Next 5 TBR: Volume 1

Hello, biblios!

Most people do monthly TBRs, which certainly makes sense. But I prefer to make shorter lists for a couple of reasons.

First, it's not always easy to figure out how many books you'll be able to get to in a month. I'm pretty good at estimating how long it will take me to read a given book, but sometimes that can be off by a couple of days if a book is so good I can barely put it down — or if it's so crap I can barely pick it up, LOL. With speed reads and DNFs, the time allotted per book can end up being off by a noticeable amount. Plus, life is a thing that happens sometimes, and has the audacity to get in the way of reading.

Second, I average probably nine books per month, so if I were to do a monthly TBR, I'd probably choose 10 just to make it nice and even. But I like to stack up my TBR books on my coffee table, and a stack of 10 is pretty big and a little intimidating, and it also makes me second guess myself. Do I really feel like reading that one this month? Do I want to follow Book A with Book B? And so on.

So I prefer to choose my next five books, and then just choose another five once I'm through that stack. And with my goal to clear out the backend of my TBR, most of my next five are the books I've owned without reading the longest.

Currently, I'm reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, which is the last of her major works I needed to read. I'd bought it in December 2016, which put it at the top of my list for 2018.

Also purchased in December 2016 were Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill, a young adult fantasy about a girl trying to avenge her father's death while beset by warring kingdoms and dark magic; Heartless by Marissa Meyer, about the life and times of the girl who would go on to become the Queen of Hearts; and Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, the early 20th century classic about an upper class woman driven into the arms of a working class man — a notorious novel in its day, and I'm interested to see if time and changed norms have tempered that at all.

In February 2017, I bought This Side of Home by Renée Watson, a young adult contemporary coming-of-age novel about Black twin sisters who have always agreed on everything, but find themselves growing apart as they approach adulthood, and trying to figure out exactly who they are as individuals.

And the last book in this group is my random selection from my undated TBR books, I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, a thriller about a woman whose young son slipped from her grasp and was killed by a hit-and-run driver — but of course, things are far more complicated than just a sad but straightforward accident.

I plan to read them in the order pictured, and once I begin reading the last one, I'll choose my next five and volume 2 will be coming your way!

What's on your TBR for the month? Do you make plans or just play it by ear — or eye, more accurately? Do tell!