This post is linked to Sunday Post, Staking the Shelves, Sunday Salon, and #IMWAYR
I did a deep dive into my Goodreads TBR list this month, to go through all the books and delete ones I don’t plan to read. I have had books sitting on my TBR for over a decade. A DECADE!!! Books that I saw and thought, “That looks like a good book” but then never actually purchased it or read it. It’s safe to say that some of those books are no longer of interest to me. Most were YA, and while I still enjoy reading YA, it’s not my primary genre anymore.
So, I went through my list, and any books that I immediately went “meh” over, got the boot. Books that are not available on KU or at my library, that I was not willing to pay money for, got the the boot. I was able to knock out almost half of the books on my TBR. What was once a TBR of over 200 books is now a list of 109 books. It’s still a bit overwhelming, but I feel like it’s more manageable… as long as I don’t go crazy adding books to it again.
Therefor, I have decided that I will spend this summer going through and reading my TBR one book at a time. I won’t push myself to read anything that I’m not feeling, but I do feel like I need to give these books a chance. So many of these books have so few reviews and ratings, and I want to give them a chance to find readers. The book I’m currently reading only has 4,000 ratings on Goodreads.
So, it’s time to brush off my TBR and start giving these books a chance in the spotlight.
Currently reading…
Up Next
For Review
Are there any books you are excited to read this week?
I am constantly culling the TBR, but will never get it down to 100ish books (I don’t think). It’s amazing that you were able to! I hope you enjoy your current reads. Have a great week!
It is a good idea to weed out the TBR on a digital shelf. I do it occasionally and then I find its buiding up again. And then its time to weed it out again. Hope you have a great reading week.
Managing the TBR is always a challenge! Sounds like you have done a great job at making it more manageable!
Have a great week!
My TBR only includes books I own on Kindle, audiobook, or in print. My goal for 2026 is to concentrate on books I buy this year. Not counting Review copies, I have 26 to read this year. But I have so many review books that I might not manage to read them. I don’t even want to think about the 2666 other books on my TBR stack that I have purchase any time since 2008. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
I have over 600 books on my Goodreads TBR, which is funny because when I first signed up for Goodreads five years ago, I told myself no more than 40 books on my TBR. LOL! I should go through it and delete the ones I know I no longer have a desire to read. Lately I’ve been getting emails telling me certain books on my TBR are having a giveaway. I look at it and then wonder why it’s on my list. So those emails have been a good way to delete books. Lol. But I need to do a deep dive. Thanks for the inspiration. 🙂
This sounds like an excellent strategy! I am not that disciplined! But every once in a while, I remove a book from the list when I run across one that doesn’t appeal to me.
I keep my Goodreads wishlist as it is so that if I need to add something to a Christmas or Birthday list I have something to look at. The problem is that some of the books have been in there ages and I don’t know if I feel the same way about them now. I might have to go through it my actual physical TBR shelves is fairly large. I need to really stop looking at all the shiny new books and get through the ones that I already own!!
Oh, I have over 1000 books on my GoodReads TBR and some of them have been on there since 2007 😀 I started trying to go through it a while ago but that fell by the wayside as other projects caught my interest. Good for you for keeping yours at a manageable level!