Mount TBR 2021 discussion

OK, I'm gonna be bold this year! Every year I have failed at this challenge, until 2020, when I aimed lower and then actually got to move up by a couple of mountains! But as of late November, it looks like I'm going to summit Mt. Ararat, so I'm going to go straight for that peak in 2021. Even doing the best I've ever done on this challenge, I've barely made a dent in my TBR pile, so obviously I need to aim higher.

I'll update with current stats at the start of the challenge, but right at this moment my physical TBR is 995. (UPDATE: 998. Oops! Christmas presents...) I have a (very) long-term plan to get it down to something more like 100, but first I have to actually get it to start going down instead of up!!

To Mt. Ararat, and beyond!

I'll be continuing to work on some sub-goals I established in 2020 (some of them based on data I've been tracking for years):

Sub-goal #1: Try to read one 700+ page book off my TBR each quarter.
Winter: Winter by Marissa Meyer (haha, Winter is my winter book!)
Spring: Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (in progress)
Summer: Spring book still in progress...
Autumn: oh no still going...

Sub-goal #2: Try to read one non-fiction book off my TBR each quarter.
Winter: fail! I'll try to make it up later...
Spring: fail again...
Summer: good grief this goal is not going well
Autumn: well I failed this goal all year

Sub-goal #3: Knock some of the oldest books off my TBR. I've been on Goodreads since 2009, and when I joined I added my whole collection as of that time, so a huge chunk of my TBR list is from that year.
2009 TBR at start of year: 340
2009 TBR at end of year: 330

Detailed starting stats:

Number of books over a certain length (cumulative):
>1000: 3
>900: 4
>800: 12
>700: 26
>600: 48
>500: 89
>400: 197
>300: 374
which leaves 624 books that are under 300 pages.


When books were added to my TBR shelf:
2009: 340 (the year I joined Goodreads and added my existing collection)
2010: 101
2011: 42
2012: 116
2013: 40
2014: 45
2015: 89
2016: 40
2017: 52
2018: 58
2019: 41
2020: 34

Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "OK, I'm gonna be bold this year! Every year I have failed at this challenge, until 2020, when I aimed lower and then actually got to move up by a couple of mountains! But as of late November, it looks like I'm going to summit Mt. Ararat, so I'm going to go straight for that peak in 2021. Even doing the best I've ever done on this challenge, I've barely made a dent in my TBR pile, so obviously I need to aim higher.

I'll update with current stats at the start of the challenge, but right at this moment my physical TBR is 995. I have a (very) long-term plan to get it down to something more like 100, but first I have to actually get it to start going down instead of up!!

To Mt. Ararat, and beyond!

I will see you on Mt Olympus one of these days!

Hilary (A Wytch's Book Review) wrote: "I will see you on Mt Olympus one of these days!"

Haha! That would be amazing but isn't very likely. I barely manage 150 books in a year total! Perhaps if my attention span improves significantly so that I could actually get a lot of reading done on summer break...

Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "Hilary (A Wytch's Book Review) wrote: "I will see you on Mt Olympus one of these days!"

Haha! That would be amazing but isn't very likely. I barely manage 150 books in a year total! Perhaps if my ..."

I have managed 150 for the last couple of years (and hope to hit it this year) the problem is my TBR list/pile/file keeps growing at a faster rate!

Love all the stats. Good luck with your 2021 climb Lianne!

I love the organization you've put into this!

Welcome back!! Good luck with your 2021!

Thanks everyone! :) I do enjoy my stats. They help me with my goal setting.

1. Fairest (Lunar Chronicles #3.5) by Marissa Meyer (got as a gift in December 2018)

First TBR book down! And it was a good one! Even though this book is quite dark and I'm usually a happy endings kinda reader, I really enjoyed getting Levana's backstory. I can't wait to read Winter!

Good luck with your reading goals this year Lianne. I'm impressed by your stats, especially knowing how many books with page length!

Pamela wrote: "Good luck with your reading goals this year Lianne. I'm impressed by your stats, especially knowing how many books with page length!"

Thanks, Pamela! I do love my stats. :)

2. Winter (Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer (bought in August 2016)

Well, I might be behind in terms of TBR books read, but I just finished my first long book of the year at 823 pages! :D And it was super good!!

Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "2. Winter (Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer (bought in August 2016)

Well, I might be behind in terms of TBR books read, but I just finished my first long book of t..."

Yes! Doesn't feel like 800 pages!

3. Check It Out -- And Die! (Spinetinglers #5) by M.T. Coffin (bought in August 2020)

How could I, a horror-loving school librarian, resist a book about a substitute school librarian who gives kids horror books that they then get sucked into?!

These are the 25 books on my TBR that are over 700 pages (now that I've read Winter and removed it from that list):

1) 1Q84 (1157 pages)
2) Shōgun (1152 pages)
3) Under the Dome (1074 pages)
4) The Golden Book of Faerie (946 pages)
5) Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales (880 pages)
6) The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (878 pages)
7) Inheritance (849 pages)*
8) 11/22/63 (849 pages)
9) The War of the Flowers (828 pages)
10) Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (821 pages)
11) Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings (819 pages)
12) The Light Bearer (788 pages)
13) The Triumph of the Dwarves (784 pages)*
14) City of Golden Shadow (780 pages)
15) The Machine Crusade (779 pages)*
16) Brisingr (748 pages)*
17) The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh (736 pages)
18) House Harkonnen (733 pages)*
19) The Sword of Shannara (726 pages)
20) Weaveworld (721 pages)
21) The Morgaine Saga (707 pages)
22) Lirael (705 pages)*
23) The Book of the Dead: The Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani (704 pages)
24) Eldest (704 pages)*
25) House Atreides (704 pages)*

* = There is prerequisite reading for this, e.g. earlier books in the series.

So, one of my goals is to read at least three more of those this year. It would be nice to do more of them! But, I also have some long books planned outside of my TBR. I recently started The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, and am supposed to do a year-long group read of Les Misérables, and both of those are over 1000 pages. So, we'll see!

Lianne (The Towering Pile) wrote: "These are the 25 books on my TBR that are over 700 pages (now that I've read Winter and removed it from that list):

1) 1Q84 (1157 pages)
2) Shōgun (1152 pages)"

Oooh boy the page counts! I was trying to read Les Mis Jan 1 on but it's hard to have the motivation solo so I joined a group read slated to start in July.

I would say that finishing the Eragon series would be easy, they are quick reads even for being so long. Except that last book, what he did, I'm still miffed about that. lol

Elyse wrote: "Oooh boy the page counts! I was trying to read Les Mis Jan 1 on but it's hard to have the motivation solo so I joined a group read slated to start in July.

I would say that finishing the Eragon series would be easy, they are quick reads even for being so long. Except that last book, what he did, I'm still miffed about that. lol"

Les Mis got picked for the first year-long book study in the group Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. So I figured this is as good a time as any to give it a shot!

Yes, the Eragon books are definitely one of my potentially easier portions of this list. I'm also doing the Dune buddy read in March, which will get me on my way towards reading the later Dune books (but only books 7, 8, and 11 in the series are over 700 pages, so that's a lot of pre-req reading lol). There are also a few others on this list that I've been really wanting to get to... So it's hard to say which ones I'll read this year!

4. Lights Out (Fear Street #12) by R.L. Stine (bought in April 2010)

Definitely not my favourite Fear Street book.

5. Back to Before (Megamorphs #4) by K.A. Applegate (bought in March 2010)

Ooh, that was a really good one!

So, apparently I haven't read a TBR book in two months?? lol oops. Well, I do have a few on the go, one of which is almost done. And I'll definitely tackle a few next weekend in the read-a-thon! And I did start my second quarter long book: Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. It will take a while!

Also, by reading Back to Before, I've accomplished one of my many mini-goals: I got my 2010 TBR list below 100! :D

6. Hunger in Her Bones (Sparkstone Saga #3) by Clare C. Marshall (bought in November 2017)

And just like that, another one done! (I say just like that, but I've been reading this book for months lol)

Now for the Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon books!

7. The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright (bought in September 2020)

Betty Ren Wright was one of my favourite authors in elementary school. Always nice to discover another one of her books!

8. The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate (bought in May 2010)

Oof I'm really in the dark portion of this series now!

9. Twin Spica, Vol. 12 by Kou Yaginuma (bought in June 2017)

I started this series almost 5 years ago and just now finished it! One day I should read it again but closer together.

10. Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors (The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids #3) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones (had since childhood)

This is a reread but I hadn't read it since elementary school. Such a fun series!

11. Revenge of the Computer Phantoms by J.R. Black (bought in September 2020)

This book was every bit as ridiculous as the cover suggests, lol! It was fun.

OK, so that brings me a little closer to being caught up! Certainly the read-a-thon caught me up on my Goodreads goal at least.

I was able to knock off 4 with the readathon so yay!

12. Les fantômes de Spiritwood by Martine Noel-Maw (bought in May 2016)

It occurred to me that the French book I just finished counts for this challenge! I have a separate shelf for unread books that aren't in English, so this doesn't actually shorten my Goodreads TBR shelf, but it is a book I own and hadn't read before!

So with that I summit Pike's Peak, better late than never! I've just been so slowed down by all the long books I accidentally started reading all at the same time, lol! (Literally I'm reading The Thousand Nights and a Night, Les Miserables, Dune, The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, plus a couple books that I could finish pretty quickly if I just focused on them. Like what am I doing.)

13. Stars Above by Marissa Meyer (got as a gift in December 2018)

And with that I finish the Lunar Chronicles! After restarting the series in march 2020, lol! Well that took a while. Scarlet and Cress definitely slowed me down. Unpopular opinion, but Scarlet was my least favourite book in the series. I loved Cinder, but Winter might have beaten it! Anyway I enjoyed Stars Above. And the last story (basically an epilogue) was very sweet and a nice way to end off the series. :)

Now, umm, wish me luck catching up when I'm like 12 books behind and also have 16 books out from the school library for summer break and also a few out from the public library right now.

14. Jerks-in-Training (Space Cadets #1) by R.L. Stine (bought in July 2012)

15. The Secret Bedroom (Fear Street #13) by R.L. Stine (bought in September 2009)

Well this summer has sucked for reading, as per usual lol. But I did make sure to bring two TBR books to the beach with me last week and polished them off in a couple of days.

Honestly, as much as I love imagining reading a lot on summer break, I end up reading less. Soon it'll be back to school and maybe I'll manage to catch up when I'm back in my routine! In the meantime I'm mostly trying to get through my huge library stack while powering through House of Leaves for the group read-along.

16. The Third Planet from Altair (Choose Your Own Adventure #7) by Edward Packard (bought in August 2009)

Finally! I started this gamebook in April! It's not that I've been reading it all this time; I just got tired of following all the paths and set it aside for months. It was haunting me on my currently reading shelf.

17. Broken Date by R.L. Stine (bought in October 2009)

Finally read an R.L. Stine book! I had some time yesterday afternoon and was like ok, never mind this giant library stack! The TBR pile waits for no one! My library pile is actually approaching under control at the moment, lol, so I'm hoping to really pile in some TBR books in the final months of the year.

18. The Knife (Fear Street #14) by R.L. Stine (bought in September 2009)

Best Fear Street book yet, I reckon!

19. The Prom Queen (Fear Street #15) by R.L. Stine (bought in September 2009)

I have 5 TBR books on my read-a-thon pile for this weekend. That would bring me up to halfway to my goal for the year. In late October. Ooooops lol. Still, *theoretically* this is still possible!

20. Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams (bought in September 2020)

21. The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate (bought in May 2009 or earlier)

22. Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson (bought in April 2015)

23. Heart of Stone (High School Hell #1) by I.D. Russell (bought in October 2018)

There's my progress from Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon! Can I squeeze in 25 more in the next 68 days??

24. First Date (Fear Street #16) by R.L. Stine (bought in September 2009)

Mount Blanc done!

Good luck with the rest of your climb!

25. Goodnight Kiss (Fear Street Superchillers #3) by R.L. Stine (bought in September 2009)

Well obviously I'm not gonna hit my goal this year lol but I can still try to squeeze in a few more!

26. Hit and Run by R.L. Stine (bought in March 2010)

The most exciting thing about finishing this book is that finally, FINALLY, the next book up in my chronological reading of my R.L. Stine collection is the first Goosebumps book!!! I'm SO excited.

27. Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1) by R.L. Stine (bought in elementary school, reread)

YEEEEEEES. God I love this series. After some not-great R.L. Stine books in my read-through so far, I'm very happy to find that Goosebumps is just as good as I remember it. I've come to the conclusion that Stine is just better at writing monster books for kids than he is at writing slashers for teens. (Some big Fear Street fans may be horrified by me saying that lol but tough.) Maybe this is just my 90s kid perspective. Next up: Stay Out of the Basement! :D

28. Stay Out of the Basement (Goosebumps #2) by R.L. Stine (bought in elementary school, reread)

Squeezed in one last TBR book for the year. Alas, well below my goal this year! Better luck next time!

A few stats:

Total TBR decrease: 8 (from 998 to 990)
2009 TBR decrease: 10 (from 340 to 330)
Long books knocked off TBR: 1 with a second still in progress
Non-fiction books knocked off TBR: 0, big fail

Hey, at least I decreased the total stack! That's a big deal for me!

Tune in tomorrow for Lianne Chips Away at the Pile in 2022! Happy New Year!