Boy, I've been looking at the stacks and stacks and shelves and shelves of books in my 'TBR' and I don't think I'll EVER get to them all! I keep track of what I've read in the sticky thread we have at the top of the forum(right now I"m on page 4 and I list in order within the month but the months to from teh bottom up with the recent month on top) and I figure that even on a good strong reading month I do good to average one per day and that's when we had Hurricane Ike and/or I read some shorter books or we were extrememly slow at work. It was hard enough when I was only interested in contemporary romance and erotic romance but then I started liking the light funny paranormal romance and now of all things, historical. Ya'll who have been reading a long time are SO lucky..you're already ready tons while I'm still trying to catch up on what I missed from the 80's and 90's! and these authors put out so much stuff that boy it's hard to keep up with the new stuff!

It's really overwhelming at times! I've glommed so many authors/series to start that it's hard to figure out where to start! And at the time I'm glomming I jus t'know' I 'have' to start that series right away! as I was leaving the ubs a month or two ago with a huge bag of goodies(jillilan hunger, julia quinn among others) with everything janet chapman ever wrote on the way to me..and then the karen marie moning, kresley cole binge-a-thon then got into kerrelyn sparks and not even done with those when my new kathy love vampire book and robyn carr's virgin river christmas arrived!

part of me says to just chill and take my time 'cause there's no guarantee the new stuff coming out will be any good and I have a 'retirement fund' of books just in case!

gosh but does anyone else feel like there are just too many books that 'need' to be read?! :-)

Tell me about it! I just brought home about 40 from the library sale... and the BIG sale is this weekend. I'm going to have my husband tie me to the bed.

It was so much easier when I only read historicals!

Oh yeah, Susanna, I know just how you feel! I keep getting distracted from my tbr pile by the new arrivals. What I need to do is lay off buying or trading for new (to me) books. Well, that was my foray into fantasy for the day. lol

yeah, fantasy! on my 'no buy' days I still manage to order a bunch of stuff LOL! but at least I'm trying to mail out some books! posted about 6 wishlist books the other day I'm going to try printing the labels out from work and drop them off on the way home tonight. bit by bit I'm going through my stuff and posting what I know I'll never read again. some are 'gray area' but others I think 'will I ever pick this up to read again?' and if the answer is 'nope' then I see if it's wishlisted off it's going!

but there are just way too many I want to read! and I'm already 41 and will never catch up!

I definitely do Susanna.  Sometimes I sit in front of my TBR pile and want to cry, unable to decide what to start on next.  Do I want to start a series or just go with a small book or maybe a one off novel?  Decisions decisions!   Argh!

You're not alone, Susanna!  Although I have to say, as much as I love all of you fellow readers, you're also just terrible for my TBR! (Yes, you know I'm looking at all of you--don't deny it!)  When I sometimes morbidly think, "Hmm... what would happen if I were hit by a bus this afternoon?" I can't imagine what my poor husband would end up doing with my huge stash of books!  Yikes!

I have made a conscious effort not to buy, trade, or steal any books for awhile. In fact the only new book I've bought in a few months is VR Christmas and I just HAD to have that one! From PBS, I've only been getting WL books lately. Now wouldn't you think that I would have been able to lighten my TBR pile by doing this? NOPE. That blasted library is going to make sure my pile never shrinks!! I go in to get a reserved book and come out with a sack of books! WTH? Do I not have enough to choose from here? *sigh*

edited for spelling

well of course VR Christmas is a must-buy..along with Kerrelyn Sparks...KMM...well heck almost everyone! :-( and do you realize how many books Lisa Kleypas, Marsha Canham, and all those historical authors alone have put out?? but VR Christmas and that whole series is keeper stuff IMO. and yep all these threads are filled with temptation!  I Just returned a ton of library books I never even got around to reading.

and ya'll know what the real 'kicker' is?? I'll have stacks of TBR that I'm really really wanting to read yet I'll pick up something I haven't even been thinking of and read THAT one instead of somethng important! like I'm making myself wait or something stupid like that!

I have like 500 in my TBR, plus I can't seem to stop ordering. I have slowed down a *little* bit, but I did just order 7 books yesterday. Maybe I need to save up some shipping money and do a really crazy good book deal just to get rid of some of the books in my house.

I do try to comb through my TBR on occasion and get rid of things I don't think I'll ever read, but that usually only results in my knocking 2-3 off my list, and not really worth the time I spend going through them. I have a toddler so I can only manage to read one book every 2-3 days (and that's me staying up too late reading after he goes to bed) and with how many I have to read it'll take me years at this rate. And that's if I don't buy any more books for years, and I don't really see that happening. My husband calls my TBR pile our family's post-apocalyptic entertainment. If we're ever caught in the Twilight Zone, that is  :P

ETA: Where do you guys usually keep your TBR books or how do you organize them?

i recently started reading something, and after the first 20 pages or so gave up.  that lead me to decide that i've got so much stuff i *want* to read that i don't really need to read the things i feel like i *should* read.  so a project that's going to have to come up soon (because i need the room!) is to go through TBR and get rid of stuff i'm no longer enthused about reading.

i'm also just letting pretty much everything on my reminder list sit until i have a specific reason to order it, and mainly only ordering WL books.  but that's only here - i'm still hitting the UBS most weeks (don't find something often though), and Borders maybe twice a month because i still want the NEW stuff.  not that i don't have books that i bought new months ago still waiting to be read!

and as Willa said, the big library sale is this weekend.

Susanna, it's an addiction...it really must be...I don't know what the name of the syndrome is but I've got it bad too!

I've been just getting W/L books (well, mainly) this year and have made really good progress nipping my new-book buying in the bud this year.   I just got tired of spending money to buy new books just to let them sit on Mt. TBR.  I've been "allowing" myself to go shopping only when I'm buying for someone else.  Keeping myself busy in the swaps really helps a whole bunch though - reduces the temptation! 

Course, right now, I'm trying to figure out why I printed out that 30% Border's coupon that is in my purse?  LOL

ETA - LOL, I just got back from a library sale - only bought 8 books though!

When I sometimes morbidly think, "Hmm... what would happen if I were hit by a bus this afternoon?" I can't imagine what my poor husband would end up doing with my huge stash of books!  Yikes!

I was thinking the exact same thing today! Imagining my poor husband, having to lug all those hundreds of books to the library. I have told him that the Mary Baloghs are valuable, just in case, but I bet he won't remember. ;-)

I went through and picked out a few of my TBR to get rid of the other day, was so proud... and then brought home the monster pile today. And to make it even more pathetic, I'm so busy with my dancing these days, I'm not even reading very much anymore!

The other day, Ellen picked up a bag of books she had lent me and I was tempted to sneak some extra books in, like people supposedly do with their extta zuchinni. ;-)

I NEED to organize mine..right now and I'm NOT kidding..my dad built me these 4 nice bookshelves for downstairs..paperbacks will actually go 3 deep..mine were full and no I could hardly find anything. then he built me another for upstairs and it has my porn, I mean, erotic romance along with some overflow paperbacks I happened to finish in bed and that's where they went..night stand has 2 drawers with books tossed in...other bedroom I use sometimes has a big basket, several boxes, and an overflowing stack by the bed between bed and wall...table downstairs has books and 2 treadle sewing machines have boo,s piled on top.my dad got brilliant idea to buy a flat dolly and get some long plastic storage containers...4 upstairs filled with blaze and similar books and dowstairs at least 4 but I think closer to 6 more filled with misc that I need to sort through so I know what's in what..and I have about 8 boxes in the garage and don't even TRY to guess how many paperbacks fit in a Honda Accord..sigh..

LMAO @ Susanna!!

Sarah F--I have the bulk of mine in my full size cedar chest. The rest of them are in storage tubs--one jumbo and a small one right now. I keep them covered with a decorator blanket which serves two purposes-- (1) I don't have to look at them and (2) It gives my cats a place to snooze. :) Of course, I still have some strategically placed on end tables and the coffee table.

I am so glad I'm not alone -- Have really been trying not to order too much lately what with reorganizing my books and all but I am such a pack rat -- I have a girlfriend I trade books with and I've finally bit the bullet and starting giving her some of my series that I haven't read yet -- I kept waiting for me to read them but she'd be waiting forever ---  First I get a wish list - then the library has a new release - then there is a sale -- no matter the intentions it just gets bigger and bigger -- And now my favorite sale is this weekend.  And I can't give up the box of books - you never know when someone will have something good on their bookshelf -- let alone all the recommendations on this site alone...

But I have to ask -- Isn't it fun and aren't you glad you like them so much!!

ETA: Where do you guys usually keep your TBR books or how do you organize them?

They are all in the bedroom in a big tub.  I have one stack that I have dubbed the "to be read right away" stack, the "to be read sometime this year" stack and then there's the "to be read before I die" stack. LOL 

Its funny because I get books that I think to myself "yeah I can't wait to read that!" and then when it gets here, I'm sticking it in the "sometime before I die" stack.  Weird...

well it IS fun and I LOVE books but it's really overwhelming sometimes! then Ican't find stuff I know I have somewhere or other..

The other day, Ellen picked up a bag of books she had lent me and I was tempted to sneak some extra books in, like people supposedly do with their extra zuchinni. ;-)

LOL!  well, i haven't actually looked in the bag yet, just put it back with the rest of the unpostable UBS pile those books came from, so i might not have noticed for a while.  ;)

Where do you guys usually keep your TBR books or how do you organize them?

i have designated shelves in various bookcases for TBR.  i've got 4 shelves for romance TBR, 3 of them paranormal (one double-stacked), and two larger shelves double-stacked for sf&f and a small number of 'other' (literature, mysteries, etc.).  that's two shelves more of romance than i had when i joined PBS in january!  lately i've switched to reading romance about 2/1 to other instead of 1/1, mainly because that stack is getting out of control and i need to beat it back some.  there's just so much good stuff!

don't even TRY to guess how many paperbacks fit in a Honda Accord..

Oh man, why did you have to put this idea into my head? I have a wagon! Now I can justify going to the library sale after all!

I am with everyone on this. I haven't been much of a reader the last 2 years, not compared to what I was reading before my fiance died. But I have read almost 35 books this year which is 3 times more then last year. What really helped me was joining a few book groups over on shelfari. I currently have 3 book challenges going on. I didn't have to buy any books for any of the challenges just had to decide what book to read for each category. And trust me...I have plenty to chose from. I have 6--6 shelf book shelves 3--5 shelf book shelves and 2--4shelf ones. You would think that would be enough. Nope. Still have 25 boxes of books sitting in my apartment.

Do I still buy books? Yep. Get them from here. Get them from thrift stores and also from the quarterly library book sale. I am comforted by being surrounded by books. Only you ladies completely understand what that means LOL.

Mine are all stored in those stackable Sterlite plastic drawers - JUMBO size:P  Can't count the books anymore.  Last estimate was 300+.  Ack!  I couldn't read that fast if I put my brain on wheels:P

I have a pretty cabinet that my husband spraypainted for me, but the pile outgrew it long ago. Now I also have three big purple bins and also a  hugeshelf just for categories and after today, they're all overflowing. Oh, and I forgot the shelves that aren't in my office where I keep the ones I never really expect to read yet somehow can't get rid of yet. :-\  And of course a huge shelf of library books, ever growing because they've been buying a lot of romance lately.

I have no idea how many there are; my PBS tbr is around 2000 but I put *every* copy of each book on it (anal, I know, but I don't want to accidentlaly order something I already have) so it's not actually that many.  Whatever it is, it's too much.

I tried to put my on shelfarie and goodreads and here but way way way too many LOL! I've been debating getting that scanner thingy and software and starting on one shelf and getting boxes because you can put the location by the book..would be great if I'd just get it and some of ya'll come over for a scanning party! ya'll could even take home the triplicates(sigh yes I've found those!)

PS what is VR Christmas?

Its the latest installment in the Virgin River series by Robyn Carr!  Absolutely wonderful books.  You should check them out.