-originally written on April 22, 2023; edited on May 13, 2023-
This year, one of my goals, whether I put it in the New Year’s resolution list or not, was to read more. And, more importantly, to review more. I have such a long list, or rather, A RATHER LARGE VIRTUAL TBR PILE. And that’s not to ignore my physical books either, but I own over 5500 books now. If Amazon were to go down tomorrow, poof, 95% (pretend math) of my collection would be gone. Yeah. It’s that bad.
But towards the end of April, I decided to get my butt in gear and plan out what I wanted to read and when. So I did.
I knew I wanted to include books I had read for my apprenticeship. While I had read them when I needed to for the program, I wanted to reread them as I had read them rather quickly. Not enough time to really fully absorb the knowledge, right? Note: there were a couple of other books, but they were not ones I had read or even purchased before the beginning of May, so I kept them off the list, and we had not gotten to them in my apprenticeship, so I wasn’t in trouble for not reading them.
Here’s what I chose for May (well, what I chose, and what the generator chose)
The Apprenticeship Rereads
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- You are a Bada** at Making Money by Jen Sincero
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- Building the Storybrand by Donald Miller
Those four books alone provided a hefty reading list, but I, being myself, wanted more. So I turned to my Kindle.
I wanted to start making a dent in my ebooks TBR list. You can read about how it grows so rapidly and why I decided to finally start making a dent in it here.
Ebook TBR List
- Return to Magnolia Bloom by somebody
- Just Friends by Elizabeth Grey
- At Work by Laura Vanderkam
- Call of Kythshire by Missy Sheldrake
So again, a decent size list, but I am nothing if not an overachiever. That’s a lie, but still.
Also, I started a new reading challenge.
Nothing as big as the presidential challenge I started some time ago, but still good.
One of my proudest collections is my growing Disney book collection. I’m talking Disney history books, coffee table books about the parks, the movies, the history, all the things. Ah, I just love my collection so much. And I always keep an eye out for books to add to the collection. Not that I buy them when I discover them, but I do add them to my Elfster list, which is more for myself to keep track of than for my friends with whom I do a Secret Santa gift exchange every year.
But there are quite a number, I would even say most of them, that I haven’t read all the way through yet. I might have skimmed through, admiring the pictures, but I got into this thing a few years ago when I was first creating my master booklist spreadsheet. At that time, I was going to read through my books alphabetically by author. And since most of the Disney books have the author listed as the “Disney Book Group,” it meant that I would be waiting quite a while before I would get to those books.
So there they sat, patiently waiting, gathering dust. And I’m tired of it.
I don’t know why I got the alphabet idea stuck in my head. Probably because of my Disney film project, if I’m being completely honest. I’m so strict with myself about it, that it’s been years since I have seen certain Disney films that I absolutely love. So in my head, I thought, once I pass those books on my alphabet-structured list, then I can read them whenever I want. Because the book would have been read, the book review would have been done.
My speed at adding books, though, made it a real struggle.
Because I would add books to my list, and there would be times when I added someone whose last name started with an “A,” it often was someone who would have already appeared on my list, so I would have to go back to read it before continuing.
A mess, that’s for sure. (And don’t even get me started on the torturous practice of adding books/names to my list. I wish I had a 2nd me who could do that anytime I need it. It would save me so much time and energy)
Oh yeah, the Disney challenge. Yeah, so I created a Disney book-only spreadsheet, mainly so that I could do a random number generator (which is how I chose the other ebooks). It’ll make it really nice for future adds and stuff.
Disney Book Challenge
- Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real by the Imagineers
I only chose one for the month of May, mainly because I didn’t want to rush my reading of the book but also because I had added the books for my apprenticeship. In future months, I’m planning to choose more books, so that I can start enjoying what’s inside the books, not just enjoy the mere fact that I have them.
And that’s how I chose the lineup.
Everything, other than the apprenticeship books, was chosen by a random number generator. In the future, if a number is generated that lists a book I have already read and reviewed, then I can move on to the next number. But also because I do use my full list and add to it.
I imagine that it’ll get rarer and rarer to hit repeat book numbers. I’m also debating on whether or not to add all of my new books (which are not alphabetized, but that’s a different story) to the master booklist, or keep using the generator list that I created.
In future posts this month, I’ll be sharing the books that I read in June, and the books that I’m currently reading this month. Am I merely adding drops to the bucket? Yeah, but hey, any book I read from my list gets added to my Goodreads account, and goodness, if seeing that book count rise makes me feel good.
It’s been so nice to relax and read again. Not ARCs (which I used to read, but no longer), but books that I own. And it’s helped and will help me shrink my collection, especially on the ebook side. With so many books that have become unknown to me, I can now decide if I actually want them or not. AND I do keep track of that, in case I run across them in the future.
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