One is the For Later Shelf. I no longer keep lists of books I want to read. If I read a review or a blog post that piques my interest, I'll add it to my For Later Shelf. I currently have 71 titles on that shelf.
The other is a button that I can use, "Pause Hold." This allows me to put a pause on books that I've placed on hold. It still maintains my place in the queue, and I can unpause the hold whenever I'm ready. My strategy is to put the last day of the month as the pause until date. Then I try to look at my paused holds near the end of the month to determine if I'm ready to read any of them. If I'm not ready, I change the date to the end of the next month. When I reviewed the titles at the end of June, I unpaused a few and left nine there until the end of July when I'll review them again.
You would think that with these two tools I would have a manageable number of books checked out, but I still end up with more on my plate than I can possibly finish. I currently have 39 items checked out, but let me break those down for you:
21 are picture books - I read them first and then pass some along to grandsons Jack & Robby. Most of these are books that I request from book reviews and mentions by fellow bloggers. Here's a new favorite I just picked up yesterday from my holds shelf: On the Night of the Shooting Star by Amy Hest. (Check my upcoming Poetry Friday post for two new poetry picture books I adore.)
5 are middle grade books - My favorite genre of books to read... Am I just a grownup who never left middle school? Could it have something to do with the fact that I taught this age group for fourteen years? And that five years after retirement, I still lead a middle school book club? We're reading Kate Messner's Breakout for our July meeting. And the next two I want to read are The Bridge Home (this year's middle school choice for Global Read Aloud) by Padma Venkatrama and A Kind of Paradise (a book for lovers of books and libraries) by Amy Rebecca Tan.
8 are nonfiction - I'm currently reading Cathy Guisewite's Fifty Things that Aren't My Fault: Essays from the Grown-up Years and Habit Stacking by S. J. Scott. I'm having fun browsing Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. It will live on my coffee table until it's due and I have to return it.
3 are Choice Reads books - Choice Reads are the candy store books! Our library describes them as "a quick, browsing collection of uncataloged paperbacks that are also represented in our cataloged collection." They are displayed with covers out and I always stop to shop this display. My current choices include Glory Road by Lauren K. Denton, Extinctions by Josephine Wilson, and The Forgiving Kind by Donna Everhart. And no, I won't get them all read, but it's fun to try.
2 are library book bags - They are checked out to us for a year at a time and one of them is overdue. Do they charge me a late fee for that? I'm headed in tomorrow with book bag in hand.
It's safe to say that I will never run out of books I want to read. And isn't that a lovely prospect?
It’s Slice of Life Tuesday! Click over to Two Writing Teachers to read more slices!
You are the ultimate lifelong reader, Ramona. Enjoy reading!
ReplyDeleteMy kind of reader! I always get great ideas for my TBR list when you write about books. And I am using the hold feature of my library’s e- collection all the time now. We have a once-a-year book club for ladies at my church that meets in August. I ran into a friend from that group at a restaurant last week. I was reading on my Kindle, and she asked if I was reading the book club book. When I said no, she said I better get busy. She would never understand if I said I’d probably read multiple books before I got around to that one (I still had more than a month before our meeting!) Right now I’m in the middle of A Dangerous Act of Kindness by LP Ferguson, the citywide read sponsored by our library. Before that, I just finished Where the Heart Is by Jo Knowles, The SecretSheriff if Sixth Grade by Jordan Sonneblick and So.B.It by Sarah Week’s.
ReplyDeleteI share your love of reading but you are clearly reading more than me! I just, however, added 39 books to my own list! I will suggest 2 books for your grandsons: Dragons Don't Eat Tacos (Rubin). It's not my favorite of all time but it is funny and engaging for the littlest ones. Another is How to Track a Truck (Eaton) which is think is a VERY clever book that appeals to both kids and grown ups on some level (although my daughter who reads it 2 times a day might disagree)
ReplyDelete“I think it's safe to say that I make it to our public library more than once a week.” One of my favorite and dearly missed activities when my boys were little. I’ll have to work on arranging for my own “Later Shelf.” Right now, I’m the proud owner of several large “Later Piles.”
ReplyDeleteWith people kindly sharing what they read the to be read lists keep growing. It's a wonderful thing. It would be much worse to wake up and find that there is nothing to read.
ReplyDeleteRamona-
ReplyDeleteMy TBR stacks are teetering. And the end of the summer is looming! AARGH. A couple of weeks ago I read THE TRUTH AS TOLD BY MASON BUTTLE, which your book club might enjoy. I also loved SOME KIND OF COURAGE by Dan Geimenhart (Tara recommended that one to me).
I've read and loved both of these. We had Mason Buttle on our Mock Newbery list last year and Some Kind of Courage was on the list sometime earlier.
DeleteBook hauls are amazing!
ReplyDelete