Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme. Check out the Goodreads group for more details. This week’s topic is bookish things you’ve changed your mind about.
5. Wanting multiple copies of books and/or wanting all books in hardcovers
This is number 5 because there are some exceptions. I do still own duplicates of a few books and I don’t think I will get rid of them, especially that I have in some cases duplicates that are in different languages. However, for the most part, I don’t see the point in owning more than 1 copy of a book. It just takes up space.
Same with wanting to own all books in hardcover. I do like hardcovers, but paperbacks are cheaper and much easier to store. That’s not to say I won’t buy hardcovers, but I won’t go to lengths to get them. There are some exceptions, such as The Illiminae Files, where the hardbacks are just works of art and it’s worth the extra money or if I have the first 2 books in a series in hardback, I’ll get the third one in hardback as well. But generally speaking, I’m perfectly content with paperbacks.
4. Buying entire series
I used to read a synopsis and decide I want to buy the whole series. Not anymore. Now I don’t even add entire series to my Goodreads TBR anymore. I just add them/buy them one book at a time. That way if I don’t enjoy the first book, I won’t have wasted money on a bunch of books I’m not going to read anyway. It’s just the sensible way to go about it.
3. DNFing books
This is something I wouldn’t even have considered a year ago. I’ve only recently decided that I’m going to start doing it. Not excessively. Like, I’m not going to DNF every book that I don’t love within 50 pages. I still like to finish most books even if I don’t love them. But I’m not going to force myself to. If I’m not enjoying a book, I don’t have to finish it. I want to give myself that freedom because there are so many great books out there and I’ve only got so much time. I want to spend it reading books that I enjoy and not ones that suck the life out of me.
2. Unhauling books I don’t really like
I used to want to keep every single book forever and hoard them all like a dragon and have the world’s hugest private library. And I still love the idea of having a huge private library. But I don’t want it to contain books I don’t really care about. Those can go to people who do care about them. getting rid of books I don’t love or that I own but I’m just no longer really interested in reading is such a good feeling. And i just makes space for books I do love. And then when I look at my shelves, they make me happy because I see all the books I love and they bring back nice memories of reading them.
1. Having a huge physical TBR
I used to want to have like 100 books on my physical TBR. And then I actually got to around that number and I realised it’s overwhelming and it takes up space. I don’t read books in a timely fashion so I sometimes end up losing interest in them altogether. It’s just not a fun time. Especially that I have such easy access to books living where I live. Like, I still want to have a physical TBR. But a reasonably sized one. Maybe have 2-3 books from each genre that I enjoy because I am very much a mood reader. So have 2 or 3 middle grades, 2-3 adult sci-fi, 2-3 adult fantasy and so on. Maybe 20 books. 30 max. So I still have variety to choose on based on my mood, but it’s manageable.
A Book Nerd 