My yearly mountain of owned and unread books started small, got completely out of hand and is slowly taking a turn for the better. Every year around this time I recreate my unread book stacks adding in new books. For many years I brought in more than I read and that became a problem. A big book problem.
- My first Mt TRB (To Be Read) looked like this and I didn’t even bother to count the books.
- I compared that pic to this year’s and found 97 books that have been on my shelves, unread, for 10 years. Yikes!
- My biggest wall was in 2015 with 876 books.
- Since 2015 I’ve slowly been bringing that number down my reading more of what I own and donating.
- This year I read 25 and donated or gave away 92.
- I brought in 55 new books.
- The past few years I’ve used some of Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon time to recreate the wall, exactly the same every year minus the books read or donated. I listen to audio books while I work.
- I prep the stacks during the week using the lists I have for every pile.
- Getting the wall made and then put away takes many hours and is a good workout for read-a-thon time.
- This year’s Mt. TBR clocks in at a robust, but not totally unmanageable
678 books.
Last year I read 74 book so if I kept that pace I could get all of these books read in less than 10 years. #goals
What about you? How many unread books do you have in your house?
Stacy's Books 
WOW! Your book numbers! Both the read 74 books and the pile of 678 that need to be read! I had to go on a book buying break when I realized I wasn’t keeping up with reading the books I was buying. Now I rarely buy a book, but inevitably I always end up putting my bought books on the backburner to do other things despite having a yearly reading goal. Maybe one day I’ll get back to reading as much as I buy…
How do you decide which books to donate? Are they books you realize you will just never get around to reading? Do you ever regret donating certain books?
35 plus A Clockwork Orange in Hungarian, because for $1 how could I not.
678? Clearly, you have a bigger home than I do.
I don’t want to think about how many unread books I have but I have been working on getting rid of some of them this spring.
I look forward to your photo every year – LOL! A growing portion of my Mt. TBR is now digital, but I have been trying to keep the shelves under control. Seems to be a losing battle…
Love seeing your mountain of books every year! I think I finally have less on my stacks than you! That is only counting the ones in my home, my stacks wander to the kids homes.