It's official: I'm breaking up with my TBR
In which our heroine lets go of reader guilt
Hey there, cozy friend!
As I write to you, it is finally snowing in Wisconsin and I am counting down the minutes until I can curl up on my couch with a cup of tea and a book. It is peak reading weather.
At the end of the year, my book club friends and I chatted about our reading goals for the year. It was such a wholesome conversation and I loved thinking about what I want my reading to look like this year, something I had never really taken time to reflect on before. I have just four goals and not to be dramatic, but I think they could potentially be life-changing.
My biggest goal this year — no more to-be-read piles (literal or virtual):
I thought this would be almost impossible for me. I love making TBR (to-be-read) lists and piles for the seasons, for upcoming trips, for holidays, and for general moods and hyperfixations. That’s a fun activity and I deeply enjoy making my seasonal recommendation lists for all of you. Don’t worry, they’re sticking around.
The problem? I never actually stuck to the TBR. Which is fine, except for the consuming sense of guilt that I felt, for example, in October when I had an urge to read the second book in the Discovery of Witches series. I took myself on a little solo date to the bookstore to find it and started reading it the moment I finished the book I’d been reading. I was excited about this book! But I was taking some of the joy out of the experience, feeling bad because it was taking me forever to read (those books are long and dense) and thus I didn’t really even make a dent in my spooky season TBR.
One of the themes that frequently comes up in my therapy sessions is the sense of guilt that I have over the smallest little things, never feeling I’m doing enough or that I’m somehow letting myself down. Breaking up with my TBR isn’t going to fix that, but it’s a way for me to consciously remove guilt from one of the things I love most — reading. Hopefully, it will help me bring the same energy to other areas of my life too.
So this year, I’m following my heart when it comes to my books. Of course, mentally I have books waiting in the wings that I’m excited to read, but I’m making zero public or private declarations of what I’m going to read next. I am perusing my shelves and choosing what excites me at the moment. It’s like wandering into a bookstore and searching for that just right book to take home.
Almost a month in, I’m loving it. I feel so free.
Read the books I own:
I guess this is a very common goal across the bookish internet, but this is my first year really choosing to prioritize it. Outside of my book club books, I don’t plan to get many novels from the library (I will still be getting cookbooks from the library, one of my favorite unlocks in 2024!). I love the library, don’t get me wrong. However, I find that I choose books less intentionally when I get them for free and then I don’t get to all the books I was so excited about that I purchased them.
This will help me with a couple sub goals as well:
Read more diversely: I think I am very good at buying books from a diverse range of authors, but when I look back at my reading from last year there are truly so many romance novels by white women. I loved many of those books! But there are so many more stories and perspectives out there… and in here on my own shelves.
I would also like to read more different genres. My romances got me through a really hard year last year, but I think I’m ready to get back to more literary and historical fiction this year.Read more mashed potatoes: I don’t have a better way of describing this than the women that coined the term, Raeleen and Ariel from Books Unbound so I’ll let them define it:
This term defines the phenomenon of avoiding books because you are waiting for the “perfect” time to read them. Using a thanksgiving dinner as a metaphor, the idea is that you may have the propensity to wait until the very end of your meal to indulge in your favourite element, the mashed potatoes, thus allowing you to enjoy them more fully by having them as the great crescendo of the feast. However, by waiting too long and ignoring them, what can actually happen is that they grow cold and by the time you do eat them (ie read the book) they no longer hold the excitement you once hoped for. Alternatively, they may end up still being as delicious as you’d hoped but you become plagued by the feeling that you wish you hadn’t waited so long and accrued so much anxiety around the whole affair: you should have just gotten to the good stuff.
As a seasonal and mood reader, I am so guilty of this behavior. I get so caught up in reading a book at the perfect time because I get scared I won’t enjoy it as much — which is sometimes true! I know I would have enjoyed A Deadly Education more if I had read it in the Autumn instead of the Summer. With no TBR competition though, I feel like I’ll be more likely to grab the mashed potatoes off my shelves.
Re-read an old favorite book (or two):
My first instinct with this goal was to come up with a list of five books I wanted to re-read in 2025. If that sounds suspiciously like a TBR… that’s because it is! So, I didn’t do that. Upon realizing this, I ran straight into the benefits of not having a TBR. I didn’t need to wait until I’d finished some number of seasonal books that would never feel like enough. I could start re-reading a book RIGHT THEN! So I did.
I recently finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, one of my favorite books of all time. The best part about being a reader who remembers zero plot details is that returning to this book thirteen years after I first read it means I had no idea what was going to happen. There were times I literally gasped. I’m basically experiencing this magical book for the first time all over again.
I also didn’t realize that tarot was such a big part of the book. When I was 20, I didn’t practice tarot. Now, I have a whole new understanding of the story thanks to my experience with the cards. That’s the magic of a re-read. The story stays the same, but we ourselves have changed, so our experience reading it feels completely new.
You’ll have to stay tuned to see which others I revisit this year.
Read 50 books:
Of course, a goal for the number of books one reads in a year doesn’t really matter. You aren’t a “better” reader if you read 100 books than someone who reads 12. We are all readers and that looks different for everyone. How beautiful!
For me, setting a goal keeps me accountable to my actual goal to read every day. I also have so many books to read — and more keep coming. So I want to make sure I’m constantly making my way through the books I want to read. For the last few years, I’ve ended the year having read about 50 books, so that’s what I’ve stuck with as my goal. It ensures I’m prioritizing reading, but doesn’t feel unmanageable to me.
You can follow me over on Storygraph if you want to keep up live!
Finally, your cozy inspiration for the week:
Have you picked up your winter hobby yet? During my day off on Monday, I spent several hours knitting a wool sock while catching up with my favorite lifestyle vlogs on YouTube and watching a cozy movie. Giving myself the space to dive into a project and give it my full attention felt absolutely luxurious. Plus, I’m very proud of my wonky little sock.
Thank you so much for joining me in this cozy little internet cottage this week. If you enjoyed this post, please give it a heart, leave a comment, or share it with a friend. That helps me know what kind of things our community loves and helps us grow.
If you’re looking for more bookish content, check out these posts from the archive:
So much to love in this post!! I’ve also been trying to break up with my TBR. My TBR has become “book club books and what’s on my shelf.” We’ll see if I stick with it!
Maybe this is the year when I will finally allow myself to DNF books I don’t like!