Personal Library TBR *Shelves*
I love having my own personal library -FINALLY!!! After almost 2 decades of keeping my "library" in the sturdiest boxes I could find (including shoe boxes for my mass-market size guys and manga), moving 3 TIMES, and dreaming about my glass cabinet library, we found the perfect bookcases -in the perfect color- and finally started to make my "book nook" dreams reality. Seriously, it was hard to say goodbye to that og-Chegg box...best box I could ask for to hold my pristine hardcovers.
I never actually posted the finished product -well, 80%ish done- mostly because I wanted it to be "perfect". Nothing really changed in the visual dept except I bought some more books lol. Really hoped I could have a proper seating arrangement by now, but that hasn't worked out both with money and the practical-vs-wishful. What I want is too expensive and too big. Instead, we ended up partially finishing 2 other 'quadrants' of the basement: we have an air hockey table and a 'gaming quarter' where the Nintendo systems, board games, and whatnot have their home. All we need is a small coffee table and some additional wall art/hangings. My Tohru Honda and Grimmjow wall scrolls are perfectly displayed where all can admire them^_^ Hubby's bar will be the remaining quadrant (he can't wait, but he has to). I'LL POST PICTURES SOON!!!
Now, to the reason for the title of this post... I think I'm fairly unique in my organizational methods due to the fact that I actually have shelves dedicated to books I haven't read that I probably will not keep. This includes titles that I have either been given, got as giveaways, purchased, and brought home from my library (my job) because I weeded my collection -we can talk about that at a later time or you can look it up. Not getting into the particulars of my personal collection's "weeding policy", it's safe to say that I know I need to read what I have in order to not expand the not-here-to-stay shelves. Thus, I have dubbed them the TBR Shelves. How many do I have? There are 3 dedicated shelves that only consist of what I haven't read: 2 YA and one Harlequin LIH (double-stacked). The rest of the shelves have a mixture, but they're genre-fied and 'author-betized' and they're perfect the way they are...mostly, but that's not today's problem.
Problem: I'm having a bit of a crisis in my reading preferences lately and I need to force myself to read what I've been ignoring so I can stop feeling that poking feeling every time I go down to find my favorite thing to re-read again. See my problem? Not yet? I've been very stressed and that leads me to re-reading. I'm also coming to terms with the changing YA market and I need to start reading what's coming out now so I can honestly tell my kids, "yes, I've read that!" instead of, "I started it, but didn't get around to finishing it...><". This habit of reading maybe 5 chapters of a new book and then moving on to the next is truly the worst. It's horrible. I need to stop and that's what I'm working on right now.
Solution: Honesty. I started talking to my kids about it because I can't just keep saying, "Well I can't read everything". They're at least as blunt as I am about it and I need that. Trying to come up with a way to get them involved with what I'm currently reading without giving them access to my Goodreads (because minors) and maybe even giving them control of my next read... that makes me cringe every time I think about it. Anyway, my goal is to read a mixture of new and fairly recent YA within my other reading habits. My additional goal is to make a significant dent in the unread LIH shelf. It became a back-burner TBR since they stopped publication of the imprint and I didn't have as much pressure to read through them. More recently, it's gotten annoying to the point I'm almost reading 3 a week (if I don't pause). Only just started, but I already finished 6 lol. It takes 3-4 hours to read through one -easy, right? Consistency is key, so my best is all I can offer.
Currently reading: The Dark Becomes Her by Judy L. Lin. Really liking it so far and I hope I'll be done by the weekend so I can post the review to NetGalley and Edelweiss. It comes out Oct 1st and I want to be able to be that Teen Librarian and boast my opinion of it fully -mwuahahaha.
Thank you for reading!
What are you reading? [OR] What are your goals for the rest of the year?













