I’ve admitted before that my to-be-read (TBR) pile is ridiculously large. I have piles around my desk and piles in my bedroom. Even more books pile up in my Kindle. There’s a reason I’ve called myself a book slut. I just can’t resist books. *smile*
Some people with big TBR piles read books in a certain order. They might read in a first-in-first-out order, taking the oldest book from the stack. Others do the first-in-first-out method with most of the books but allow some to sneak to the top.
Not me. I have no set order for my TBR pile. I tend to read what appeals to me at that moment in time rather than assigning books a place in line. I usually decide on a genre first and then skim through the books in that genre until I find a back cover blurb that grabs my attention.
My “method” is the same behavior we use when browsing at a library or bookstore. Maybe that’s my excuse for the size of my TBR pile—I’m trying to create my own personal library. *snicker*
The physical books in my TBR pile are easy to wade through. The covers are right there to look at and entice me. A twist of my wrist lets me read the back cover blurb to find the perfect book to match my mood.
The ebooks on my Kindle are another story. I created a Collection for those I haven’t read yet and another Collection that’s supposed to be my “Top of the TBR Pile,” but there’s no easy way to skim through them, reading the back cover blurbs. At least, no way that’s as quick and easy as picking up a book and flipping it over.
The best tool I’ve found so far is the Calibre ebook management software. Calibre imports the title, author, and metadata information (including those back cover blurbs) from your ereader if the ebook’s metadata is coded correctly (a good example of why metadata is so important). It also grabs the book cover from Amazon.
Calibre should solve my problem. However, it can be a pain to keep synchronized because you have to connect your ereader to your computer to update your Calibre library. Also, it isn’t user friendly for my purposes—looking up book information for my Kindle choices when I’m not at my computer.
Yet I know plenty of people who have bigger TBR piles on their ereaders than I do. Are all ereaders a black hole of ebooks, where books are downloaded and then lost in the pile? Or am I a special case of disorganized chaos?
I’m hoping something out there will let me view covers and back cover blurbs from the virtual bookshelf or let me sort and search by genre. Maybe there’s a secret organizational tool I’m not aware of. Maybe no one else has this problem because the newer ereaders (I have a 2-year-old Kindle Keyboard) don’t require users to click through and connect to the retailer to read the Book Description. Or maybe no one else cares about the mess in their ereader. *smile*
How do you work your way through your TBR pile: first-in-first-out, random, or somewhere in the middle? Does anyone else take the bookstore browsing approach? Do you suffer from an ereader black hole problem? If not, why not (a different buying style, reading style, ereader design, or a management tool)? What suggestions do you have for how to manage ebook libraries?
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