05 July 2009

Sunday Salon: Giving Credit; Taming My TBR List

I've mentioned on this blog before that I use Goodreads to keep track of the books I want to read. It occurred to me that I should also be using it to keep track of where I heard about the book. Today I was constructing the opening paragraph of a book review in my head, and I couldn't remember how I found the book. It isn't a hot title like Twilight that has been mentioned repeatedly in various media outlets, which means that I most saw it mentioned on another blog. I've been finding a lot of books that way lately, and I think it is only fair that I give the bloggers a little mention when it happens. So now when I add a book to my Goodreads TBR list, I plan to type the name of the blog in the Recommended By field.

QUESTION: Do you try to keep track of who told you about a book?


The strange thing about my TBR list is that I keeping adding to it but I haven't been reading anything on it. When I hear about an interesting book, I check my local library. If they have it, I either check it out immediately or add it to my TBR list. So most of the books on my Read list have never been on my TBR list. At one point this year, my TBR list was almost 200 titles long. Once I weeded out the books that weren't in my library, I was still left with 80 titles. Starting this week, I will be attempting to check out books from the TBR list exclusively. I doubt that I can read 80 books in 6 months and I can't promise that I won't still be adding books to the list, but I hope that I will either have less than 50 titles on the list by the end of the year or that I will have rotated off the current titles and have all new ones. Wish me luck!

QUESTION: Do you have a crazy long TBR list?

6 comments:

Monique said...

I use Shelfari to keep track of my TBR list and right now it is at 196 books. In order to control it I only allow myself to add books on Friday.

I use Friday Finds to track were I get books from. But I might steal your suggestion and add notes to Shelfari with the blog name.

Dani In NC said...

Sunday tends to be the day that I add new books. That is when I do most of my blog reading, like the Sunday Salon.

I'm adding notes to Goodreads because there is usually a LONG time between when I add the book to the list and when I actually read it. If I had to dig through my old blog entries to find out where I first heard about the book, I would never do it :-). This way, the note is with the book entry so when I post the review on Goodreads I can see the note right there.

Anonymous said...

I'm using a few different lists to keep track of TBR; some for me, some for others, second chances, highly recommended, etc. If they were combined, I think I'd avoid adding any more at all.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dani, I've tagged you for an award over at my blog here.

Jem said...

I use Goodreads to keep track of my TBR, but I don't actually go over it very often. The ones I really really want to read I remember in my head and grab from the library as soon as I can.

Dani In NC said...

Jemima, lists haunt me, even if the list is something for recreation. Once my TBR list got to a certain size, then I felt guilty that I was reading other books that weren't on it. Besides, I could use something that gives me a sense of accomplishment; I've been bad about not finishing things lately :-).