Singlehandedly saving the book industry since 1969

[annathepiper]

So one of the thing I wanted to do while I'm on vacation is to add all my unread books to my to-read shelf on Goodreads. As of tonight I have completed this task, including all the freebie ebooks I've acquired as well as the ones I've bought off the Drollerie site, and a small number I've borrowed as well as the ones I've checked out from the library.

The grand total of unread books: 261.

I'm simultaneously surprised and yet not. I certainly have always accumulated way more books in any given year than I've been able to read. But I wasn't really grasping the numbers here.

I'm just shy of 400 books on my Goodreads account now. What'll really be amusing is when I add all the rest of my books to the account list as well.

Comments

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

this may be a silly question, but what's a Goodreads account?

[annathepiper]

It's an account on Goodreads, which is one of a few sites that lets you track and review your books. I've been there for some months now and have been mirroring my LJ book reviews over there. As with most sites, I'm there as annathepiper.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Ted and I were up to 100+ unread books, which was the point at which we put a moratorium on buying new ones a year and a half ago. I'm down to about 7 unread books (minus the Christmas books I'm getting), but Ted's still got about forty. We have to be down to 2 shelves before the moratorium is actually lifted. :)

[annathepiper]

I was on an informal moratorium on the grounds that 1) I'm out of shelf space and 2) money's been tight so I've been trying to cut down on my book purchases anyway. Having a new job has mitigated issue #2 some, but I'm still out of shelf space. ;)

.oO (And no, brain, this is not an excuse for you to chime in with "BUT I HAVE PLENTY OF HARD DRIVE SPACE" by way of justifying buying more ebooks.)

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Gads, I try not to count them, I just count how many bookshelves of unread books I have.... Not to mention the ebooks on the Kindle. Sheesh.

[annathepiper]

Hee, yeah, a good 60 or so of that 261 is ebooks. Yay for Tor Books handing out freebie ebooks to promote tor.com! Also for buying ebooks from Drollerie Press!

[hyperbard.livejournal.com]

I have something like 50 books at the moment -- as for keeping track, if a person's also on Facebook he or she could use weRead. I generally just use that for keeping track of books I read and liked, but I guess it could be for stuff you'd want to/need to read in future. (And now I've just spent half an hour marking in all the Tamora Pierce books I want to read...)

[annathepiper]

I've just recently joined Facebook myself but wasn't aware of weRead. But they also have a Goodreads tie-in app, and I've set it up so that I can update my books from either end and it'll show up in both places. :)

Thanks for the weReads tip though!

[leian.livejournal.com]

I think I need to do this....

[annathepiper]

I'm having fun with it. :) It ties into Facebook as well, so you can update Goodreads from Facebook or vice versa.

[leian.livejournal.com]

No, I mean, count the number of unread books I have.

I tried, once, to make myself not buy anymore books until I'd finished reading what I have -- didn't work, haha.

But it's good to know I'm not the only one who buys books without reading all of them!

[annathepiper]

Oh okay, I get you. :)

And yeah, you're totally not the only one who does this. I've been known to have books on my shelf unread for NINE YEARS. I've got a few more that are pushing that record, I think.

[leian.livejournal.com]

... I get you on that!

I think I might take any books I possess that I know I will not ever read and give 'em away or something.

Oscar Scott Card, for one...

[annathepiper]

I've done that occasionally--when I've run out of shelf space, I've made passes through books both read and unread and have had to ask myself the hard question of "really, seriously, AM I ever going to read this?"

Sometimes I've gotten rid of unread books thattaway.