Conquering Mt. Books

Having finished Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner a week or so ago, I asked my boyfriend what he thinks I should read next, naming a few options while also pointing to my now-more-organized mountain of books.

^ How it started: Decluttering a la Marie Kondo, but instead of only keeping books that spark joy — which was near impossible because every book carried a memory, if not for my experience reading them, then the circumstances of my getting them — I let go of books I’ve read but would unlikely read again and those I haven’t read yet but will probably be more appreciated in someone else’s library.

Halfway through the year, I learned about what was called To Be Read (TBR) Bingo through a guild in Habitica, an app gamifying productivity that has been keeping me sane for more than two years now. The idea behind the TBR Bingo is to approach that pile of unread books more like an old friend to catch up with than a nemesis to be annihilated.

Participants would create their personal bingo card, though instead of random numbers filling up five-by-five squares less the “FREE” center one, we would identify book titles we want but have yet to read.

I came up with my TBR Bingo several months ago, leaving four squares blank to give myself some room to choose a book according to what I’d feel like reading. At this point, moving diagonally from the top-left square to the bottom-right square, I only need to finish one more book before I hit the imaginary jackpot.

What I asked my boyfriend was multi-layered: Do I read the next book to get a bingo, or do I take the longer route and read something else? And if it’s the latter, which one? Or do I completely deviate from my identified TBR Bingo squares and choose any other book based on my mood?

My boyfriend just laughed at me and shrugged, “Don’t ask me. You’ll always overthink these things because you’re OC.”

“If I give you a pack of M&M’S, you’ll sort every piece of chocolate by color before deciding what to eat first,” he added.

I rolled my eyes because it was true. •

^ How it’s going: This post was really just an excuse to share this photo of my re-organized shelf. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.