Manifesto
I have come to the conclusion that TBR lists are more of a hindrance to reading than anything else. It's the burial place for all those books I think sound interesting but not quite enough to read and be done with them immediately. Then they stay on my mind like many tiny Damocles' swords for months if not years, stressing me out to no end.
Thus, I've decided to demolish my TBR list and never build a new one ever again.
Currently, I have 69 books saved on GoodReads and 24 unread physical books on my shelves, for a total of 93. My plan is to slowly make my way through them, hopefully by the end of 2023.
The rules are:
I can take a book off the list without reading it if A. I give it a good effort but end up DNFing it; B. the book is unobtainable; C. I can't even remember why it's on my TBR in the first place.
I can't add new books to the TBR. I either read the book immediately or forget about it. If I'm meant to read that book, it will pop up again somewhere else.
There is a lot of non-fiction, mainly history-related books on my TBR currently, but also literature classics, YA, various kinds of romances and fantasy, so that's what I'll be reading mostly in the next few months.
So, how did I do in 2023?
Not bad but also not that good. I read 35 books (some were for uni so I didn't bother mentioning them on here). As far as I can remember, 14 were from my TBRs.
I now have 50 books on my GoodReads TBR and 11 on my physical TBRs, so 61 in total. I know that the numbers don't match up, but that's because I shed a few without reading them. Feeling much lighter.
For 2024, the goal will still be to read as many books from my TBR as I can but I won't try to aim for a specific number. Traditionally, I set 100 books as my reading challenge on GoodReads but I'm busy right now and don't need the stress of a self-imposed impossible task. As they say, it's fine.










