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Your ‘to read’ pile

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I’m curious to ask everyone: how big is your ‘to read’ pile of books?

I ask because only recently have I become aware that in recent years I have started to drift into being a bit of a book-hoarder. Basically, buying books I never finish. Or in same cases I never even start. I’m sure many people on here have the same tendency, and possibly this is linked to the same collector traits that drive record collectors.

I’ve only just found out about a Japanese term which has become trendy: tsundoku. Which seems to mean exactly this, ie having a collection of books you never get round to reading. Only it is not meant as a derogatory term, more as a badge of intellectual curiosity.

Cheap, efficient second hand book shops online have helped drive my tendency to buy more books without thinking about it.

Anyway, I haven’t counted properly, but at a rough estimate :
– I have about 15 books on my ‘active reading’ pile. That is, books that sit around the place and I have started and am convinced I am going to finish, and that I have at least visited in the last month or so.
– I then probably have about 10 more I have purchased but just never got round to starting.
– And about 20 more again that I have started but never finished, and are just sitting abandoned on bookshelves sonewhere.

Is this average, extreme or otherwise? How do you compare?

2

Comments

  1. That’s all extremely different to my reading habits, Art. I almost always have one, sometimes two, books on the go. I don’t often buy them (I’m too poor!), they’re more usually borrowed from friends who recommend them, passed around among other English speaking immigrants. Occasionally I’ll buy a book cos it’s been recommended here or I’ve read something about it in the press. But I rarely give any thought to what I want to read next until I’ve finished my current read, so I never have a “to read pile” at all.

    • Urgh, that doesn’t do much to convince me I’m not just a hoarder!

      For the record, I’m poor as well! And a skinflint. But second hand books are so cheap these days, it’s enough to make my hoarding gene outweigh my thrifty gene.

    • For those who know anything about me, it won’t come as a surprise that it’s a ridiculous amount. If anything’s worth doing I generally do it to excess! I used to read a lot. I had 4 hours each day travelling to and from work. This was dramatically cut down around 2008 though and then became less and less as my health issues led to me working more and more from home, before I stopped working altogether. I have rarely read at home for years. I’m always doing something (my music obsession has accounted for the majority of the past 5 years or so) and in the evening I tend to watch films and TV until the early hours. A combination of late nights, some of my medical symptoms and some of my medication makes it difficult for me to read through the day, as I just fall asleep.

      However, despite my reading slowing to pretty much a stop, I haven’t stopped gathering books. I already had a large library to start with and this goes right back to when I was a kid. In fact, my bedroom looks more like a library, with 9 large bookshelves along two of the walls, full of books, magazines and comics. As I have kept a database of all my collections for insurance purposes, I know exactly how many books are waiting to be read, and magazines too. Comics is a little trickier. I also subscribe to Readly, so almost all my reading for the past few years has been trying to catch up with the dozen or so titles I read on that. Along with special edition magazines (mainly history ones) I think I have a backlog of around 80-100 magazines on Readly. I’m certainly around 8 months behind on the regular publications, apart from Boxing News, which I read weekly.

      I hesitate to give the figures, cos they are embarrassingly big and if I live to 100 (I’m just past the halfway mark) and started reading a few hours per day I’d never get through everything. But I have 787 books that are unread, 364 magazines, and as for comics…I shudder to even think about guessing. I actually spend ages drawing up a chronological reading list for Batman post Year One. There are a couple of websites that were a big help, but it took ages, as it wasn’t chronological in publication date, but rather where the story fits on the timeline. It includes any story that Batman was involved in, so whenever he pops up in a Green Arrow or Wonder Woman story, for example. It came to around 1,200 stories in total, some of which were one comic, others which could be a full book or a 26 comic run. I then managed to get hold of all the main stories, about half of the total amount, in comic form, which fills a bookshelf, and then the rest I have as part of a humongous digital comic collection I’ve amassed. I’m around 300 stories into this timeline. I just wish my son would show an interest, cos it really did take me ages to firstly draw up the list, but then to gather all the stories. It’d be nice if more than just me benefitted from the effort. But like just about everything else in the house, or I should say museum, the kids just aren’t interested. Their interest is restricted to around 5-10% of my film collection. So when I pop my clogs there is going to be one hell of a sale! But there are hundreds…thousands of other comics either on the shelf or on a hard drive waiting to be read. The electronic comic archive I bought is stupidly large, so if anyone is ever looking for certain out of print titles, if it is pre-1990, particularly if it is by a major publisher, I may well be able to help you. Especially DC, and certainly Batman, where I almost definitely would be able to help.

      I should have the last bits of the house finished in a fortnight, so that’s the point where I am finally going to address my daytime routine/sleep pattern (I know I’ve been saying this for years) and start putting a couple of hours per day aside to start getting through all the reading. But realistically I know I could probably get shut of around 80% of them, cos I’m just never gonna get round to them. But that’s not what collectors/hoarders do is it, and the majority of stuff filling the shelves is collectible (is that a good enough defence?). And yes, I do know the Japanese have a word for someone who buys far more books than he will ever read.

      Edit – mmm, this was supposed to appear at the bottom of the page

  2. I have books that I’ve had for upwards of 25 years that I haven’t got round to yet.

    Just had a quick look: Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, bought 22nd March 1995, according to the inside cover. Two years left of John Major, before the internet (for me anyway) and I think Reg Holdsworth was still in Coronation Street. Even the recommendation of the Beach Boys didn’t nudge me to read it. The Beach Boys!

  3. So many books, most of them so cheap especially on Kindle. Read a bit, put it down, read another. Repeat. Attention span of a befuddled gnat, that’s me.
    Currently 17 unfinished books of which I strongly suspect 15 will never be fully read.

    • But yes, attention span has a lot to do with it. I can be wildly enthusiastic about a topic one instant, then a little while later it can seem like it was no more than a passing fancy.

      • Yep, this is me too. Especially if I find something on bestbookprice.co.uk for a few quid less than retail. (“A history of the byways of the Welsh Marches? *Fascinating!* …Ooh, this is hard-going though, maybe later… What I really want right now is to read about lighthouses…!” and so it continues.)

        I haven’t counted but I should think my totals are similar to yours if not worse. Even photo books, which don’t require anywhere near as much effort to flip through, lie around barely examined. If it’s a book in a series or by an author whose work I’ve previously enjoyed, I’ll usually buy the new one immediately and tear through it in a week (e.g. the most recent installment of David Kynaston’s post-war histories). But anything that doesn’t grab me like that straight away or demands effort is highly likely to be set aside in favour of the next one, or simply scrolling twitter. Ugh.

  4. I have a pile of about six books that I have lined up to read and another imaginary pile of about 15 that I see myself reading at some time in the future. I don’t feel any pressure to get to either pile but sometimes, if I notice I am avoiding the ‘current’ book, I will drop it and go to the next one on the pile. I am reading classics all the time now as they are cheap to get second hand and have also stood the test of time. I also notice I am re-reading some of my books (after a period of many years), which either is age-related or has something to do with my sense that I am living in an increasingly insecure world (perhaps those are one and the same thing).

  6. Other than shortly after Christmas/my birthday, my reading pile always consists of the book I’m currently reading. When I finish it, I get to go buy the next one.

    Years ago someone said to me that having a big pile of unread books isn’t reading, it’s shopping. Right or not, that uncomfortable thought has always stayed with me.

    Plus, there are few joys greater than carefully selecting your next book and then immediately starting to read it.

    • @Bingo-Little

      Think the point re “shopping” rather than reading is a tad unfair.

      If there is one saving grace about buying books that you somehow never get around to reading it’s that you are still supporting the poor fuckers who struggle to make a living while writing them.

      This is especially true of the 99.999999% of writers whose name isn’t Dan Brown or JK Rowling

    • I quite like this philosophy, and I have been making active efforts to get my TBR down (just three books* in it now, and one of them is only a little novella), but I don’t think I could ever wait to finish one book before buying the next. I get very discombobulated if I don’t have at least one book on the go, and I would probably go a bit funny if I finished a book at say, 7:30pm, and had to wait until at least the next day to get a new one.

      *all the ones on the Kindle don’t count, right?

      • During lockdown when the bookshops were closed I made an adjustment and started buying books 3 at a time and ordering the next 3 when halfway through the final book. It doesn’t have to be an absolute rule.

        But the principle is that I don’t want to get into that thing of buying books for the sake of buying books. It’s distracting and it makes it easier to not read things that are challenging. Plus, if you give yourself license to buy books without reading them, why on earth would you ever not be buying books? They’re too beautiful.

        • How often do you find you abandon a book that just isn’t working for you? I always do try to struggle through, but I quite like my “finish 1/4 of the book at least” rule I describe elsewhere on this page. Any book I have been compelled to finish and can’t put down (I love that feeling) will almost definitely have me hooked before I get 1/4 of the way through.

          Reading one book at a time… hmmm… that’s such a simple rule I’m immediately suspicious. But I should probably try it!

          • Not that often, to be honest. I get through most books fairly quickly, so I generally figure I may as well push through.

            Every now and then I come across something that is so profoundly not for me that I stop reading, although there’s no hard and fast rule about how much suffering it takes to get to that point. I think when you know you know. What I do try to avoid though is letting myself stop just because something is tough going, because that’s a recipe to never read anything challenging.

            On that note, I keep a list on my phone of books I want to one day read, or feel I should read, and I generally try to get through about half a dozen of them a year (although the list inevitably grows at a similar rate). I’ve had some great experiences with books I didn’t initially enjoy but came round to once I got on the same wavelength. Persistence can be a good thing, so long as it stops short of masochism.

            • I know what you mean about how when you know you know.

              I also know what you mean not letting myself stop just cos it’s tough.

              I recall reading about Zen Motorcycle Maintenance and taking half a day to read some particular pages because I wanted to wring the last possible scintilla of profundity from every sentence. I was young once. I also remember lying on a beach in Greece persistently struggling with the cast of Gravity’s Rainbow for sunburnt days on end before resorting to Ouzo to blunt my own reluctance to speed read the thing and see if I could distill some value from it without too much more pain. I couldn’t, not really, I’d be lying if I claimed I had.

              Luckily, with a few more years and titles under my belt, I’ve honed my sense of knowing when I know to the extent that I can reliably reject a tome after less than fifty pages these days. Those books don’t get piled up in some sort of nebulously unlikely inbound pile for a re-match. They go into the phone box in the next village, where it is unlikely that anyone who knows me will have spotted me consigning them to the dustbin of middle-class aspirational book purchasing.

              I love a good yarn, they are the best.

  7. My ‘To Read’ pile is indistinguishable from my ‘Will never finish or even start reading, but haven’t admitted it to myself yet’ pile. Someone bought me the Stoppard biography, which I gamely attempted, but after a month or so of waking up every morning with my thumb still stuck between its pages, I should have admitted defeat. But still it lurks there on the bedside table, spine cracked, like a preying mantis. I have The Mirror and The Light in the same condition, although that’s more of a praying Mantel.

    • @chiz

      Someone bought me the Stoppard biography. Probably never get around to reading it so I use it to hold the door of my office/mancave open – a kind of door Stoppard if you will.

    • This is pretty much my situation as well. My “to read” got a bit a of a clear out recently when I was having builders and decorators in, and finally admitted that a chunk of them haven’t been started because I liked the idea of being the guy that reads that book more than I liked the idea of actually reading it.

      Anyway, my year has been entirely obliterated by Aubrey-Maturin (I finished the last one, again, and didn’t want to leave the world behind, so I went back to the beginning. So that’ll take me another 5 months or so, I reckon.)

  8. Warren Zevon said ‘We love to buy books because we believe we’re buying the time to read them.’ Actually he was quoting someone else, I forget who, and the quotation was given added poignancy by the fact that he knew he was dying at the time.

    I did an English degree and worked for Waterstone’s (in the days when the apostrophe was resected) for over 15 years, not because I am a particularly astute or dedicated reader, just a fairly compulsive one. I have stacks of books, literally because unless I have one of my occasional clear outs I can’t fit them on the shelves. They’re always bought, typically for insignificant sums from charity shops, with every intention of reading them all the way through. Does that happen? Of course not.

    But the cycle of buying, sometimes reading, and clearing out keeps me busy.

  9. A few people seem to have the same issue as me, which makes me feel better.

    I think I need to establish a good system. I’ve tried two things recently:

    One is whenever I start a new book, put a red dot on a page which is about a quarter of the way through the book. Until I reach that dot, I can’t legitimately give up on the book. But once I reach that dot, if the book isn’t working for me, I can abandon it with no ill feelings. But to be honest that doesn’t work as an incentive to read: it just means I have a bigger “to read” pile with red dots in them.

    The other is to have an actual physical “to read” pile, and only read one chapter of each at a time. What I mean is, read a chapter from the one at the top of the pile, then put it to the bottom of the pile, then repeat. That was meant to encourage me to keep the books flowing. But that hasn’t really worked either because of my flighty brain. The temptation to shuffle is too much, or even worse to just leave the pile untouched while I start a totally new book I’m suddenly interested in that wasn’t even on the pile in the first place. Plus jumping between different books leaves me confused and forgetting what I have read.

    I have a new system I was going to implement. Every week, only spend time with one book. If the book grabs me enough, I’ll finish it within the week anyway. But if I find I’m struggling with it, then I can abandon it guilt-free at the end of the week knowing that I gave it a fair hearing. So I might start that system next week!

  10. I have a serious addiction to the Kindle 99p deal. Now, 99p is nothing, right? But having a go at organising the recent purchases into ‘collections’ was kind of sobering when I passed the hundred count…

    In my defence, I do read them rapaciously, both fiction and nonfiction, one after another. But there are always new deals to entice my clicking finger.

    • @Black-Type

      I used to be a steady one-book-a-week man and confidently looked forward to upping that number during my semi-retirement after moving back to Ireland about eight years ago.

      What actually happened is I had elderly relatives to visit, acquired pets who needed to be exercised and continued to accept bits and bobs of work for former clients in Africa and Asia. Last year, my 95-year old uncle who I was very close to died and left me his cottage (a disaster) and about six acres of land. Despite only trying to restore tthe gardens around the house (the rest I’m leaving for the animals, birds and insects), looking after the place is a major drain on my time.

      Still buying books at a far greater rate than I can read them though and have developed a horrific Jones for coffee-table art and music books. Hardback museum catalogues bought during visits to the RA and V&A are an extra special indulgence.

      The kindle monthly 99p offer is both a blessing and a curse in that I end up buying books that everyone says I should read but know I probably never will.

      • @Jaygee

        My physical book acquisitions are also mainly coffee-table editions or signed hardbacks, which for me makes them a bit more specialer 😏

        *Note to self* Must get round to reading The Meaning Of Mariah Carey, received last Christmas…

      • Finding the time to read… yes, that’s the crux of the issue I suppose. Interruptions as well. I would love to be able to freeze time sometimes, and spend more time with a book I am trying to finish.

        Do you listen to audiobooks? I took the plunge and subscribed to Audible this year, and it’s a real game changer. I was always on the fence about whether or not listening to a book was the same as reading, but now I am getting through so many audiobooks that I don’t care anymore. The great thing is I can listen when I’m cooking, driving, walking the dog, whatever. I listen to audiobooks now far more than music or podcasts. For the basic subscription you get one credit/download a month, but there is a also a fairly decent library of “free” books that don’t need a credit.

  11. A similar pile of unread tomes. I fall victim to the habit of tending to only read when outside in the garden, which tends to limit the amount of reading time in any given year (living in Norn Iron, which is not known for it’s clement weather).
    I tend to buy books all year long to purge on during the summer, but the reading time is never long enough to catch up.
    Having had a quick gander in the “books to be read” pile I think the longest serving member is a book about The Blue Nile – band, not river – which I think I got from Virgin just before the local store closed.

  12. My Dad bought be a copy of “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon in about 1984.
    I finally got around to reading it in about 2007.
    It was worth the wait!

    • I did have that. Possibly still do, though it may have disappeared off to a charity shop.
      If I still have it, maybe I will move it up in priority.

  13. I reognize the home truths of many of the comments above – shopping, not reading, illusion of buying the time to read, unread books that are decades old. I use the Good Reads app, and I just looked – last time I updated it, I had somewhere over 600 books on my shelves, of which I had read about 280.
    I think this, like music collections, comes from growing up in an era of media scarcity – where physical product was valued. Bargains then seem like dead weight now. When I first moved to Germany 15 years ago, there were not many English language books in the shops or libraries, and most of my legacy books were still in my parent’s’ attic. Over the years they’ve brought banana boxes of books over by car, books are ridiculously easy to get here, I now have a family and no time, and I have an internet addiction that steals all my attention.

    Having said that. when I sit down in my favourite hinged-back winged armchair, under the light from a clip on lamp, I am amazed at the sheer quality of books before me to read – chosen just for my pleasure – unknown worlds waiting to be dipped into. It’s like someone has curated a bookshop just for me, knowing exactly what sort of reading matter will salve my incessant curiosity.

    What I really want to do now is read a book, then get rid of it in the open bookshelf in the park outside. Slim down to just the essentials.

  14. I heard of tsundoko on Jeopardy (US) show a few months back now & M/C Alex T. said he suffers from same problem. Likewise myself roughly once a month or two I take a large box of books I’ve read to the salvo’s – very rare to come out without buying 2 or 3 books at least from them. On my bedside Desk with bookcase on top waiting to be read are :6 D.Silva’s (In a Box Under desk)
    5 J.Deavers
    6 V.Flynn’s
    5 R.Ludlum’s
    6 S.King’s (3 read so far)
    3 I. Rankin’s
    2 J.Nesbo’s
    3 M.Connelly
    1 J.Connolly
    3 K.Slaughter
    3 G.Walters
    2 J. Grisham’s
    2 T. Wolke’s
    2 M. Glenny’s
    2 P. Gregory
    1 N.Stok’s “E.Pound” 1/3 read
    1 R. Hobb’s “Fool’s Assassin” 1/4 read
    + countless other singles -L.Plante-S. Shannon-M.Zusak-E. Lustbader-R.Galbraith-R.Gifford-R.Khoury & many others.
    i’ll stop now &tell you have so far read 5 books this month – 2 R.Ludlum’s – 1 G.Seymour-1 D.Silva & 1 I.Rankin all pack away in my next Salvo’s box. Have just started “A Pride Of Kings” C.Scott.
    Last month bought a few new ones very cheap 3 & 4 bucks each only on line to discover “Skinners Rules” Q. Jardine – very new to me & then discover he’s written about 20+ “Skinners” a up market version of Rebus to my way of describing.
    Anyhow ART u haven’t anything to worry about & I thank covid for one thing only – NOT being able to go book hunting/shopping at the Salvo’s/Vinnies for a fair few months – that kept my Tsundoko under control.

  15. Maybe about 10, if I buy a book and don’t read it within a year or so then I donate it or swap it. I also used to feel that I should finish all books I start, I no longer do that.

    And also don’t keep books that you read like trophies, unless it is of some intrinsic value, 99% of read books will not be re-read. And there are things called libraries here where you can read them again for nothing if you are desperate to do so

    • Having a “use by” date is a good idea actually. I might try that.

      I do like to re-read books a lot to be honest (which doesn’t help in getting through new ones….) which is my justification for keeping them. It would be good to be able to pass them on to someone else, but then of course you just invite that curse where the book (or cd, or dvd….) you lend to someone and never see again is exactly the one you have a craving to revisit…

      • Yep, big re-reader here, too. In the bookcase opposite me the lowest shelf is overfilled with the unread (including one with an inscription reminding me that it was a 25th birthday present) but I know I’m more likely to select something previously read from either the science, Sci Fi or humour shelves.
        (This may be because I don’t feel the same pressure to finish a book I’ve read already and therefore enjoy the reading bit more)
        @Jaygee has given me quite a start as I had convinced myself that I’d be rattling through my homework once retirement arrived..

  16. I probably have a reading list that is too long for whatever length of life I have left.
    Yet I will probably still buy more books.
    I do seem to read more slowly than I used to, which doesn’t help.

  17. I read a book once. Green, it was.

    Currently 5 on the actual ‘I am indeed reading this with the aim of finishing it’ go. About 9 started I keep going back to but it’s touch and go if I’ll finish them.

    I enjoy it when you see the tag ‘Read’ appear on a kindle book when you finish it. Though you can blag that by simply landing on the last page.

  18. I currently have three shelves work of paperbacks I havent read – probably best part of 70 or 80. Some have been there for years. And that doesn’t account for various hardbacks I have bought – oftern remaindered – but which I know I am unlikely ever to read so haven’t even bothered to put them on the ‘to read’ shelf. My equivalent of the Stoppard biography is the doorstep biography of Ted Hughes.

    To try to address this I made a determined effort to start working my way through them in alphabetical order and get it down to two shelves. Can’t say it’s working but it did mean I finally got round to reading Beryl Bainbridge’s absolutely brilliant ‘Master Georgie’.

  19. I have possibly about 25 that I will definitely read some time.
    Then about the same amount that I want to read but will probably never get round to.
    Then I have a good 30 or 40 that I have read but haven’t discarded because I want to read again including all of my Elmore Leonard books.
    I have the Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen autobiographies which I haven’t read because the size of them is daunting yet I have read Bruce Thomas’s autobiography and intend to start reading Steve Van Zandt’s autobiography next week.

  20. Blimey. I only ever read one book at a time, to have others on the go seems weird and a little disloyal.

    Probably got a pile of half a dozen or so waiting to be read, mostly all from the local British Heart Foundation.

  21. I started Kindle bargains during lockdown, and have now rationed myself right down to max of 3 per month. However….I have an unread collection on the Kindle with 70 books on it. And about 40 physical unread books. Go back 3 years and I probably had 20 unread on the kindle and 70 unread physical books. Is it progress? The shelves look a bit tidier.
    Also blame netgalley who enable me to keep up with current scifi (just finished Tade Thompson, on Courttia Newland) without charge. Those at least I have to read once they’re on the kindle to keep up my cherished ‘80% completer’ on netgalley.
    And finally my bookgroup pops a book in every month to further slow down progress on the general unread pile.
    And yes, more ruthless now on sending physical copies back out to the charity shops.

  23. The truth? Just counted em, as they are by my bedside in a small set of shelves. And the window ledge. It’s the old finding time excuse, aka not making time. Mind you, my I listened to cds is about 200 plus, as new releases constantly overtake older stuff newly discovered. I left e music 3 years ago and a huge number are relics from then.
    My wife despairs and, I guess, so do I.
    Am a bit poorly at present so hope I can make as many inroads as I did the last time I was such.

    • See, I think I’m different with music. I don’t actually have a pile of unlistened-to music at all. Perhaps because music listening more of a background activity (what? sacrilege!) I tend to listen to every record/CD I buy. At least once anyway. Plus I don’t buy anywhere near the same amount of music I used to about a decade or so ago.

  24. Pondering everyone’s answers here, I think I’m going to implement a “one week” rule, which I was starting to grasp/formulate above. Trying to read multiple books at once, as I have tried, is likely to be a road to insanity. So: every week I will start a new book and generally aim to finish it that week, reading only that book and no others. With some conditions….

    – If I don’t finish it that week, and I’m not inspired to continue it, then it gets ditched.
    – If it gets to the end of the week I can’t put it down but I still haven’t finished it, then I’ll allow myself to choose it again the next week.
    – I’m not allowed to buy another book unless I finish a book!
    – Audiobooks don’t count. I’ll continue to listen to them as normal in tandem with this.

    That way I’ll (hopefully) keep my “to read” list ticking over, force myself to push on (at least for a week) with books I am finding a challenge, regain my sanity and curb my hoarding tendencies.

    Job done!

  25. Compulsive and serial book hoarder here. My ‘have no chance of ever reading before I snuff it’ pile extends to several shelves and probably hundreds of volumes. Fiction, classics, poetry, drama, history, science, biography…..you name it, I got it, and I will probably never read it. Shelves heaving, floors sagging, but I still bought another book this morning.

  26. I spent a couple of years working for WH Smith back awhile, during which time I discovered that they sold off all of the sample copies their buyers were sent by publishers eager to get their books on Smith’s shelves. A typical paperback that retailed at a tenner or so would be sold off via their internal shop for about 25p, which is a reflection of the sheer tonnage of such things they receive, not the quality of the goods themselves. A big fat glossy coffee table chunk retailing at £30 or more might be yours for £2. And so on. The internal shop opened up once a week at luchtime for about an hour, and all the cash paid went to local charities. For the duration of my engagement there, I came home with two carrier bags full of stuff every single week. I am still working my way through some of them. Many have gone on to new homes, charitable or otherwise. This acquisition of, I’d guess, about a thousand volumes, was neither truly shopping, nor feeding a reading habit. It was the speculative seizing of the initiative in the full knowledge that I’d never get the same chance again.

    The added bonus was that back then they sold CDs and DVDs too…..

      • You might want to consider retraining as a joiner first. You will need shelves. There’s no feed of cheapo CDs and DVDs anymore either. I got a shelf full of demo CDs that way and in that low cost way I encountered and fell for a whole shitload of artists that were utterly new to me. It was like a private Spotify before Spotify existed, but in the form of physical discs (and demo cassettes – got a load of those too!).

        • A few years ago, there used to be a stall on a Saturday market near us which – amongst a load of meh books you could buy in The Works – were brand new hardbacks, some of which hadn’t officially been published. Talking to the stallholder, he confided that he bought them from someone in the town who was a reviewer for various publications. Sadly not there anymore.

          • That’s also something that regularly turned up at the internal WH SMith sales – the pre-publication uncorrected proofs. I got some interesting music related ones like that – Greil Marcus’ ‘invisible republic’, and a splendid tome called ‘In The Country Of Country’, by Nicholas Dawidoff, which explores quite thoroughly what subsequently became known as Americana before there was such a term in circulation.

  27. Books, I have at least 50 (I wouldn`t be surprised if it`s 100+) on my Kindle unread. I`ve cancelled my Kindle Unlimited to enable me to start on these. Proper (paper) books easily 100+ unread. I tend to read 2 books a week so will begin to make inroads rapidly. Any book that dosen`t grab me within 30-50 pages gets ditched.

    Unplayed LPs/CDs – used to be 200+ but I`ve got that down to maybe 40.

    Unwatched movies/TV series on DVD/Bluray too many too count but I`ve slowed down greatly with my purchases of these. Yes I`m aware of streaming we have Netflix/Prime but 95% of the content is shyte but the Baroness enjoys them.

  28. Just had a count-up.
    24 proper paper books (from my late brother’s house move a couple of years ago) completely un-started. Crime fiction mostly with some historical fiction and biographies. Also 7 local history books (very photo-heavy) that were my late sister-in-law’s.
    35 books not yet started on my Kindle. Crime, SF and general fiction and some historical, social and political stuff. Twelve books unfinished on the Kindle.

  29. All digital, but I have about 15 at any one time that are in the “waiting” pile, downloaded to my iPad rather than on the “bookshelf” in the Kindle library. The problem is I can’t discipline myself to read them in the order I bought them, so some of that 15 have been there for couple of years or more

  30. I am guilty of having a small handful of books that I’ve either never started or started and never finished! But it’s not that many. I’ll save them for when I retire.

    My lovely wife bought me Stanley Tucci’s ‘Taste: My Life Through Food’ and Dave Grohl’s memoir, for my birthday, which I’ll read next. Then I have a couple of things on my Kindle (last year’s birthday present!) but they can wait.

    As for buying books, I always look at used books on Amazon. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but just about everyone has been in excellent condition and cost me a fraction of the cost of a new one.

  31. I used to be someone who absolutely had to finish a book, no matter how dull, once I started it. It was a point of honour. There was always the chance it might perk up in the last 10 pages.

    Then I started reading books for a living, and that went right out of the window. Now, if I’m bored, I give up. As Dorothy Parker said of Atlas Shrugged, ‘This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it is to be hurled aside with great force.’

  32. I’m a serial reader – tend to buy a couple of books at a time, read them, buy some more
    (one day, I might actually get rid of some).
    3 books bought last time – reading one, so only 2 in the “to read pile”.
    Don’t know if its a sign of focussing on the task in hand, or my capacity to multi-task, but I’ve never had more than one book on the go at any time

  33. I dread to think how many books of the ink & paper and e-book variety are on my TBR. It must run into hundreds. In my defense I do read over a hundred books a year. I am a reading addict, I have been ever since I can remember. I certainly cannot recall any period in my life when I haven’t had at least two books underway. At the moment it’s a Joe Abercrombie and a Mick Heron. I’ve no idea what I’ll read next which partially explains the frankly embarrassing amount of books I share living space with as my indecisive nature in this regard requires choice. That’s my excuse anyway.
    As for the Aubrey/Maturin novels I’ve been steadily rereading them since last year, not binging on them, one every so often. I have The Commodore up next so the end is hoving into view. Hold Fast!

  35. I read old newspapers and Now Dig This (a Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine) and that’s it, but I do still buy a considerable number of second hand books which I dip into. Mainly sport, all pre-1970.

    Got a 1st edition hardback Cricket book the other day – over 50 years old – which 30 years ago would have cost me the price of about 15 beers in a pub or about five Arsenal home matches… it cost me, in 2021, the price of half-a-pint of beer in a pub or about 1/25 of an Arsenal home match!… and I think, sadly if you’re a bookseller, that’s the going rate.

    Great for me though.

  36. I bought a doorstop massive hardback copy of the recent Philip Roth biography because I was angry that the publishers had withdrawn it in the US on the basis of unproven allegations of harassment against the author. Publishers as moral guardians! Very slippery slope. That said, it’s too heavy to read at my advanced age and I know I won’t.

      • I usually wait for paperbacks because I like the heft, smell, physical page turning etc. I think Roth was a pretty unpleasant man, albeit a great writer, but it was the publisher making safe, wokey decisions about the biographer on my behalf apparently that I find objectionable. We all know the price so many writers through history have paid to publish their work.

  37. Guilty as charged.
    Let’s start with the three on the bedside table. They have to be relatively light reads, to be consumed in 5 minute chunks. Some of you will hate me for this, but I can be spark out at will, so the bedside three take a while to get through.
    The arms of every easy chair in this room are piled with books that I dare not shelve, least I forget that I haven’t got round to them yet – that’s about 20 in total – or worse still, I buy them for a second time, forgetting their original purchase. Then there’s the large format reference books – cartographical, architectural, geographical – that are piled on, of all things, a cake trolley. There’s twenty of them too; I’m sure I’ll dip into them some day. I exaggerate not, this thread has caused me to note that the lower level of the cake trolley has buckled under the weight; that’s a shame.
    That’s before getting to the actual bookshelves. I know my filing system and recognise which shelf contains the ‘new’ i.e. unread books. Hmmm, some of those are Australian and I haven’t been there for 15 years.
    Meanwhile in the spare room upstairs …

    There are two problems for me.
    1) Every month, Post Script Books send me a catalogue of discounted, remaindered books, for which I am a total sucker.
    2) It takes me all my reading hours to get through my daily paper and my subscription magazines. Back when the ‘i’ was still The Independent, it was like reading a small book every day. Sometimes I catch the train to work, and sometimes I get long breaks at work, so the paper is easily read and maybe some magazine too. But it’s tricky when I’m commuting for an early turn on the motorbike; the pages flap in the wind somewhat and I can’t turn the pages with my gauntlets. Those days I might be reading the arts pages over my tea in the evening, so when do I get a chance to read books?

    So, don’t worry Art, you’re in company. Don’t know about you, but lockdown didn’t make any impression on the backlog either, so my plan for throwing a sickie next week won’t make much difference.

    Still, it’ll soon be Christmas, and I’ve got a couple of ideas for what I’d like.

  38. As some of you may have guessed, I buy a lot of books. I also read a lot of books (two or three on the go at all times, one for my commute, one bathroom book and one, usually non-fiction, “lunch book” – meaning that I dip in and out during small chunks of time like meals, commercial breaks, while hovering over a pot on the stove etc; and sometimes I’ll start and finish a fourth book during a weekend off as well). But of course I own plenty of unread ones as well, although I admit to a failure to see that as a problem! 🙂

    I have a dedicated TBR shelf for “right now”, of books I buy with the intention to read soon, but of course some will lose their appeal after a while sitting there. Any books still on that shelf in December that I know I’ve lost the will to read will become Christmas gifts – very practical as it saves me from having to go out shopping in the lead-up to Christmas; the money’s already been spent earlier in the year, so December doesn’t get too expensive; and I can start the new year with a near empty shelf to fill up again during the year.
    However, I do end up reading a majority of the books that I put on that shelf.

    I also regularly buy “classics” and put them on my other shelves, alongside the ones I’ve already read. This is thought of as an investment for the future – books I want to read at some point but they’ve survived hundreds of years, so no hurry! But because I know that I will probably be very poor once I’m able to retire, I buy books now to read then; while I still can afford to buy them. Yes, libraries exist, and I’m all for them in theory – I just dislike using them because a book I enjoy is a book I need to keep…

    I do also buy a lot more short story collections than I can get through in a year, it’s the one thing I “collect” (well, apart from all of the other books I collect…thirteen bookcases of them…) But lately I’ve been more diligent about reading them as well – they’re perfect to read on shorter commutes.

    If I enjoy a book, I keep it. The so-so’s and the no-no’s go in a box, and when it’s full I place it by the exit to the building I live in – an hour or two later my neighbours have made it disappear. When putting a box together I go through all of my shelves to see if there’s some padding still hiding in between the treasures, and I’ll cull them as well.

    I used to keep reading dull books to the end, but I stopped doing that many years ago; life’s too short and there’s no shortage of books to get through. But I do give them “an honest go”, and because I’ve become better at knowing what I’ll like and dislike and only buy what I believe is my kind of books, I very rarely have to DNF a book these days. If I do it’s usually due to bad writing, rather than bad/boring story (which I don’t mind so much as long as the author knows how to put words and sentences together in an interesting way).

    I only have room to squeeze in one or possibly two more bookcases in future, so there will eventually be a limit to how many books I can keep, but I haven’t quite reached it yet, and I’m being fairly disciplined about giving away the excess. I get the heebie-jeebies when I see minimalist homes with but a stack of coffee table books at the most, the comfort and joy of being surrounded by walls of books is not something I could live without.
    Every night before going to bed, I sit down in my favourite reading chair and just look at my bookshelves and rejoice in their beauty, their – read and unread – contents, and the enjoyment they give me every day. I feel no guilt over hoarding books – I feel elated!

    • “Every night before going to bed, I sit down in my favourite reading chair and just look at my bookshelves and rejoice in their beauty, their – read and unread – contents, and the enjoyment they give me every day.”

      This might be the best sentence ever posted on this site! Also, you may be mildly interested to know that the third of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Himmelstrand books has finally made it into English. I’ve recently read it, and I have to ask – is there a fourth?

      • @Kid-Dynamite, no it’s a trilogy. Loved the first and the third, the second was just OK IMO. Since then he’s published a stand-alone tome of a novel called “Vänligheten” (“The Kindness”), earlier this year in fact. I had issues with quite a few things about it; it’s not terrible but not up to his usual standard.

        So, which JAL novel is your favourite?

        • think that assessment of the trilogy isn’t far wrong, to be honest. I expect to see The Kindness in English in about, oooh, 2025 if the speed of translation of the last one is anything to go by.

          Think my favourite JAL might well be Handling The Undead. I’m a sucker for zombies anyway, but it also works really well as an exploration of grief and having to let go. The only one I haven’t really got on with is Harbour, but I’m afraid at this distance I really can’t remember why.!

      • Yes, I’ve used it a few times, mainly to find childhood favourites. But there’s no shortage of places to buy books! What I need is a way to avoid buying too many… 🙂
        I do plan to upgrade some paperback editions of favourites to hardback editions (so I can see to read them in my old age as well), and Bokbörsen is a good way to find the ones that have gone out of print.

  39. My “to read” list is extensive.
    if I included Kindle and physical books, I have about 3 years’ worth of reading, assuming 2 books a week, which, after I’ve retired, is eminently doable.

    Except by the time I’ve retired, it will have become 4 years’ worth.

  40. I have a small pile which together show how narrow my interests are…

    Mercator – The Man Who Mapped The Planet by Nicholas Crane
    The Wildest Dream – Peter and Leni Gillman (about George Mallory the ill-fated mountaineer
    Flat Earth – The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood
    Hellhound on his Trail – Hampton Sides about the assassination of Martin Luther King
    Storyteller – The Life of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock
    Robin – Dave Itzkoff a biography of Robin Williams
    and purely by coincidence a probable companion piece in…
    Wired – Bob Woodward’s book about John Belushi (I read it years ago and picked up another copy recently)

    I buy all my books second hand and when I finish them I either palm them off to someone I think may like them or take them to a charity shop. I don’t want books cluttering my house, that’s what the DVD’s and cds and records are for.

  41. Lots and lots, some I’ll never read. One of my problems is I collect Collins New Naturalist titles because they are beautiful objects but I only tend to read the ones that have some connection to birds.

    I do consume a ridiculous amount of audiobooks however, dog walking and driving give you ages to get lost in books, I tend to find an author and binge on their back catalogue. If you’ve not been there yet then please try Caimh McDonnell, his books made this summer a delight, trying to find a new obsession now!

    • @neil-dyson Ah yes, collecting a series is almost by definition a guarantee you won’t read them all. I used to collect a series called The Traveller’s Library, nice little hardback pocket books published by Jonathan Cape in the 20s and 30s. Took me about 25 years to find all 2,018 of them, and I’ve never read a single one. I have read some of the authors, eg Lawrence and Hemingway, in other editions though.

      I’ve occasional thought about New Naturalist because they’re lovely books, but I’ve always backed away.

      • au contraire Blackadder. I love a series, me. I have a full collection of Pevsner’s Buildings of England – every last English, Welsh and Scottish county. They are reference books, of course, so not something you would read cover to cover, but I can honestly say that each of them have been read extensively. Then there’s the Making of the English Landscape series, though sadly the cash ran out before they had even covered half the counties. And who doesn’t love a full set of Wainwrights? Of course, they never get taken out onto the fells; they might get scuffed.
        Above all, there’s the map series – OS from several series and scales, French IGN, Switzerland, New Zealand, Irish OS. I have read each of these more thoroughly than I have read many a book. I call on @steve-walsh as my witness.

    • @Harry-Tufnel

      By “naturalist” assume you mean mucky books like Health and Efficiency (or H&E as I’ve seen people request it in my local newsagents)

      Would have thought the only problem with that sort of filth would be seperating the pages

  42. I’m generally running a politics book, a history and a novel, and where I am/ how much time I have dictates which I’m reading. Plus if one grips me more than others I read that one one – but they all get finished eventually. If I’m a third through and it’s not happening I give up and it’s off to the chazza for it.

  43. It’s Kindle Daily Deal that does it for me. So many temptations at 99p a pop that I’ve got always got at least two dozen books – or digital files of books – sitting unread on my device.

  44. Well, this thread got a lot more replies than I expected. Paul Wad and Pencilsqueezer, I salute you and you both assuage my guilt about letting unread books pile up.

    And Locust, I think “a book I enjoy is a book I need to keep” is possibly my new motto!

    I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to read one book at a time and don’t sweat it if I have to replace it on a shelf if it isn’t working for me.

    By the way, at the moment (this week) I’m into folklore and old stories, so I’m reading Sioned Davies’ translation of The Mabinogion (Welsh myths). Some mad stuff going on in these old stories, I tell you. Rhiannon has just been persuaded that she has accidentally eaten her baby son in her sleep, as some scoundrel smeared blood on her and left dog bones in her bed….

  45. I’m a compulsive buyer of books and a slow reader. I joined my local library about 6 months ago, and that’s just made the TBR list even slower moving, as I have to read the ones I have to give back first. Also, most library reads have to be reserved and you can nevr be sure when they will arrive, which means there’s queue jumping. Two weeks ago I had nothing on loan. Now I have 3. When I joined, I told myself it made sense, as I’d save money, and have fewer books to find room for.

    And whilst I culled my magazine habit – out went Rolling Stone, Q, Uncut, Record Collector, Empire, I still have accesss to some of those via the library, plus the Guardian, as well a gift sub renewed each year to Private Eye, Classic Rock, and online access to the FT, The Economist (both paid by work) to which I recently added The Athletic. I keep telling myself it will become less overwhelming once I retire.

    • “I’m a compulsive buyer of books and a slow reader.”

      That’s me. In fact I’ll get that printed as a tshirt. (Wth Locust’s “A book I enjoy is a book I need to keep” on the back).

  47. I come from a family of voracious readers, introduced to the local library at an early age, and buying books both new and second hand. There have always been shelves heaving with books and irregular purges (books bought as presents tended to avoid the cut)

    The Kindle was a godsend to me, but I miss being able to pass on to my siblings, a paperback I’ve enjoyed. Fiction is mainly thrillers, while non fiction is a mix of biogs, music, & anything else that looks interesting – although a printed book is still better for something you’ll dip into, or use as reference (Where do you think I get those Bowie quotes from?)
    I tend to have the fiction on my old kindle & access the non fiction with the app on phone or tablet – The Kindle app praises me for having read “4 weeks in a row” but I’m really not fussed. It’s not going to change my habits.

    Like many others here, I’ve taken advantage of the 99p cheapies – so the virtual shelves are heaving too. I have found that a solution is to use my local library’s ebook service. If the book is available there, I’ll leave it on their cyber shelves until I’m ready to read it.
    With my return to library membership, I seem to have gone full circle.

  48. Simultaneously too many and not enough.

    Ditto my To Be Heard pile – Andy Kershaw’s podcast series has had me buying three or four albums per episode after hearing one track. Lawd knows when I’ll get the time to listen to them all.

  49. Hi, everyone, my name is Jaygee and I’m a have a massive book-buying Jones, I can’t seem to shake lose.

    My sharing today involves my weekly failing off the book wagon as a result of reading the weekend book review pages in the so called quality papers. In today’s Times Weekend alone there were three that I found myself lusting after – the tactile behemoth that is Paul McCartney’s lyrics ( (a book for dipping into), Ai Wei Wei’s autobiography (a book to inspire and provoke), and Dominic Nolan’s apparently coruscating Vine Street (apparently a book to be entertained by and marvel at). As I love good crime books, I managed to escape with just the kindle Vine Street at the mo, but I may well weaken

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