December 29, 2008
Mount TBR …
One of my stated goals when I first began blogging was to shine the light of day on my clutter. My second blog post dealt specifically with the oversupply of books which was crowding me out of house and home. I didn’t make much progress with moving those books along until I began to pack up my house for my move. As I’ve cleared out each room I’ve come across stashes of books I had forgotten I had, discovering that my Mount TBR was even more lofty than I had thought. If you’re involved in BookCrossing you will know that Mount TBR is a collection of books to be read. It’s a frequent topic of conversation whenever and wherever we gather, whether in real life or online. My TBR has been an embarrassment and a source of stress for years. The concept behind BookCrossing is that books gathering dust benefit no one, so we share them by releasing them into the wild or finding other ways to pass them on to other appreciative readers. That’s the theory, anyway. I’m not a very good BookCrosser. Mount TBR tends to get out of hand because, well, you know … so many books, so little time. I just can’t say no to a book once it’s captured my attention, so there are always too many languishing in Mount TBR, waiting for me to spend some quality time with them before sending them out into the world to make new friends. Joining up with local BoookCrossers made the problem even worse. Our group, the Table of Contents, gathers about once a month to share a meal and swap books. Each month I promise myself I’ll leave our luncheon with less books than I brough, but I’ve fallen short of that goal as often as I’ve succeeded. Finally, though, over the last few months I’ve begun to whittle down Mount TBR. I was really gratified a few weeks ago when I gathered up all of my unread books that are registered to BookCrossing and they only took up two shelves. I thought the event deserved celebrating and took the picture above the morning before our last Table of Contents luncheon. The books on the left end of the top shelf went to the luncheon with me and I only brought home four or five new books, so I was patting myself on the back for finally beginning to tame mount TBR.
…comes tumbling down
I tossed my tote bag on top of the bookshelf when I got home from our Christmas gathering. I didn’t stop to think about all of the Christmas goodies I’d collected from my friends. Lance did. He quickly detected the rich aroma of Christmas coookies and chocolate sitting atop the shelf, just out of his reach. My resourceful companion waited until I was out of the room to tackle Mount TBR in his own beagle-ish way.
[tags]beagel, BookCrossing, books, clutter[/tags]
Posted by skeet @ 10:50 pm • Books
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December 31st, 2008 at 2:39 am, blueyes Says:
I actually ran out of space to put my books in one section of my entertainment stand and had to start boxing them up. So far I ended up with 6 boxes and still have boat loads more books but at least now I can shove more in there before I need to box up again. I just have them stacked in my extra closet now.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:22 am, hyphen eight Says:
LOL, I counted, and at least 6 of those books came home with me! I *told* you I was taking home too many books!
(And of the ones that didn’t, at least 4 had already passed through my hands.)
On the other hand, 3 of them have already gone back out.
Hope you still got to eat the goodies!