In Defense of My Really Large Tbr
Confession: I have a really big TBR.
For those not up on the book community lingo–did I just say that? Who am I, my grandfather?–TBR stands for “to be read” and refers to the pile, shelf, cart, list, or other such containment system for the books you want to read. In my case, I’m referring to books I own in one format or another and want to read. The number, which I struggle to pin down for reasons I will get into, hovers around 750 books.
Yes, you did read that right. 750.
Some of these are physical books; the fiction contingent is about 120 strong and currently occupies 3.5 overstuffed shelves in my home library. The rest are either ebooks or audiobooks. I’d say the current fiction/non-fiction ratio is about 8:1. I don’t know for sure. The reason I don’t know for sure is because it is hard to count that many books without the use of a master list, which I am working on but if there are 750 unread books in my life, just how many do you think are total? It’s a large amount, believe me.
Now, you might be thinking this number is pure insanity and I will never be able to read that many books in my lifetime, but after some quick napkin math this afternoon, I have discovered that I read, on average, 15 books a month. So conceivably, if I could stick to reading only those books, I could finish them all in about 4 years.
Notice, I said “if” when referring to sticking to my TBR. There’s another wrench. I’m a chaotic mood reader. This, in the book community, means that I can’t plan what I’m going to read to save my life, because if I’m not feeling in the mood for the book I’ve chosen, it will not get read. I have to be in the right mood.
This isn’t just “oh I’m happy, I want to read a happy book,” though that is part of it. For me, it is also a matter of whether I want to be steeped in magic, wandering the cosmos, solving a murder; it’s a matter of genre. It’s also a matter of length–a friend lovingly calls certain books “doorstoppers,” which is a pretty evocative term for long books, don’t you think?–and pacing and complexity. I started a second-world fantasy wherein the main culture was based entirely on historical Nigerian customs, which is amazing, but my sleep-deprived brain could not keep up. That’s not the book’s fault, that’s mine! So I put it down and I’ll come back to it when I can handle it.
Sidebar: I stopped reading at a cliffhanger so I really want to know what happens, but I’m still sleep-deprived so it may take a while.
Anyway, this means that I need to find a book to match my mood whenever I start a new book (which is approximately every 2 days). Now, Madi, you might be thinking, surely you can find at least one book in those 750 to match any mood!
You are correct, I definitely can. But you know what I can’t do? Go back in time and tell the past-Madi who purchased these books that she needs to widen her horizons. Let me illustrate the problem with my physical fiction TBR:
Total: 120 books Author gender makeup: 70 women, 50 men, 0 nonbinary people Author race makeup: 108 white, 12 BIPOC Representation: 7 with queer representation, 3 with disability representation, others unknown Note: most numbers are estimates, but relatively accurate, as I’m staring at the shelf right now and doing rough counts for each category.
This is not the TBR of someone who prides themselves in reading diversely, as I do. This is the TBR of someone who grabbed what appealed to her without a care in the world. I haven’t been that person in a long time. All of the books from BIPOC authors were acquired in the last five years, as were all of the books with queer or disability representation. They aren’t the only books with those attributes I’ve purchased in that time, or even before; the rest have already been read and shelved lovingly with the rest of my collection.
Now, I still want to read every book on my physical TBR; I check in with myself regularly, and if a book no longer appeals, I bring it to my local used bookstore so someone else can enjoy it. But the ratios are all off! So what to do?
It may seem counter-intuitive, but I’m going to let my already massive TBR grow in a very deliberate way. There are books on my someday-maybe list that I want to read, and whose authors, characters, and subject matters are more representative of the diverse world we live in. I am, however, a mood reader, and though we live in the age of immediate digital books on our ereaders, I am also a person who loves paperback over all else. With a reading speed of one book every two days, 2 day shipping won’t help my ever-changing mood–and that’s assuming I go with the Big Bad Industry Supervillain selling books at prices that are putting all other booksellers at risk of extinction.
So, for the next year, while I am still aiming to reduce my TBR, I am going to buy new books. I’m going to let my TBR grow, but I’m going to grow it in a way that is representative of the person I am now, of the causes I care about, of the diversity I see in the world.
But maybe I stay away from Stuff Your Kindle days for a while.