It’s once again time for my favorite feature: Tackling the TBR! There’s nothing I love more than picking out which books to read next, and this slightly organized method of reading has really amped my enjoyment to the next level. Bring on the mantras!

Read the best books first.
&
Life is too short to read books you’re not enjoying.

However you put together your TBR for the next month, the goal is to reduce the amount of obligation in reading and increase the fun.

Here’s a look at how the system works:

1. Identify the titles that take top priority in your TBR.
2. Combine them all in your own Tackling the TBR post.
3. Throughout the month pick from that pile as the mood strikes you.

Here’s what mine looks like:

May 2021 TBR Tackler Shelf:

Well, I made it through the audiobook last month… kind of. Not so much for my two physical reads (which is why Million Dollar Demon and Aurian are in the lineup… again).

I didn’t pick up a single book for about two week in April. Probably the longest I’ve gone without reading something in 10+ plus years. I was struggling with mental health (postpartum depression, among other things) and was feeling very overwhelmed. Interestingly, it was my lack of motivation to pick up books that cued me into realizing there was something more than fatigue going on. I’m seeking help for those issues and am starting to feel more myself again. But my reading definitely suffered last month.

In addition to all of that, I lost several hours a day to this ridiculous game on my phone. I think I was trying to escape my uncomfortable feelings, but whatever the case I caught a glance at my screen-time data and almost had a cow. I’ve been walking around for weeks bitching about the fact that I don’t have enough time to work on all the projects I want to, but for some reason it took seeing that data to wake me up to how I was wasting my life. And this is coming from someone who has been heavily pursuing digital minimalism for the past several months. I deleted the app (that was hard to do lol) and decided I’ll leave it deleted until I no longer have projects I really want to work on (which probably wont happen – I always have something going on – but it has been a nice motivator to tackle them all). 

Reading drama aside, this month I’m continuing my Malazan journey with some short story fillers. I’m reading the second Scythe book because I like the first one a lot more than I thought I was going to. And I picked up a review copy of Son of the Storm (audio production quality over at Audiofilemagazine.com). That should be enough to keep me occupied the whole month. I’ve a personal goal to finish the ongoing physical reads as soon as I can so I can finally get to something else. 

Have a great month in reading!

by Niki Hawkes