If your TBR (To Be Read) pile is like mine, it might be bigger than usual. It might be a mix of print and e-books. You might be reading through your TBR pile faster than before, because you have a lot more time to read now. Or you might be feeling less motivation to read anything at all. Both are ok!

Full disclosure: the idea for this post has been on my back burner for a few months, but I kept putting it off because I always had more time-sensitive tasks that I needed to do first. Now that I’ve spent most of the last several weeks at home, I find that I have more time to catch up on blog posts, to read books on my TBR pile, and to plan which e-books I want to read when I’m all out of print copies.

So, I’m going to share the ideas that I originally planned to discuss, but I’ll also tweak things once in a while, because how I think about my TBR pile has changed a LOT over the last few weeks.

Planning Ahead: What Books Should I Add to My TBR List?

Some of the books on my TBR list are books I’ve heard about through friends and colleagues, on podcasts and TV shows, and in reviews I read through social media and other sources. There are also plenty of ways to get book suggestions through the New York Public Library, like:

• Blog Posts
• Staff Picks
• Best Books for Kids / Teens / Adults [We create new lists every year, including a mix of genres and formats!]

How Can I Get Books From Home?

Check out NYPL’s SimplyE app, which gives access to e-books in both the NYPL collection and the SimplyE collection. [Hot tip: The titles listed in the SimplyE collection don’t require a NYPL library card to access them, AND, there are unlimited copies of each title!]

You can also access e-books through Overdrive Get the Libby app if you’d like to download audiobooks from the library.

Okay, I Just Read a Book. What Should I Do Next?

The first thing I do is add the title to a master reading list that I have saved in my Google Drive. I started this list because I read so many books that it’s hard to keep track of them. Over the years I started adding tags to each title, because they help me find books by subject and create displays. They also help me choose which books I want to share on social media, like my weekly Middle School Monday and Reluctant Reader Wednesday Tumblr posts, as well as my submissions for the Stuff For the Teen Age blog.

Yes, But … What if I’m Just Not in the Right Head Space to Read ANYTHING Right Now?

Believe me, I understand. Some days, I look at my pile of books and my pile of DVDs, and the DVDs win. Or eating food wins. Or spending most of the day watching streaming video wins.

At my first video conference staff meeting, when we were asked to share a book we’d read recently, I had to admit that I chose Technically, You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson because it had fewer words on the page than the other books in my TBR pile! Honestly, my brain felt too tired to deal with the mental exercise of reading. But I’ve spent most of my NYPL career working with teenagers, and trying to inspire reluctant readers to read anything at all. So now I’m using the same methods I would use with them, and applying those same suggestions to myself:

• Choose a book by an author you like
• Choose a book about a subject you like
• Reread a book you enjoyed before
• Looking for books with fewer words is okay
• Graphic novels are also okay
• Reading something is better than reading nothing 
• Reading articles, blog posts, or anything else still counts as reading
• Read books when you’re ready for them!