What’s On Your Nightstand?: Teeter-Totter

Last week I wrote about the 10 books I read on my summer vacation. I didn’t mention the several dozen that arrived at my house while I was on that vacation (I hasten to add that I am not complaining!).

There they are, new books to add to my TBR pile, all fresh and glistening with spines uncracked. I almost feel a twinge of regret, knowing that soon they’ll be added to the stacks piled next to my bed, which are the realm of nearly every book that I wind up finishing: Even though I keep neat “galley shelves” sorted by publication month, if I start paging more and more eagerly through a story of any kind, its container (hardcover, paperback, e-reader) will spend some time in those stacks.

Trouble is, this week my TBR pile looks more like a Leaning Tower of Pisa than a tidy set of reading material. It’s climbed from the floor to top-of-mattress height–and that’s the second stack! I need an intervention and a reality check. I simply can’t read everything at once, and there’s no need to torment the poor books.