I don’t know about you but I have a lot of books on my shelves that have been there for a handful of years now. Pretty much since I bought bookshelves, I’ve had books waiting to be read. With reading review books, ARC’s before they come out, and just plain blogging, my personal reads have fallen into the land of Forgotten. So I decided to take part in Roll Back Week where for the entire week I read older books that had been sitting on my shelf collecting dust. Given the fact that Thanksgiving was this week and it was also the only week I had to spend with the Mr. before he went off for training, I didn’t read as much as I’d hoped. I was shooting for a book a day. What I got was three and a half books… I’m still reading the fourth book.
I know I’m not alone on this though, with so many books coming out and review requests coming in, how do you stay on top of it all? Do you make time to read your personal books or are they like mine, forgotten on the shelf? I’m having a rough time trying to juggle personal and blog reading. There are so many series that I’ve started, like Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, and LOVED but now just buy the books if I remember and put them on the shelf next to the others to read at a later date. You can imagine with doing this my bookshelves are overflowing with books since I’m not actually reading them and instead just saving them up for later. Which is why I’m giving away the four books I read during the Roll Back Week. With doing the challenge I realized that there are good books on my shelf just waiting to be read. Maybe I will try to alternate between reading personal and review books. Maybe I will continue to take a week off every month and just read personal books. I have more than enough on my bookshelves, I don’t even want to think about the hundreds of books on my e-readers. :cringes:
How do you juggle your personal reads and the review books?
Hold Me by Betsy Horvath
Hot Property by Carly Phillips
Risking Her Heart by Liz Allison, Wendy Etherington
Jewel of Atlantis by Gena Showalter
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I had the same problem. Now I try to limit myself on what new reads I will take on. It takes will power and saying No is scary hard, but I find myself happier knowing that I have time for all those books that I was reading before I started blogging to begin with. The absolute best though, is getting to read an ARC of a series/author that I have been following. It makes me feel like I have finally arrived, lol.
I’ve been trying to cut back but it is hard. Especially when one of my favorite authors is coming out with a new series or a book that I’ve seen floating around pops up on NetGalley.
I understand what you mean about personal reads hitting the backburner! And a lot of what I call mainstream reads, the ones that are very popular but don’t hit the blogging world are there as well – because I also want to read those! Generally, I read 3 books at once. 2 for review, and then one which is a personal choice. And I usually write up a review for my personal choice as well, so it’s still make a contribution to my blog ^^
Oh wow. I cannot read multiple books at once. I have to read a book then write a review right after I finish it. Otherwise, I end up getting details confused with the other books I’m reading/read. I do try to type up reviews for my personal read though. I think it’s not only a good way to mix it up on the blog but it help get some old and sometimes forgotten titles a chance in the spotlight.
I have exact same problem…I buy so many books, wanting to read them SO badly, but they usually end up in the back of my shelves do to the required reading.
I guess I don’t really know how to solve this solution either, besides smush them in, whenever you have a small gap of time between review reads.
Awesome post!
Lisa
http://www.turningpages94.blogspot.com