Hello, happy Friday!
Things are slowly hitting a routine for me now, though I still have a bit to catch up on this weekend in order to get back to pre-writing blog posts! I can see the light…
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish discussion meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @DiniPandaReads. Each Friday, bloggers will write posts about a particular topic and share on their blog.
What makes you keep a book on your TBR?
I used to be someone who added books to my TBR left, right and centre. Literally anything that caught my eye, even for the smallest of reasons, went onto my Goodreads ‘to-read’ shelf. Two years ago I moved over to Storygraph and decided to start mostly fresh, so I went through my entire tbr and only moved the books I truly wanted to read. My TBR went from 600+ books to around 100. Today it’s at 178, which I don’t think is too bad.
I am a lot more choosy these days about my TBR shelf. Sure, I still use it as a bit of a catch-all, and there are definitely some books on there that are very much ‘don’t want to forget to check that one out later’, but that’s okay, sometimes I like a surprise, haha!
For the most part though, for a book to make it onto my TBR, it has to be of a genre I love, and have at least one hook/topic/trope that I love or really want to explore. There are also books on there that are from authors I enjoy, or authors that friends have recommended to me based on my interests. My TBR is a fairly good mixed bag of books I know I’ll love, books that will teach me something, or books that will show me something brand new.
5 Random books from my tbR
42 – Books and Bribes by Lucinda Race
A wonderfully random first choice! I honestly forgot why I added this but I assume it’s a case of cats + books, which is always a winner for me. It’s also a fantasy book, and I tend to keep a stash of cat fantasy books on the TBR to use for cat versions of r/Fantasy bingo…
127 – Africa Risen
This is a short story compilation of African fantasy and science fiction. This is another save for a future r/Fantasy bingo board, as we do short stories each year, and I like to diversify my reading as much as I can. I find short stories from other cultures a great way to explore many facets without committing to huge novels.
19 – When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory
A cover hook, but then the book itself sounded really fun. The characters are living in a simulation and they go on a road trip to see ‘glitches’. It sounds really fun and also poignant, two themes I enjoy together in books.
I thought I’d show the oldest and newest books on my TBR for the last two. Bear in mind that I have cleared my TBR several times over the years, but the oldest book has remained forever lol.
Oldest – The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
This has been on my TBR since before I had a Goodreads account in 2011. Oops. I am desperate to read this and I have NO idea why I haven’t yet because I have definitely read longer books… one day.
Newest – Where the Wild Flowers Grow by Leif Bersweden
I don’t add a ton of non-fiction to my digital TBR, but this was one I didn’t want to forget about. As you know by now, I am studying Plant Science, and Leif took a trip around the UK to find our unique flora, a subject that I am personally interested in and hope to explore in my degree.
Pages of Emma 
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