Most intimidating tbr?

I'm in the same bind as everyone else in this group but I try to cast it in a positive light: I always dreamed of owning a library of books I haven't read but want to, and with about 100 in my tbr list, I feel pretty much there.

But there's a few intimidating monsters that I'm not sure when I want to tackle. I'm a slow reader in general, probably takes me a month to do 1000 pages. I'm looking at the whole Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson, which is ten volumes of about 1000 pgs each and thinking, War and Peace was nothing compared to this. Once I get started on that, it'll take me at least ten months. I cringe at the thought. And yet ... the challenge beckons ...

Got something you fully intend to read, but just don't know when/how to approach?

Yes : the Malazan Series AND A song of ice and fire by Martin AND the Foreigner Series by C.J. Cherryh...
For some reason or other I put Erikson and Martin on the side and now I'm a bit afraid to begin, considering the huge mass of reading to do.
Cherryh is another matter ; this dated from the old time I read the first book in translation, wasn't quite convinced and never picked it up in English. Yet I liked each and every SF book from her.
This is quite a predicament!

Probably The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories.

It's just. So. Big.

>2 h-mb:, I've read Martin's works as they're published, without going back to re-read them, and enjoyed everyone of them even so. I think you could read quite a bit in between and pick up the storyline again without problems, because his stories are so character-driven that it takes very little time to re-familiarize yourself who they are and what they're aiming to do.

Malazan, on the other hand, I've heard is horrendous to keep track of. When I start, I don't plan to stop until I get to the end. Thus the intimidation.

>3 DaynaRT:, Herodotus was on my to-be-bought list, took a long time before I spotted a nice copy. I read the first page, flipped through the length of it ... put it back on the shelf, I'm sorry to say. Maybe I need to find a kids' illustrated edition, lol. I still keep tabs on it, but at least it's not looming on my TBR pile.

I've started the Malazan series and it's not quite the horror I'd imagined. Somehow I seem to be keeping it all pretty straight - but I'm only one book in so far, so that might not be saying much!

I received an ereader for Christmas and I've downloaded the Histories (free!), but I think I'll still root out a physical copy. I've a feeling I'm going to want to flip back and forth as I read it, and I'd also like to get an annotated copy. Reading footnotes, and bouncing around between pages, is pretty tough to do on an ereader or so it seems.

I mentioned in another topic that at the beginning of each year, I pick five of my biggest (physically) books to stack by my chair and try to read through that year. This helps a bit. However, I haven't done that with the densest reading materials I have. Probably should. Hmmm, food for thought.

As much as I love the writing of Brandon Sanderson, after reading through The Way of Kings, a whopping 2 1/2" thick on my shelf, I've decided not to pursue that series. I don't have it in me any more to read like that, although there was a time when I would have relished it. Also, that would be a series I would have to have as ebooks, because I don't have that much room on my shelves!

>6 MrsLee:, I'm already given that Sanderson series a pass without reading even the first volume. This way I don't know what I'm missing, and probably happier for it.

Since last time I posted: Malazan is done. Middlemarch is done. Ulysses is done. Clarissa is very nearly done. I've targeted and completed nearly everything that had an intimidation factor at this point. But now Herodotus is on my TBR pile, as I'd feared he would be. And then Marcel Proust showed up to crash the party.

>7 Cecrow: I will not say I enjoyed all of it, but there were some fine moments in Herodotus.

Herodotus done! Started Proust, he isn't difficult but he's about 90 percent descriptive passages, thus the problem.

Although I own many more unread books, I maintain a to-read list of 100 plus or minus 2 books, including some re-reads. So when I have an "opening" (I read between four and seven at a time, keeping a mix of fiction and non, different genres, levels of "readerly obligation," size/portability etc.), I don't have to scour the full catalog, I can just scan a much shorter list.

I also have two bookcases (the ones in the bedroom) dedicated primarily to unread books as a supplementary "list."

I have set of LT collections titled 'acquired in YYYY'. I also have an 'unread in YYYY'. This way I know how old the unreads are. In addition I have a TBR collection which pre-dates those and a Stack tag which pre-dates the TBR. 690 in all.

When it first came out, I picked up a copy of Stephen Jay Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (I’m a biologist, well… actually a recovering biochemist…). As much as I have enjoyed reading Gould’s previous books, this one has me defeated so far. It seems to me that his editor didn’t have the heart to edit his work while he was writing while ill before he died… That’s my most daunting TBR.

I have two shelves with what I call my Immediate TBR Stack. They are shelved by OPD, and I rotate the next book to read by picking every fourth book from the left half of the top shelf, every fourth book from the right half of the top shelf, every fourth book from the left half of the bottom shelf, and every fourth book from the right half of the bottom shelf. I use a twenty-sided die to pick the exact book. I'm not a mood reader, so this works well for me.

All books we get are put on a Recent Acquisitions shelf in a revolving bookcase, and when new books are added, the oldest ones get pushed out. I then decide which are a must-read and which can be put into the general library. The must-reads go onto the Immediate TBR Stack shelves*. Hopefully, there are gaps for them there, otherwise they push some books out into the general library. Needless to say, the books in the general library run a risk of never being read in my lifetime, at least not by me (Johan). Of course, now and then I do actually fish out a book of the general library to read, perhaps on the recommendation of a friend or maybe I read a review.

The Immediate TBR Stack shelves contain some 60-65 books. The number of unread books in the general library would be something like 5,000, I guess, if you discount lexica and other books not meant to be read from cover to cover.

Yes, I know, I like organising things!

* Or end up on the bedside table if they are comics, graphic novels or something else that's suited for bedtime reading.

These are some detailed systems! I maintain a TBR pile of about 100 titles (although I'm working on reducing it a bit more; there's a half of my personality that feels stressed to face even that many.) I keep a text file of all these unread titles and am constantly playing with the order in which I'll read them. A big factor is my not-so-great memory: if I've just read something that I think will inform something yet to be read, that one hops close to the front if not next. I've also got a couple of "read all books on this topic" or "read all books by this author" or "read all books from this period" missions, and I interleave those so that I'm making progress on all fronts in turn.

Also, the older I get, the more weight I place on the idea of "if I could only read one more ..."

I have no system. Which is why I have a TBR of 267 physical books, plus a lot of untracked ebooks, and a wishlist of over 400 books...

Though of those I have in my physical holds, I think Under the Dome is scaring me more than anything.

This unread support group is working for me! I feel so much better! I have far fewer TBR books in my pile than the rest of you even though it feels like a lot to me (and my partner!).

🤣

>16 Neil_Luvs_Books:, divulge your secrets! How do you resist the temptation of more, always more, despite already being in possession of a mountain?

There was a time I regularly had less than ten waiting, but then my reading horizons suddenly expanded and I became ... excited? A bit mad? Whatever it was, I've never been able to reduce to that level again since.

>16 Neil_Luvs_Books: Amateur. :)

I just stopped counting awhile back and now I feel a lot better about my TBR pile.

>17 Cecrow: Less than 10? Were you feeling well at the time? Maybe you should have shared so we can send a doctor to check on you or something...

>18 AnnieMod: 🤣

>18 AnnieMod:, ooh, brainstorm! A group called "Not-Enough-to-Read Support Group". Only, that one might be genuinely sad, lol.

I enjoy fiction from 100 years ago. So when I’ve found those books available, I would scoop them up by the carload. I will never be without something to read. I’d say my library is between 30 to 40% TBR.
I’ve decided not to challenge myself with difficult fiction. I do, however, have a pile of nonfiction that keeps my brain active.

>21 2wonderY:, 100 years ago ... now I'm curious who's on your shelf!

>22 Cecrow: Find my tag pre-1950.

I've got a few, mostly because they are huge.

The Peabody Sisters

A Suitable Boy

IQ84

You'd have thought that the pandemic would have been the right time to attack at least one of these books. But, nope. Can anyone give me some encouragement?

>24 vwinsloe:, yes, back to the original topic! My shelves are looking kinder these days since I tend to go after the hard stuff first. I chose not to read IQ84 after reading a shorter Murakami and feeling "meh", else that would worry me too, and I haven't picked up A Suitable Boy although I think I've read all the way around it (i.e. other novels about India.) Maybe that's not very encouraging?

Probably the toughest one ahead of me is the five volume Story of the Stone. I also have Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, but my anticipation is pretty high for that.

>25 Cecrow: I’ve wanted to read Godel, Escher, Bach for some time but just never get around to it. I hope you post your thoughts on it when you get to it. One that I did finally get to this Spring was Guns, Germs and Steel which I enjoyed but not as much as I thought I would. I appreciated the evidence in that book but it did make it a bit more of a chore to read than I had anticipated. I hope Godel, Escher, Bach is not the same.

Bibek Debroy's prose translation of the great Hindu epic Mahabharata. It's unabridged, which accounts for its 10-volume length.

ETA: I have read Carol Satyamurti's magnificent 900-page Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling, a blank-verse adaptation which substantially abridges but rather faithfully follows the original. (Satyamurti – she was British, and that was her married surname – didn't know Sanskrit, so she relied on multiple other translations, rewrote them in abridged form, and then converted the result to blank verse.)

Perhaps the beefiest books on my TBR pile right now are Alan Moore's Jerusalem, Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris, and on the non-fiction front The Idea of Fraternity in America.

>24 vwinsloe: I liked The Peabody sisters a lot. I read it after having read Marshall's other two biographies. It is huge (and I have the hardcover edition!) but I found it totally absorbing.

>29 Sakerfalcon:. Thanks. Perhaps I can read it in pieces. I just finished The Mirror & the Light and while it was only around 800 pages, I hated spending all that time on one book as my TBR pile grew.

I listen to the ReReading Wolfe podcast and am slowly catching up to their current episode. Anyways, this morning I listened to their Nov 7, 2021 podcast which opens with a humorous fake ad about a software program that will randomly pick your next book to read. It’s a couple minutes long at the beginning of this podcast. Made me smile anyways and thought it sort of related to this discussion thread. Enjoy! 😀
https://rereadingwolfe.podbean.com/e/rrw-chapter-16-part-2/

>31 Neil_Luvs_Books:. That's funny. Right now I find myself reading books by number of pages, so the rando app might be appropriate for me.

On a related note, I understand that there are several apps that publish a 15 minute audio summary of books. They are predominantly for nonfiction books, which is helpful for a reader who just wants to understand the main point without slogging through a long book. The most popular app for nonfiction seems to be something called Blinkist, but apparently there are one or two apps that are trying their hand at summarizing fiction.

>25 Cecrow: Despite its length I found A Suitable Boy a relatively quick read; it’s a page-turner in the apparently straightforward style of a 19thC novel and engrosses you in a fairly up-beat story. Many much shorter novels have taken me longer to get through.