So, this is a little bit embarrassing, but…my TBR (To Be Read) list is about 36 pages long- two columns.
YIKES.
Am I aware that I will most likely never get through this list in my lifetime? Yes.
Am I also aware that every single year I tend to add more books to my TBR than I read? Yes. Yes, I am.
This is a problem, but it’s a problem I will continue to be in full denial about. NO PROBLEM HERE. NONE AT ALL.
One question I get asked is where I get my book recommendations from. When I first started to read, I mostly got book recs from one or two podcasts that I listened to. I started by just making a list in a notebook of books that I wanted to read. This list became longer and longer and at one point I realized that I was adding the same book at different points in time.
So I pulled out the big guns and made a word document with my book list. Then I discovered that I could alphabetize my word document and that was how I began to organize my TBR list. Since the books were alphabetical, I could see where I had inputted duplicated of a book. And I could also easily find the book I had just completed to cross it off the list. That one document has been on my computer for nearly five years and it would be one of the things I would want to save in a fire. HAHA!
Over the years, this list has grown rapidly as I have found many resources for recommending good books. Here are just a few:
- Word of mouth. If someone I know in real life tells me that they read a book or recommends a book, I write it on my TBR. Now there are some people whose book recs I trust more than others, but there are certain friends who get an automatic drop onto my list
- Book Pages. This is a monthly free publication that is on a shelf at my library. It is a little magazine that is just full of book recommendations. They often pick a monthly theme and sometimes I have zero interest in it (hello, horror), but even with a monthly theme there is pages and pages of book recommendations.
- Blogs. I still follow and read quite a few blogs, and I always look forward to when the blogger does a monthly book recap! I often get a lot of my recommendations from there. In the past year or so, I have also discovered book bloggers, and when I’m reading entire blogs with book recommendations, you know I get a lot of ideas from them!
- Awards and Top 10s. I am a huge fan of “Top 10” Lists and often get a lot of my book recs from these lists. If it was good enough to be in someone’s top 10, then its good enough for me to at least try to read! I find that I get my ideas from Goodreads Choice Awards, Library Winners, Medal winners (like the Newberry, Caldecott, etc).
- Book Clubs. I don’t subscribe to any book subscriptions but I do follow Book of the Month, Reese’s Book Club, Oprah’s Book Club and Jenna Bush Hager’s book club for book ideas! Usually if they pick a book for the month, it is going to get a lot of buzz and I tend to want to try that book out.
Obviously, this is an immense amount of content to be taking in and I am very generous with my TBR list. I pretty much write down ANYTHING that sounds interesting. Then, once I am preparing to pick my next read, I will google and do a bit more research about that particular book. I am also a big fan of cutting out books that aren’t to my taste. I am learning to do better at DNF (do not finish) books that are working well for me. Life is too short (and my TBR is far too long) to read books that have zero appeal to me!
So there you have it! Where I get most of my book recommendations. Where do you get your book recs from? I would love to hear if there is anything that isn’t on my list!