meet me on the bridge

Finishing that title that’s been on your TBR forever

This week I finished a book that has been sitting on my shelf for literally 29 years. Seriously.

I bought this book, which was written by one of the managers of the Grateful Dead, when it came out in 1996. Now I love the Grateful Dead. The premise is an interesting one. I wanted to read this book. So why did it sit on my bookshelf for almost 30 years?

I spent some time this week thinking on this question, because when I finally finished reading the book, it felt great! I really had a sense of accomplishment. Part of this is probably because I am a list person and crossing something off my list is gold. But it was also the letting go of the anxiety about reading it.

I don’t know exactly why this happens to me. It seems to happen more often with non-fiction books than novels, but it’s probably anything my brain considers “difficult” to read. Not that this book was hard to read. But for some reason, I seem to feel a sort of apprehension about some books because I think they’re going to take a long time to read, not go quickly, not be as relaxing or enjoyable as the regular fiction books I read. Even though the topic is one I’m interested in. These are books I pay money for. I’m excited to read them. And then I don’t.

I liken it to procrastination. It’s probably the same reason I put off tasks I don’t want to do at work. And then I stress over them and wake up in the middle of the night worrying about them. It would make MUCH more sense for me to do those tasks first, get them over with. And yet, I don’t do that. It has to be fear. Of failure, of not being able to do it. Or just fear of the effort it’s going to take.

If you’ve ever seen the “Minimal Mom” on YouTube, you’ll have heard her talk about the “silent to do list”, where the clutter in your home stresses you out because subconsciously you are seeing in it all the things you need to do but aren’t. These books are the same thing: stress every time you see that bookshelf with all those books you’ve bought and never read. And sometimes it’s easier to pretend it doesn’t exist than to tackle it.

So how to combat this?

Something I’ve started doing, with all the books I buy, is to start reading them immediately (or reasonably soon after buying). I also do this now with the Amazon First Reads each month that I get for free. So I’m not adding any more books to my owned TBR. But there’s another reason to do this: I’m probably not going to get any more excited about or interested in a book than when I first buy it. Ostensibly I bought it for a reason – that I want to read it! I should read the book now, not 29 years from now when I’ve lost interest in it. It also forces me not to procrastinate. And as an added bonus it makes me think about what I’m buying, because I know I’m going to have to read it.

The other way I’ve found to get over letting books sit unread because of procrastination, is by reading them. Like I said earlier, it feels great to finish one of these long timer books. So once you finish one, and another, and another, and you see it’s not harder to read them than other books, and you feel a sense of accomplishment on finishing them, it will push you to read more. You will gravitate towards these books as I have started to, you will want to tackle them, because it makes you feel good.

So maybe reading those books that have been on your shelf awhile isn’t going to replace exercise as the best source of a “natural high”. (Too bad.) But by biting the bullet and tackling one of these books you’ve had on your shelf since the beginning of time (at least it feels that way), I think you’ll find that you’ll be motivated to read more of them, just as I was.

Week 11 Update

I DNFd two books this week and finished three. I forgot to count two DNFs from last week, so I have added those to the totals this week (Lenny Among Ghosts by Frank Maria Reifenberg and Salt & Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher- both were Amazon First Reads). So totals are looking like this: