It’s time for me to tell you guys the truth…
I’m a book addict.
There. I said it. Phew! I feel so much better – it’s the first step to getting better. Right?
Wrong. I don’t want to get better. I love books and will always love books. I will likely bore people about books for the rest of my life. My problem, is that there is simply not enough time to get through all the books I want to read – I acquire quicker than I can read. I’ve tried everything possible to rectify this; I’m like a fad dieter, except with books. These awful short-term fixes do nothing to help my problem. I’ve tried:
Book-buying bans:
My numerous attempts at these bans were laughable. I rarely last a week without buying or acquiring a book.
Challenges:
I’m slightly competitive… OK I lied again. I’m the most competitive person you will meet. I will make a challenge for anything … even reading. I’ve got about 5 book challenges going at once, anything to get myself reading more. But am I enjoying the books I read? Honestly? Sometimes, no. Sometimes I just don’t want to read a classic a month. Sometimes, I just want to read Harry Potter. Again.
Goodreads:
The book-addicts global leader board. Come one, come all; compare yourself to all the readers in the world and see how many pages more they’ve read so far this year. Funnily enough, Goodreads does encourage me to read; not because I’m competitive; but because I find about 10 books to add to the TBR each time I look at the site.
The TBR Jar:
At first I loved my TBR jar, it’s cute, and full of scraps of paper with amazing books I want to read. Now it is my nemesis or, more accurately, a pointless waste of time. I’ll pick around 10 books before I’ll accept one to read and, even then, I’m 80% likely not to read it.
Paperbacks vs. EBooks:
I work with ebooks and I love them. I’ve gained so much more space in handbags, suitcases… generally any type of carrying device thanks to this genius technological advancement. But the books on my shelves aren’t going to read themselves. I’ve invested in so many beautiful physical books that I’m loathe to buy them again on an e-reader. So what happens? They never get read, especially the hefty tomes.
So what do I do? What is the cure for my addiction. I’ve found a new ‘diet’ that might just work. Surprisingly it’s quite simple in it’s execution.
Read multiple books.
Ok, ok, that sounds stupid – especially as I hate reading more than one book at a time. But it’s more than just reading as many stories as you can at once. The aim is to read one story during my commute and another in the evenings. What, you may ask, is the reasoning behind my ridiculous plan?
Sometimes, when I start a book I love it, but then I might lose the tempo. The longer it takes me to finish, the more disheartened I become. Having something else to dip into might give me enough of a break from the story to get excited about it again later on.
There are also tons of books on my shelves that are too hefty to drag about, so they never get off the shelves. By reading physical books in the evenings, I might actually start to make a dent in my terrifying TBR.
Hopefully, this will work… or it will fail miserably and I can add it to the list of futile attempts to read more. I guess time will only tell.
Wish me luck!
A Literary Mind 
I always read more than one book at a time also – I’ve read as many as six at one time, but do better if I’m rotating between two or three. I’d probably read around the clock if it were possible!
How did you ever manage six!?!? I struggle with two. But it seems to be working so far, it’s too soon to tell!
This sort of works for me – the trick of course is to have a book for every moment without losing track. Good luck!
Good luck. This is a really interesting strategy and I hope it works out for you!