Organizing my TBR

Hello book bees! Ah yes, the dreaded TBR list. I’ve come to realize that I have a slightly different TBR from many bloggers, as I don’t have many physical books with me anymore. I left behind a sizable collection years ago when I went away for college. The books are still mine, they just live in storage with my dad until I can afford to and have the space to ship them wherever I end up. I generally travel with a handful of them when I move–and I left behind those I traveled with to Denmark in storage with my mother-in-law.

Instead, my TBR is almost entirely on Goodreads and is mostly a way to track every book that’s ever interested me. A little while ago, one of my goals was to lower my TBR number to 300 and I didn’t succeed because, well, I learn about new books every day! However, during this process I did recognize that I should really have two TBRs: one for books I’ll read however I can, and one for books that I really want to read a physical copy of.

Part of why I have such a separation is that I really like to take notes on books in the books. Thus, books that I now I’ll want to highlight and take notes in and keep for future reference, I would prefer to buy a physical copy. A lot of these books are historical books, reference books for my field, and other such books that I’d like to have on hand for when I eventually finally start working in my field. But some of them are books that I know I’m excited to read and I’d like to keep my copy and peruse any notes and highlights I make.

All this to say that up to this point, the most I’ve done to make such a distinction between books is to put books I want to read a physical copy of onto an Amazon wishlist. But considering I haven’t actually bought a book since September because, well, money… I think it would also be good to organize my TBR list to reflect more of the patterns I’m thinking of when I start adding books.

This is a very rambly introduction to what may become a series where I examine the books on my TBR and organize them into more concise lists. So far, I’ve only got the one category. But I’m thinking perhaps I can have lists of other things as well. Books I’ve added simply because I know the author and I liked something else they wrote; books that are the next in a series I’m still interested in; books that I added because something in the contents is an auto-add for me.

Do any of you, fellow book bloggers, organize your TBRs with further categories and lists? If so, what advice do you have for keeping all of that straight?

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