Starting the New Decade Out Clean

According to the count on my LibraryThing.com inventory, I have 320 books on my TBR shelf.

I'd have to read one book every 1.14 days to get through my pile by the end of 2010.

I'd have to read one book every week to get through them all by the end of 2015.

And this is assuming that I don't buy a single other book to add to the pile. Plus, it doesn't count the dozen or so books on my daughter's TBR shelf that I never entered into my LibraryThing inventory but would really like to read. Nor does it include the four-page Wishlist I keep adding to on Amazon. Or the upcoming releases that I'm anxiously awaiting in the next few month. I swear, it never ends.

I'm going to commit now to the following New Year's Resolutions for 2010.

1) I will not buy any new books without having either read one from my TBR pile or having determined that I will never read a certain title from my TBR pile and remove that book from the premises, either as a UBS submission or library donation. Strictly a tit-for-tat deal only, goal to maintain the status quo at the very minimum.

2) I will read at least one book a week from my TBR pile. I qualify this by allowing that I might also simultaneously read a favorite or a new book, but I'll have a TBR in progress at all times.

3) I give myself permission to Give Up. If I get a third of the way through a book and it hasn't really captured me, I will stop reading and call it a day. I simply don't have the time for guilt reading. I think it's fair to say I've given a book the old college try if I make if a third through.

4) Some of the books I have flagged as TBR are actually reference materials I've picked up thinking they may come in handy some day or that apply to some project or other that I've been working on. I think a thorough skim-through will be enough to qualify it for removal from the TBR list, keeping in mind that reference books are to be referred to more so than read through.

Oddly, I make this promise just as I've determined to branch out into genres that I've never experienced before. Specifically, today at Borders I picked up The Color of Magic, book 1 in Terry Pratchett's hugely popular Discworld fantasy series, and Storm Front by Jim Butcher, which looks to be a cross between mystery and paranormal.