tbr

When I told a friend that I long to create a spacious container (i.e., an orderly home and routines) to hold my chaotic self, she reminded me that attempts to create such a container can themselves be neurotic. Lately this neurosis has manifested in my attempts to wrangle my to-be-read (tbr) book piles into a sensible plan. The pile pictured above is just one of six and includes both books to read and books to reread for one of my several writing projects. (Kermit, btw, is an Order Muppet and of course also highly neurotic.)

Anyway, as it so often happens, all this piling and planning results in obfuscation; I’m not quite sure which of these dozens of books is the book I am reading now, or should be reading next. Most likely Some Trick by Helen DeWitt, since it was due back to the library yesterday. . . .

By the time you're 35 you should have a tbr book pile so high that you can use it as a lookout tower that allows you to scout for new books on the horizon

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) May 22, 2018

Thanks, Chuck, for the reassurance!