I created my reading queue about a year and half ago because I decided I needed a system to help me work through my big to be read pile. The main problem, as I wrote at the time, was that there were a number of books in my TBR pile that I was interested in reading but never seemed to get around to. A newer, more exciting book would come along and it would vault to the top of the pile and other books would languish, unread.
Part of the problem is how I read. I read fairly quickly, but I don’t spend a lot of my day reading books. I spend a lot of time on this here computer, for one thing. Plus, every day I read the newspaper and every week I read the New Yorker from cover to cover. I’ll probably read about 30 books this year, not a lot when you consider my TBR pile is more than 40 books tall. Though I’d love to be able to read two or three books a week, I don’t really mind my slower pace. Still, I didn’t like the idea of books staring at me year after year unread, so I created the reading queue.
As you can see if you check out the queue near the bottom of the right hand column, I alphabetize my TBR pile by author and then assign each book a number. When the time comes to pick my next book to read, I use a random number generator to decide for me. I know, it’s impossibly nerdy, but I’ve decided I like handling my reading decisions this way.
For one thing, it is in keeping with certain compulsive tendencies I have about organizing things (although, sadly, those tendencies don’t cause me to clean off my desk with any regularity, for example), and each new book I pick to read is a little surprise rather than an agonizing decision (well, maybe it’s not that bad). The only time I read a book out of order is if a publisher or author has sent me an advance copy and I want to make sure I read and review it when it comes out. Those I bump right to the top of the list. But if I go buy a book or get one as a gift, it goes into the queue. Maybe I’ll read it next week, maybe I’ll read it in five years; the reading queue will decide.
I’m probably the only odd bird out there who feels a need to organize their reading this way, but if anyone else has a reading queue of their own, I’d love to hear about it.
