. These are all small and usually larger than necessary so that I can pick and choose what I feel like reading. However, what I have noticed is that I very rarely stick to my mini TBR’s.

Choosing What Books to Read

My mini-TBR’s are supposed to be a way to help me decide what to read next. They’re a small selection of books related to some theme or mood I’m in which I can then pick and choose from. They’re all books I’m desperate to read or was desperate to read at one point and usually I start off well with them but eventually I digress and start choosing books from my larger TBR instead of my mini-TBR. Which always makes me wonder why I make mini-TBRs in the first place.

Does It Matter?

So what I want to ask is whether or not choosing books that aren’t on my mini-TBR but are on my TBR is a problem. Does it matter that I stray from my original picks and decide to read something else? Is the fact that I am still reading books I want to read okay? I ask because I can sometimes end up feeling guilty for not reading what I say I will read. And also because this is how books I was super excited for end up on my bookshelf unread for years. What do you think?

And what about you? Do you always stick to your mini-TBR piles?