Finishing your TBR books

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Catlady

For most of you, does the TBR pile = all owned and unread books? Or is it a subsection of such books?

I have thousands of unread books that I am happy to leave unread (e.g., many classics). Other unread books--a much smaller number--I fully intend to read ... someday.

I don't understand...why do you have them if you never intend to read them? To me, if I don't intend to use something, there's no reason to have it.

Shari

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by shalym

I don't understand...why do you have them if you never intend to read them? To me, if I don't intend to use something, there's no reason to have it.

Shari

You're saying you use every single thing you possess? You don't have a junk drawer? Never inherited something you feel weird about giving away/getting rid of?

I'm pretty quick to get rid of things I don't use/need, myself, but still... there's many things in my possession that would probably take more effort to rid of than to ignore for a while longer. No one's that ascetic.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by shalym

I don't understand...why do you have them if you never intend to read them? To me, if I don't intend to use something, there's no reason to have it.

Because I feel I should read them, and at the time I acquired them, I thought would read them. When I got my e-reader, I purged a lot of those sorts of paper books and replaced them with digital files. There's no real reason not to continue to keep those files.

In general I keep things because I might need/want them someday.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

One of the problems with classics is that they are forced down our throats in school when we're teenagers, but most of them were not written for children. When I was in school I thought that Dickens was the most tedious writer imaginable, but when I "rediscovered" him when I was in my 30s I was just blown away by his writing. Very few teenagers have the maturity to be able to appreciate his wit and social satire - I know I didn't when I was that age. These are books written for adults, not teenagers, which is why I'd always suggest having another go at authors you did find dry as dust when they were forced on you in your schooldays.

I had that experience with Steinbeck--in school we had to read The Pearl, which I hated and which made me avoid Steinbeck for years. Thankfully I eventually tried Steinbeck again.

On the other hand, I despised Jane Eyre in high school, and when I tried to reread it a few years ago, I still despised it.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Catlady

In general I keep things because I might need/want them someday.

Ah, the refrain of the hoarder.

The advantage here is that it doesn't matter how many eBooks you have, your house does not end up exceedingly cluttered.

The hard drive, on the other hand...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

The hard drive, on the other hand...

Nah. I have a folder called "Ebook Dump", into which I put all freebees and public domain books. Some PD-works I have in 10+ versions. If I want to read one, because I see it mentioned for example, I find the best version, fix that up for my library, and then delete the rest of them.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by shalym

I don't understand...why do you have them if you never intend to read them? To me, if I don't intend to use something, there's no reason to have it.

From now on, I am trying not to pick up things I don't think I'll read - especially with classics, which will still be there on the internet whenever I decide I want them - but I can't unhave the stuff I've already got unless I make a specific effort to eliminate it. And it doesn't cost me anything to keep it (usually - I did actually give away my paperback copy of Don Quixote a couple of weeks ago, since I can get an ebook edition easily enough if I ever do decide I want to try reading it again.)

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Nah. I have a folder called "Ebook Dump", into which I put all freebees and public domain books. Some PD-works I have in 10+ versions. If I want to read one, because I see it mentioned for example, I find the best version, fix that up for my library, and then delete the rest of them.

I have a similar thing.

But.

But my hard drive contains remnants of two decades' worth of computers, operating systems and personal data dumps... there are probably five different folders on my current drive that contain the label 'ebook'; just as there are numerous different 'photo' and 'picture' folders.

But my network drive has back-ups of everything, and I have yet to go through it and clean up the eBooks. I am still trying to get the music folders straightened out.

But there are boxes with CDs, floppy disks, and perhaps even a thumb drive or two in my garage holding data left over from previous homes, jobs, lives. I'm betting there are zipped archives of Shadow pulps, P. K. Dick and H. P. Lovecraft out there.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Ah, the refrain of the hoarder.

The advantage here is that it doesn't matter how many eBooks you have, your house does not end up exceedingly cluttered.

The hard drive, on the other hand...

Even the hard drive doesn't suffer too much. I've been collecting ebooks from PG, and later commercially bought books, since the mid 1980s, and my "E-Books" folder is still a mere 25GB in size - ie 2.5% of a 1TB drive.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I had that experience with Steinbeck--in school we had to read The Pearl, which I hated and which made me avoid Steinbeck for years. Thankfully I eventually tried Steinbeck again.

I read Of Mice And Men in my own time as a pre-teen, and I adored it. When it came to reading it in high school, the English faculty very nearly succeeded in making me loathe it instead. Years later, and I still haven't been able to bring myself to read The Grapes Of Wrath. Just in case.

[DrNefario]

I "read" Of Mice and Men at school, too. I didn't get much out of it, and don't really consider it read. It might even be ruined for me.

I think I later read Grapes of Wrath and loved it, but I'm really not very sure about that. I can't seem to find any evidence that it's true.

There are quite a lot of books - especially children's classics, like Treasure Island - which I'm not at all sure I've read. I've absorbed the story from other sources - movies (sometimes involving Muppets), plays, hearsay - and I just can't be sure whether I've actually read the source material.

I have absolutely no idea what HG Wells I've read. I know I've read two sequels-by-other-hands(1) to The Time Machine, and am planning to read a third(2) in the near future, and I'm pretty sure I've read at least one book featuring a time-traveller meeting HG Wells(3), but I'm not at all certain I've read The Time Machine itself. I think I've read War of the Worlds, but the only thing I am 100% certain of is that I have read the short story "The Country of the Blind".

The only way to be sure would be to read them all again, and I'm not sure I want to. There's too much new stuff waiting that I definitely haven't read.

(1) Morlock Night by KW Jeter, and The Space Machine by Christopher Priest (which also ties in with War of the Worlds)
(2) The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
(3) The Dancers at the End of Time series by Michael Moorcock

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I "read" Of Mice and Men at school, too. I didn't get much out of it, and don't really consider it read. It might even be ruined for me.

I think I later read Grapes of Wrath and loved it, but I'm really not very sure about that. I can't seem to find any evidence that it's true.

My favorites are Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and especially Winter of Our Discontent. I find Of Mice and Men way too disturbing.

There are quite a lot of books - especially children's classics, like Treasure Island - which I'm not at all sure I've read. I've absorbed the story from other sources - movies (sometimes involving Muppets), plays, hearsay - and I just can't be sure whether I've actually read the source material.

I feel the same way--some stories have been told and retold so many times, it's hard to know if and when I ever read the original. Did I only read about the books? Did I only read the Classics Illustrated comics and see the movie versions? If I still own a paper copy of the right vintage with the proper wear and tear, I usually assume I did read the classic in question. Otherwise, who knows for sure?

[HarryT]

You really should read "Treasure Island", if you haven't done so - it's a wonderful book. There's a good illustrated version here in our library.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

You're saying you use every single thing you possess? You don't have a junk drawer? Never inherited something you feel weird about giving away/getting rid of?

I'm pretty quick to get rid of things I don't use/need, myself, but still... there's many things in my possession that would probably take more effort to rid of than to ignore for a while longer. No one's that ascetic.

I may not use them right now, but I either did in the past or plan to in the future--I wouldn't have the things otherwise, and I absolutely wouldn't have deliberately acquired them. Catlady seemed to be saying that she has large quantities ("thousands") of e-books that she never intends to read. After my comment, however, she did clarify her statement to say

Because I feel I should read them, and at the time I acquired them, I thought would read them. When I got my e-reader, I purged a lot of those sorts of paper books and replaced them with digital files. There's no real reason not to continue to keep those files.

In general I keep things because I might need/want them someday.

So that seems to be saying that she may want to read them someday, even though she had originally said that they are ones that she was "happy to leave unread".

So I guess never mind my question?

Shari

[Tarana]

For most of you, does the TBR pile = all owned and unread books? Or is it a subsection of such books?

Subsection for me. I don't count the freebees unless they are audiobooks. I didn't pay anything for them and just got them on speculation to try out a new author when time permits. In some instances, the freebees included popular authors such as Diane Gabaldon, but most of the time, the blurb for the story sounded interesting, but I know nothing of the author's work.

Excluding magazines, I think I have a 3 year TBR as a result of the great sales in December and existing backlog.

I do think many of the freebees will come to an end as contracts expire. They were primarily marketing ploys and many authors have been angered about Amazon's pricing - they sell books, but get nothing for them because they are priced at free or 99 cents. Great for readers, but certainly not encouraging for an author.