Thursday Thoughts || TBR Lists

Hello there, friends! Welcome to Thursday Thoughts. This is a original, interactive, weekly feature here on my blog. Everyone with an opinion is invited to make a post, link up and join the conversation! I have a feeling that I may have a little less to say than usual this week, so just a small disclaimer; this post may be a bit shorter than some of the others. However, I could be totally wrong and just babble forever as I have a tendency to do. We'll have to wait and see. Anyways, the topic for this week is TBR Lists. I originally titled it "Monthly TBR Lists," but took off the "monthly" since I felt like maybe it should be slightly more broad.

Let me start off for defining TBR lists for those of you who may be a little confused. TBR is short for "To Be Read." On Goodreads, "to read" is the pre-set shelf where all of the books you mark as unread go. They're either read, currently reading or to read. A TBR pile is the figurative pile of books you may or may not own (personally, I consider my TBR pile to be the unread books I own and the ones I don't own are just.. books I want.) A TBR pile is not to be confused with a TBR list. A TBR list for the purposes of this post is the potential list of books you want to read in a certain period of time (event, week, moth, year, whatever.) So, a TBR pile and a TBR list can be the same thing, but don't have to be. Is that all clear as mud now? Great.

Personally, I think I own less books than your typical blogger/vlogger. That's not because I don't want more, it's because I'm a newbie. Anyways, because I don't have tons of books, the fact that my TBR pile is larger than my owned books isn't as big of a problem. When people's TBR piles get out of control, that's usually where book buying bans come in (see Thursday Thoughts from 2 weeks ago!) However, another way to stay organized when your TBR pile is insane is to make TBR lists each month or week. Now, analyze that sentence. I said "way to stay organized." Notice how I did not say "get excited about reading" or "create themes."

Lately, here's what I've started to do; When the month starts and I have a lot of books whirling around in my brain, I'll make a shelf on Goodreads. I'll call it "june-tbr." Then I will load onto there the books I'm interested in reading that month or need to read that month for events. For example, this month I plan on participating in the Booksplosion Read-a-Long as well as the brand new New Adult Book Club. (Both of those are links to their respective Goodreads groups.) Those right there are two books that I need to remember and stay motivated to read. If I don't keep those events in my brain, by the time the read-by dates roll around I'm screwed. These are reasons that I do and think you should create monthly TBR lists.

However, I want to emphasize some things. If you become someone who makes TBR lists, you need to remember that it's not permanent. You don't have to read all of those books in the month. Don't put pressure on yourself to do so. That's a recipe for a reading slump if you ask me. Another gateway to reading slumps? Themed TBR lists. Unless you're someone who can read tons of books in a month and isn't an impulse reader (someone who needs to be in the mood for a certain book) like myself, just do not do it. Reading only contemporaries in the month of June might sound fun, but what happens when you're itching for that dystopian? And October is the perfect month for paranormal and horror, but that doesn't mean you can't read that sci-fi book that caught your eye. Reading should be fun and reading should be done at your own pace. Do make TBR lists. Do not get down on yourself if they don't go the way you planned.