Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
The really dreadful thing is how few of those purchases I regret.
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This is a figure I've been toying with for the past few days.
Really regret, in the "What was I thinking?" line, only a few. But
somewhat regret, to use the word in your spoiler, as in, "What is the likelihood I'll ever get around to this?" Well, ouch. Somewhere in the 10% to 20% range. And given the size of my TBR list, this could obviously go much higher.
This stock-taking feels productive to me. I've mentioned that I'm going to keep this year's bought-list front and center next year and I've decided that I'll make an effort to make serious inroads into the unread portion. I hope this has the effect of making me more mindful of the necessary connection between wanting-buying and actually reading.
Alas, I know I've been down this road before. The one bright spot is that my purchases this year were at roughly half my 2014 level. Evernote has eaten most of my 2015 list, so no comparison there; while no doubt reconstructing it would be salutary, I'm not going to bother. Just through May, my 2015 total was approaching my 2016 full year total. I'll note that 2014 and 2015 totals were inflated by unlimited 90% coupons, but I've managed to keep my average cost per book fairly low this year, also.
I also think that once I'm up to using a computer again, I'm going to purge my Calibre library of books that realistically I'll never read. While I suppose having them serves as an object lesson, and even though they're already tagged as unlikely, I think having a more "muscular" Calibre library would be beneficial, especially in the sense of getting it down to a point where I could think most would be read in the next five years, say. My litmus test will be if I'd toss the book if it were an unread pbook. This is just a refinement of the "freebies aren't free" mantra. Even eclutter is clutter and the money's been spent. Once I get rid of the deadwood, I might actually be willing to put a number on my TBR and that would be beneficial.