Recently I pulled every book I own off my bookshelves and sorted them into piles, by subject. There they sat for several days. A few dozen went onto a "Hall of Fame" bookcase together; these are the books I love, re-read, and will never give away. That left, oh, several hundred books in the "To Be Read" category.

I love buying books. It is the most soothing activity in the world to me; finding a new title that looks fascinating, buying it, holding it, smelling its new book smell (or used book smell) before putting it on one of my shelves. The problem with this is that I have accumulated so many books TBR that I found myself somewhat paralyzed. How could I possibly choose what to read next?

I used to keep all my books neatly categorized, ever since childhood. My mother was a librarian and the books I still have from my youth have handmade library "cards" taped inside the front covers, in case someone wanted to check one out of my personal bedroom library. I loved looking at all the neat categories, books with similar themes hanging out together as God intended them to: science fiction, nature, humor, novels, travel, and more.

When my first husband and I moved in together, he convinced me that sorting our books randomly onto shelves was the better way to go. You might have to search longer for a particular book you wanted, but serendipity might lead you to one that you hadn't considered reading instead. Even though we have lived apart for many years now, I continued to use his method, until a few days ago when I realized that I missed the neat categories of book types that I used to have on my shelves. Hence the pulling off of all books, sorting, and now tonight, replacing in a way that makes me happier. Once a librarian's daughter, always a librarian's daughter.

Handling and studying all of those books intensified my overwhelmed feeling, however. I want to read every book on my shelves. I bought them for that very purpose. But how to choose what to read?

I am trying out two methods. One is to dedicate a shelf of books especially to the book clubs, groups, and challenges I am working on this year. There are quite a few: Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, Emma Watson's feminist book club, my own KidLit for Grown-Ups book club, the Left Bank Books monthly early-release novels club (a local indie bookstore's picks), and the Lithographs Book Club, which offers a choice of several selections each "season," though they are not very successful at this, since it's the end of July and the only book I have received from them so far has been their "winter" selection (which was excellent, though, so I'm hanging in there).

Having those books together on a shelf makes it easy to go pull off something to read that will allow me to tick a box on one of my reading lists. If I really enjoy these books and expect to re-read them in the future, they move onto my Hall of Fame bookcase. If not, they go into bags to be sold to the local Half-Price Books store.

The second method, which I am just beginning now, is to use these intriguing "summer reading" guidelines from a Book Riot article: http://bookriot.com/2016/06/07/how-to...
I like the way different types of books are mixed here: books that support different goals in one's life, beloved re-reads, and more.

My final thought on this subject is that pulling all my books off my shelves and looking at each one to see how to categorize it was very helpful in itself. I now have a much better idea of what I actually own, which categories are sparse and which are overflowing. I will try to curtail my book purchases for awhile now as I focus on reading through the wonderful books already on my shelves.