Stacked-Up Book Thoughts: The Midwinter Edition
Stacked-Up Book Thoughts are my random notes about books I've read, movies I've watched, books I'm looking forward to, and events I hope to get to.
Getting Organized
I'm
writing this while watching the Super Bowl. I'm sipping some wine and
am totally exhausted because I spent the entire weekend going through
all my books: I sorted them, reshelved them, and culled them. I now have
bags of books ready to go to charity and many fewer books on the floor.
Now, let me quickly say that the books I'm giving away are not all review copies.
I've finally gotten to the point at which I accept that I'm never going
to look through my old craft books, college textbooks, or yellowing
paperback mysteries again. By getting rid of them (and ARCs I'm clearly never going to read), I found
that I had room for most of the books I want in my permanent library
plus current(ish) review books.
Besides just feeling good about lighting the load, I love that I took the time to group my books into useful categories, such as books I want to read now, books I want to read someday, books I've read and want to keep, and books I want to write about even if I don't get to read them all the way through. It was also fun to rediscover books I had been so excited to get. Can't wait to dig in.
Next up is organizing my collection of eBooks and eGalleys. I'm in fairly good shape with them, thanks to Calibre, but I need to make some realistic decisions about what I'm really going to read or write about.
What We're Watching
Besides a few movies I've gotten for review purposes, we're watching a only a handful of current shows, including Black Sails on STZ, Shameless on SHO, and Downton Abby on PBS. We're also slowly catching up with Blue Bloods and Justified on streaming. We would be watching Longmire but the newer seasons are not streaming for free yet (what's up with that?).
Black Sails is bit complicated, but we like the actors and the story, which is a kind of prequel to Treasure Island. Plus it's pirates! Shameless is a U.S. remake of a British show about a lower-income family trying to stay afloat the best they can, which isn't always by staying on the right side of the law.
Books at the Top of My Stack
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I'm currently listening to The Mime Order and reading Ongoingness and Fables: Rose Red (vol. 15). Two books at the top of my February list are The Coach's Wife and Members Only. For the Blogger's Recommend newsletter, my pick of the month was A Matter of Breeding. Look for reviews of all these in the weeks to come.The Mime Order is the second in an alternate history/fantasy series that has great characters, good action, and a fresh premise. The Coach's Wife promises to be a multilayered novel about sports, love, and teaching. It takes place in Indiana. The three nonfiction picks provide fascinating looks into dog breeding, exclusive clubs and organizations, and journaling. Everything is high on my recommend list.
19 comments:
Organizing always renews my energy and enthusiasm, too. Can't wait to hear about the books on top of your stacks... all are new to me!
Oooh - The Coach's Wife sounds promising to me! I love sports books! Will check that one out.
Who is the author of The Coach's Wife? I checked Goodreads and didn't see anything with a similar cover. And the first "The Coach's Wife" that came up looked like porn!!
@Sarah: ha, ha!! William Torgerson I have a print ARC, but I see only an eEdition at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Coachs-Wife-William-Torgerson-ebook/dp/B00SK3LFZ8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422882405&sr=1-1
Must of been something in the air. I culled my bookshelves this weekend, too! (After I did my long-due filing, which was a much more unpleasant job.) The Coach's Wife looks good to me, too.
I reorganized my books January of 2014 when my mom and sister were here and it felt wonderful. The sad thing is, I need to do it again.
I decided to skip the series which includes The Mime Order, or at least wait till they are all out!
I have been doing quite a lot of purging and organizing, too, although what I really need is one huge shelf that goes around the walls of one room...so everything can be alphabetized in one place.
As it is, I have two fairly large shelves, and then lots of small ones, and while the boooks are alphabetized within each shelf, I have to look at them all to find a book. I guess I could create a master list...hmmm.
Thanks for inspiring me to continue...enjoy!
I was just thinking about reorganizing my books, and you have given me the encouragement I need. Plus, my husband made a comment about the possibility of our sons finding our bodies crushed under a pile of books. So there's that.
From the comments looks like you're inspiring a trend. I agree when I organize and cull it sets a new excitement for the books I have. I just hate to do it..ha ha. Happy reading :)
I did a major thinning of my books not too long ago, too. Coming to the same conclusions as you. There are just books I'm not going to look at again, books I'm no longer interested in and books I'm realistically never going to read. It was so nice to feel that weight lifted from my house! I now have a shelf for books I need to review, ordered by release month; a shelf for high priority books, ordered by release month; a shelf for non-fiction I want to keep; and then some special sections for collections by author. After that all the remainder are alphabetized by author. It's great to know exactly where to look when I need something. :-)
Reorganizing book shelves? I need to do that soooo badly. I'm not sure there is enough wine to get me through it. LOL
The best I can claim for organised shelves is read and TBR being kept mostly seperate! (Well that and graphic novels have their on shelves)
Yay, FABLES!!!
I have been doing a bit of cleaning up the stacks of books here too. There is a charity shop where all money made from the shop goes toward spaying or neutering pets for those who cannot afford it. I give most of our donations to them.
I love Justified and Longmire too! We get the DVDs from Netfix as we can't stream. Currently watching an old British show called Danger UXB about unexplored bombs in London during WW II
I seem to be in a permanent phase of organising my books, but I do actually think I'm making a little progress now. I have taken bags and bags to the charity shop in recent months. I have a goal in sight of just keeping the ones I want to read, and my favourites that I've read. Your post has encouraged me to keep going!
I should set aside some time to go through my books too. I have no clue what's in my shelves (and recently bought a book I already had).
my books are organized and in need no doubt of dusting .. as for watching i gave up Blue Bloods a season or two back .. it was beginning to feel repetitious .. i also lost interest in Longmire in the middle of last season .. it too was feeling like the same old same old .. i love The Blacklist, Episodes (on Showtime), Justified so sad this is its last season … there are a few others but i cant think of the titles!!!!
Congrats on cleaning up the bookshelves. It's a fun chore.
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