Operation TBR: Week 1

I'm now 7 days into my TBR resolution of 2012, and it has been harder than expected.   Since determining not to read books acquired after 1/1/2012, and therefore to limit my acquisition of them, I've learnt several lessons. 

First, that a significant amount of my time is spent lusting after books: when I'm reading blogs, when I'm flicking through review magazines, when I'm browsing the shelves at work.  I can usually satiate this with a spot of judicious borrowing or purchasing. No longer and I'm having to get used to doing these things without clicking 'add to basket' or reaching for my library card.  It's not too bad but my Amazon wishlist is going to be heaving by the end of this year as a result. 

Second that York is jam-packed full of temptation.  It seems as though there is a book shop at every turn of my walk home each day.  This is going to sound ridiculous but I even found myself buying £8 worth of jam and chutney in a deli opposite a bookshop - displacement purchasing if ever there was any!  But I think partly I'm suffering from the hysteria of quitting cold turkey and unconsciously testing myself by thinking intensely about buying books.  Hopefully this will abate as I settle into the rhythm of the year. 

I did have a really lovely hour on Saturday morning mooching around my own shelves, pulling off the first layer of books to reveal what was hiding behind.  It was almost like book-shop browsing, as there were lots of titles that I'd forgotten I had or happily rediscovered.   It invigorated my resolve to tackle the TBR all over again.   

Unfortunately the pleasure of choosing a new book to read from the stacks will have to wait a little while. Although I finished Nicholas Nickleby this morning (of which more later this week), my next read is Book Group imposed: How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall.  It counts towards my resolve, as I've had the book since 2009, but is a bit of cheat as I've already read it (in the year I acquired it!).   

Week 1 Statistics

Books read: 1 - Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Books bought: 0 

Review copies: 2 - unsolicited copies of two Hesperus Press titles, one by Dostoyevsky and one about him.  I'm hoping to read some of the other titles I have by him instead, and save these for the future. 

Books added to Amazon wishlist: 4

 

 

Comments

[litlove]

You are doing MUCH better than me. I said to myself, no more than 2-4 books a month purchased, and, umm, I somehow seem to have acquired 7 this month already.... NO MORE. I am trying to put my foot down. We'll see how that goes. I guess eventually I will shock and appal myself into doing better.

[wufnik]

OK, here's something that helped me, although it didn't cure anything, it just slowed down the purchases. Which was to impose a strict alteration rule--fiction, then non-fiction. What it has done is forced me to actually read from the piles on the floor, rather than simply making them higher.