Between work and school and the all the snow shoveling I’ve been engaging in over the last few days I’ve been pretty close to exhausted. I climbed into bed last night and looked at Bookman and said, “I forgot to do a blog post today!” There have been plenty of times, especially while I’ve been in library school, where I didn’t blog because I was too busy but it has always been a conscious decision. Completely forgetting is a first! Hopefully it is only because I am busy and tired and not indicative of early senility or something.
For the remainder of this week and through next week, posting might be spotty here while the final group project gets completed and my class wraps up and draws to an end. Then I will get a brief respite from class before I move into the final stretch. I haven’t even done any what-am-I-going-to-read-on-quarter-break thinking. But since I’ve just brought myself there, I supposed I will start reading Transit of Venus for the end of March Slaves discussion. And I have a small hope that I can finish or come darn near to finishing 2666. Of course, there is also the possibility that I will have reached the point where I am so tired all I manage to do, and all I want to do, is stare at a blank wall for a week and a half. There is also the possibility that if winter gifts us with another snowstorm of over a foot I might just throw in the shovel, call it quits, and bury myself in a snow bank, not to be seen until sufficient meltage reveals my whereabouts.
But now I am drifting into grumpyland and that’s no good. So I will tell you about my “secret” book list.
You know, we all keep a book list, right? Books we hear about or read about on blogs and want to read ourselves or at least investigate further. A couple years ago I consolidated all my paper scraps and scribbles into one single gloriously huge Excel spreadsheet list. It went well for a while but then I began using a fantastic little Firefox plug-in called Zotero for school. Zotero manages citations and references and creates bibliographies for you at the click of a button. It is a wonderful piece of software. Anyway, because it can read the metadata about books from Amazon and library catalogs, when I would read reviews I’d look the book up on Amazon and save it to a folder I named “books of interest.” One of the really spiffy things about Zotero is that should I decide I want to borrow one of those books from a library, it has a “locate” button that does a search for the book for me on WorldCat so I can see what libraries in my area have the book.
So much for the Excel spreadsheet that was to be the “One List to Rule Them All.” I’ve pretty much abandoned it at this point. Except for the third and “secret” list.
This list is one that began innocently when I started working at a library. When I came across a book that sounded interesting I would usually just send an email to myself at home with the book info in it. But then one day I forgot to send the email with a couple book titles in it. It was saved in my Outlook “drafts” folder. And since it was there, I just kept adding to it and including permalinks to the books in the library catalog, handy for the day, sure to be just around the corner, when I decided I wanted to request the book.
Will you be surprised and shocked to know that my list has grown to 162 titles? At the rate I currently read, that’s about 2 ½ year’s worth of reading. And I keep adding to it. My Excel list has hundreds of titles on it. My Zotero folder, well, I’m afraid to count how many titles are saved in it. One of these days I will finally click “send” on the email and add the list to Zotero. Then I will promptly begin a new email list. It is inevitable. I read and I work in a library. It is my fate and my doom to have a “to read” list longer than a couple of lifetimes.
Good thing I’ve going to live forever. At least in my eternity I know I will never be at a loss for something to read.
I think your Grumpyland comment is FUNNY! I have a plethora of books to keep me busy reading but I keep adding to my WISH LIST on Amazon. When I hear/read about a book I may want to read I research it & if is sounds like one I’d like to read I add it to my list. Unlike you I only read about one book a month & I currently have 203 books on my list…. I’ll let you do the math. Meanwhile, my sister raided my wish list & got me 29 books on my wish list. I don’t see a Kindle in my future — what would I do with all those books??
Ha! Loved this whole post.
I remember your shock at my confession that I don’t have a TBR list. I keep thinking I will make one, but to be honest, I am not that organized. Also I like the idea of just being led to books ‘in the moment.’ But I do like the idea of emailing the titles to myself — maybe I should do that and just make a TBR folder in my email. I could probably manage that. Right now I go with the ‘scrap of paper’ plan when there is something I *really* want to read. One of the libraries I go to (I go to three!) has a ‘save’ list where you can sort of ‘save’ the title you want to request, but not actually request it yet. I LOVE this feature and use it fairly often. That’s sort of a TBR as well, I guess. Thank goodness we are all going to live forever because there are a lot of books I want to read.
My lists are on whatever is handy. Not much organization, although I sometimes try. Frequently, I go to the library without my list(s) and want to kick myself, but never end up with nothing to read.
I’m looking at the current list of 8 next to the computer; if I didn’t have so many books in the stacks right now, I’d be ordering a couple of them.
I used to keep a list like this but gave it up when I realised that even at my most optimistic (and I come from a reasonably long lived family) there was no way I could live long enough to read everything on it. My PhD supervisor once told me that the day he came to terms with his own mortality was the day he realised he owned more unread books than he had time left to read. I am not yet prepared to come to that acceptance.
Don’t you find a list of that size paralyzing? This is why I don’t keep a TBR list; I enjoy picking the next book too much to routinize the process. I might forget a book I wanted to read now and again, but I’m also more prepared to be led by whim and fancy than if I have a to-do list of reading staring at me.
Although I am inwardly cringing over the amount of snow you’ve had (we’ve even heard about it on our news down here in NE!), I have to say youe post gave me a good chuckle–so thank you. Maybe you could build an igloo and hibernate for the rest of winter? As for lists…just when you had me converted to Excel you come up with something new!
Usually my lists end up converted into actual piles of books, however, and I always manage to find something good (and that I’ve usually forgotten all about) amongst them! Hope you get some much needed rest soon.
I love this. Absolutely love this. My TBR lists are so scattered (one on my phone, an excel spread sheet, a notebook on my desk…) and I’m terrified to put them together. I haven’t even attempted to think about how many years it would take me to go through them if I ever decided to stop compiling and start reading only from the list.
I am very jealous, however, of your WorldCat locate button. I’d love that. (Sigh) I so miss American libraries.
That old “using draft emails as document storage” is a dangerous trap. When I became obsessed with double dactyls I started putting them into draft emails, and now I have a zillion email drafts with complete and incomplete doggerel verse clogging up my drafts folder. Oops.
Zotero sounds cool; I’ll have to check it out.
I have over 500 on my to read list. Kind of a sobering thought to know I’m sure I’ll be adding hundreds more and I won’t have time to read them all in my lifetime.
I am so wowed by this Zotero thing… never heard of it. That will be my next stop. And I hate to do this to you, but I started a list project this year that I keep on my blog – I wanted to see if it were possible to find 500 reasonably good self-published novels (because when I thought “Indie” the number that came to mind was of course “500″). In any case, I’ve found close to 100, and still combing the internet for more. If you know any, let me know!
You make me smile
I’ve been putting all my TBRs into Goodreads, which also has a link to Worldcat as well as numerous bookstores, but Zotero looks cool as well. As for the number of books on the list, I try not to think about it. For me, though, the TBR “list” is just a pool of possibilities to choose from. In answer to the Ape’s comment, treating the list as a pool rather than a plan or a to-do list keeps me from ever feeling paralyzed. I know I’ll never get to them all, and I make no special effort to read them in order. I might skim over the list before heading to the bookstore or library so I’ll have ideas of things to look for but if something not on the list catches my eye, I might read it instead. (Now the books I have in the house to read are another thing altogether. The TBR bookcase does sometime feel more like a to-do list, which is why I want to whittle it down.)
Being able to read everything I want to is the main reason I want to live forever. Sigh.
I’m slowly switching all my lists over to LibraryThing and GoodReads, and I’m pretty happy with that. But the funny thing is, I tend to read books NOT on the list rather than books on it. Perhaps going on the list is the kiss of death for a book? Perhaps I’d be better off not keeping a list at all … no, that’s not true. It’s nice to look over it and surprise myself with what’s on it
I love this post and the story of your lists, but I don’t think I dare go down that route. Like Danielle, my lists convert into real paper far too quickly, and I am knee deep in unread books as it is (although I like that, don’t get me wrong). I just have an amazon wish list. But unlike the Reading Ape, I don’t find unread books or lists depressing – they give me something to live FOR. My happiest moments are spent imagining future reading experiences. Is that really sad?
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Helen, that’s one disadvantage to keeping my lists on my computer, people can’t raid them and give me any of the books on them! How nice of your sister. And if you can’t figure out what to do with all those books, you can send them to me
Daphne, LOL, I still haven’t gotten over that shock! My library has a feature where you can save books to a list too but so far I have managed to avoid using it. Since I obviously have a list problem, I have no idea how long that will last though.
Jenclair, I am glad I am not the only one who forgets her list when she goes to the library!
Annie, since I am still planning to live forever so I can read all the books on my lists and in my piles, I obviously have not come to terms with my mortality so I keep on listing. The longer the lists, the longer I’ll live!
Ape, oh no, the lists aren’t paralyzing at all. As Teresa comments, they are a nice pool from which to choose books. And most of the time I forget to look at the lists anyway. When I do look at them, they also help me remember books I really want to read but didn’t have time for when I first found out about them.
Danielle, our snow made your news? That’s kind of depressing. Excel is not dead yet but Zotero has pretty much taken over mostly because it doesn’t require me to type anything at all and I can even save book reviews along with the citation. I’m still working on my books read database but it has been put on hold until after graduation. I’m always in search of the perfect tracking system.
Michelle, Glad you enjoyed it! Before the Excel spreadsheet my list was a shoebox filled with scraps of paper and I was terrified of going through it. But it turned out not to be so bad. Once I got everything on my computer though, things have gotten way out of hand! There are lots of international libraries in WorldCat so you might be surprised if you haven’t checked it out lately.
Emily, you are right, email drafts are a very dangerous trap though I find it very funny that yours is filled with double dactyls! Zotero is a little miracle when it comes to writing papers and since I spend so much time with it I have found other uses for it too.
Laura, well you’re just going to have to resolve to live forever like I have!
Melissa, Zotero is a lovely thing that one of my professors mentioned early in library school and I have been in love with it ever since. If I come across any good self published novels I will be sure to let you know!
Tara, always glad to be the cause of a smile
Teresa, yes your GoodReads lists are deadly! I see them in a daily email and I always find them interesting! I use my lists just like you do yours. I come across so many interesting books that if I don’t save them on a list I will never remember them again. So when I’m going to the library or a bookstore I peruse the lists to jog my memory.
Dana, yes, that is why I want to live forever too. And I am sure we both will
Dorothy, heh, I know what you mean about how the TBR list can be the kiss of death. Once a book goes on mine I figure I don’t have to remember it anymore because I can refer to the list. But I won’t say how often I forget to look at the list before embarking on book acquisitions!
Litlove, you just need a really big list that is so daunting you could never actually buy everything on it unless you won the lottery jackpot or found a pot of gold. Lists are great for those happy imagining moments, though I must admit not as great as actually having the book on your shelf!
. I’ve got a few TBRs among whom I’m dividing my time: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Taleb’s Black Swan, and Anne Heller’s new critical biography of Ayn Rand.
That, and (when an airplane trip comes up) anything new that I’ll get for my Kindle (Yes, I succumbed
).
Polaris, LOL, kneew you would succumb!
I hope you are enjoying Midnight’s Children. I read it a number of years ago and found it difficult but very good.
At least, it’s only a blog post you forgot; it could have been worse. I know what you feel though; I keep forgetting everything at the moment because there is so much to remember. I have never made so many lists I think, and they are not book lists
Don’t get grumpy; the end is close
Sad, but true…the weather guy was talking about snowfall amounts last year and this and apparently we actually had gotten more then you guys did by this time last year. I am, however, very happy to return that honor back to the snowy northern states.
I used to keep a sort of ‘master wishlist’ on Amazon of books I’d heard about that sounded interesting, I wanted to read, etc. but like a lot of other things, I wasn’t meticulous about maintaining it and it soon became obsolete. It seemed like I was always adding but never taking away, and I think that’s mainly why I stopped.
I do still have lists and notes about books I want to read, but they aren’t really organized – and some exist no where but inside my head.
Em, you’re right, at least it was only a blog post. Could have been much worse.
Danielle, you know, I usually don’t think of Minneapolis as being all that snowy. Duluth gets lots more snow than we do since they are on Lake Superior. Hopefully this winter is just an anolmaly!
Lesley, heh, that’s the problem with lists, you have to remember to take things off once you’ve read an/or acquired them. I admit I am very bad at it but get into a “list cleaning” fit now and then and tidy things up.