The Shameful TBR List Thread

[HomeInMyShoes]

Well, we’ve got the Ebook Buying Addict’s Support Thread, but it seems to cause as much trouble as it solves as many people find out about books to buy in it. Since shame seems to be a determined deterrent for many, this thread is all about shaming yourself. Now, my TBR list isn’t out of control at all, but I am interested in finding new books to read, so I’m hoping by perusing the lists of purchased books that people haven’t read I will find some new authors to read.

I will go first and post my list. In the interest of not grinding people’s browsers to a halt, I’m going to suggest that we post our lists within spoiler tags and maybe even break the lists up. I know there are rumours of lists in the many hundreds and even thousands of books.

This first post will also serve as the index, so if you’re looking for someone’s TBR list, just come here. As with the challenge reading list thread, hopefully people will only put one post in this thread so it can be the place to shame ourselves into not collecting so many to-be-reads.

Table of Contents
HomeInMyShoes

[HomeInMyShoes]

This list is currently incomplete, while I haven't purchased any of them, there's about 27 Terry Pratchett books that need to be read and a list of 44 books for next year already. Currently I have no purchased books to be read, but a couple out from the library as well as a Jennifer Egan title I need to read by the end of the year. And maybe an Irving title to boot.

Spoiler:

Baciagalupi, Paolo – The Windup Girl (library loan)
Zafon, Carlos Ruiz – The Shadow of the Wind (library loan)
Egan, Jennifer - A Visit from the Goon Squad
Gaiman, Neil - Stardust
Duane, Diane - So You Want to be a Wizard
Steinbeck, John - The Short Novels of John Steinbeck(1)
Valente, Catherynne M. - Tales of Origin(2)

(1) - I bought this for Cannery Row that I had put on my reading list. Of the six novels in here, I've read two so far.
(2) - I bought this one for The Labyrinth which was Valente's first novel. I haven't read any of the other three short novels in the collection.

[DiapDealer]

I have no formal list. That way, I can't feel guilty/disappointed about letting it get completely out of hand.

I'm currently reading Sharps by K. J. Parker.

I have a handful I'm considering reading next. One of that handful will get purchased and read based on whatever whim happens to grab me when I finish the Parker book (I'm currently leaning toward David Brin's Existence), and the rest will either find their way back "on deck" again at some later point, or will be forgotten for years (or even forever). I never plan on being "done" reading (or even making measurable progress) so a formal list just doesn't work for me. Winging it feels entirely right.

[ATDrake]

From the thread title, I thought this was going to be about "shameful" books on the actual TBR that one was embarrassed about going-to-be-reading: i.e., guilty pleasures and really trashy mind-candy stuff and dubiously-erotic semi-porn.

I personally don't keep much in the way of a TBR ("what's due at the library soon" and "I should read this freebie/cheapo I already have to decide whether I want to buy more in the same series/by same author before I spend more actual money on the time-limited tie-in sale" is pretty much it).

But I do have umpteen dozen assorted probably-trashy occasionally-erotic romances both gay and het* which I picked up really cheap on sale† even though I'm a generally a no-romo non-romance reader, which I should probably read through at some point. And I've also a whole bunch of retro-pulpy sci-fi/fantasy/crime as well, though I'm hoping for somewhat higher quality on those, since I tend to pick them on criteria slightly more meaningful than "well, this plot synopsis sounds cracktastic enough to be entertaining for < $2" and "my ghod, now I have to see just how wacky the author's drug trip got" .

* Nothing bi, alas.

† They were really cheap! And DRM-free from a small specialty business/publisher which I wanted to support! And I was morbidly curious! And I generally like stuff with time-travel in it! Even the cheesy kind of pop-culture rip-off time-travel with trusty hedgehog assistants playing Cupid!

[Fbone]

My TBR list will take me approximately 22 years 3 months to complete at current reading speed.

However, I am not ashamed. I bask in my literary madness. It's everyone else who should be ashamed

[DrNefario]

I have about 130 commercial ebooks on my Kindle, plus maybe 20 or so on the Kobo, and 3-400 freebies across the two. I have 25 unread paperbacks just in the "overflow parking" on the floor near my feet, and many more spread around elsewhere.

Most of the ebooks, I probably wouldn't put in my TBR. A lot of the freebies I don't really care if I never read, and many of the commercial books were just random impulses from various sales and daily deals. I don't have a proper TBR, and I'm slightly afraid of making one given that I'm always pursuing some kind of idiotic whim. Not long ago I collected all of the Hugo winners I hadn't read. I still have 13 to read. Currently I seem to be chasing golden age crime, particularly the four "queens of crime". I bought seven paperbacks at the weekend from charity and second-hand shops; five Agatha Christies and two Margery Allinghams. I think it's mainly about having an excuse to track things down, and find the best deals.

It's all about giving me a choice when I finish something, really. There are probably less than fifty that I really want to read, but many more that I kind of want to read and might go for if the mood takes me. Many of the books I most want just languish on my Wish List because of agency pricing.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Fbone

My TBR list will take me approximately 22 years 3 months to complete at current reading speed.

However, I am not ashamed. I bask in my literary madness. It's everyone else who should be ashamed

I'm with Jonathan Livingston here....

[latepaul]

My current TBR is just under 200 books and last year I read 30. A few weeks ago I added a custom column to Calibre to store the price I paid for books. I haven't yet added up the relative costs of read vs unread.

[DrNefario]

I blame the authors and publishers for leading us astray.

[jbcohen]

Folks want me to actually count the number of them on my to be read stack, ugg thats going to take a while to do, I have no idea how many are over there. I participated in a few Baen monthly bundles and like I haev been warned the to be read books were multiplying like rabbits. I have been busy the last two months working down that stack. Will most likely buy one more monthly bundle before the end of the year and that will put a few more on that stack.

Electronic to be read stack, I have no idea got to go count.
Printed to be read stack = two. Don't keep many on this stack from month to month.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I was more hoping that people would share lists of things they thought they were going to read -- to the point of actually buying it -- and then never got around to reading it. That is at least my definition of a TBR list. I thought it might be fun to trawl through everyone's lists to find things we hadn't read or to help people turn the corner and actually read some of the things they've collected.

Or not.

[DiapDealer]

It's not a bad idea. I just don't usually buy books that I'm not ready to immediately read. However, the handful of stuff that has crossed my mind about reading soon:

Jeffrey Ford's new short-story collection Crackpot Palace
Raymond Chandler (I forget offhand which Marlowe book I'm up to)
Craig Johnson's Death without Company
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey
Railsea by China Mieville
Forty Lashes Less One - Elmore Leonard.

All subject to be changed by tomorrow (or tonight), of course.

[ATDrake]

Well, top of my "I paid actual $ for it, I ought to go and read it at some point, but not now" quasi-list are:

• a few dozen Poisoned Pen Press mysteries (I've read 15 out of 40-ish from the prior monthly 99 cent introductory deals, and I think 10 out of the 40+ current further-in-series discount sale follow-ups, IIRC)
• the entirety of that Dreamspinner Press m/m romance time-travel-themed monthly short story bundle which I got for the cracktastic-sounding trusty hedgehog companion tale (I've read 2 out of 31 thus far, and no, the hedgehog one was neither)
• my 132+ Prologue Books assorted vintage pulp crime picked up during the 99 cent sale at Amazon (haven't even gotten more than half-way through the original freebie, though to be fair I abandoned pretty much everything I left unfinished on my Kindle once I got the Sony)
• (not yet, but soon) 40+ Georgette Heyer novels from this year and last's anniversary sale (I read all 7 paid mysteries last year, but still haven't touched the 5 historicals I picked up, and intend to buy all the romances I skipped last year)
• several latest-in-series new releases of stuff I actually like and want to get to, but just haven't gotten around to yet (some in paper)
• a bunch of single-author old-school reprint sci-fi bundles from Baen and Phoenix Pick Press (I did finally read the novels in the Heinlein one which I've owned for, um, well over a year now without touching even though it was my first deliberate purchase at Baen and I've read a couple of things from the Pohl bundle; still haven't read anything besides the initial freebie from the Paul Cook bundle, but I got the contents of that dirt cheap)

[paola]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I just don't usually buy books that I'm not ready to immediately read.

Me too! Though we often coordinate in the house (two of us), so it does happen that "we" buy and either of us (two) does not read immediately. This is generally non fiction - in the case of fiction I generally read it straigthaway.
So here are my non-fiction-paid-for-and-not-yet-read list:

Spoiler:

The Social Conquest of Earth, Edward O. Wilson
The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us, Robert H. Frank and Phillip J. Cook
Why We Cooperate, Michael Tomasello
Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique, Michael S.Gazzaniga
Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller

There are non fiction books that I got as freebies that I definitely want to read:

Spoiler:

Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us about Who We Are, Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald
A Planet of Viruses, Carl Zimmer
Brains: How They Seem to Work, Dale Purves

In terms of fiction, there is a number of books I own but not bought, several of which I will read. This is the most shameful part, as there are books here that I really should have read ages ago:

Spoiler:

Hunger, Knut Hamsun
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
The Graduate, Charles Webb
History: A Novel, Elsa Morante
The Tartar Steppe, Dino Buzzati
Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar
Catch-22, Joseph Conrad
That Awful Mess On The Via Merulana, Carlo Emilio Gadda

[Kindoll]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

It's not a bad idea. I just don't usually buy books that I'm not ready to immediately read. However, the handful of stuff that has crossed my mind about reading soon:

Jeffrey Ford's new short-story collection Crackpot Palace
Raymond Chandler (I forget offhand which Marlowe book I'm up to)
Craig Johnson's Death without Company
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey
Railsea by China Mieville
Forty Lashes Less One - Elmore Leonard.

All subject to be changed by tomorrow (or tonight), of course.

I, too, want to read wolf Hall. I also adore Fforde and SOG is high on my TBR list.
China Mieville is one of my favourite authors.

I'm now going to look at the other books you listed