Sorting through my book piles + figuring out what to read next

If this newsletter was the sausage, that is.

For the last year or so I have become increasingly stressed by the piles of books, mostly proofs, I have in and around my bedroom that I cannot seem to keep adding to, even as I know how absolutely mad and actually quite lethal these jenga towers are. Not only because I am a tidy bitch (I know I know, chaos is the portal to creativity) but because three times this year already I have bought a book that I like the look of, only to find a copy already squirrelled away in a pile.

There were lots of books in these stacks that I knew I wanted to read, and lots of books in these stacks that I knew I probably wouldn’t choose to read — not because they aren’t good, but because others glow brighter to this particular reader — and I could no longer put off the task.

I took a deep breath, and dug in.

There were about 160 books in the stacks. Like most things I approach, this task took triple the time I thought it would. I imagined 4 hours, it took more like 12. The task was five-pronged:

• go through all the books and set aside the ones I don’t think are for me

• put those books into four piles: friends and family; charity shop; chuck in recycling bin (agony, but it’s verboten to give proofs to the charity shop); put on brick wall outside my house. I live in London, if you put good books outside they get snapped up within hours. It’s fun to watch who takes what. I once ordered 6 boxes of bananas from Sainsbury’s instead of 6 bananas and I put the boxes outside and then sat by the window, encouraging anyone who paused and looked confusedly into the house, to take a banana or ten

• put into my (non-functional) bedroom fireplace the books I want to read next

• prune about 50 books from downstairs — ones I’ve read but I don’t like enough to hold on to, and books I haven’t read and never will — in order to create a designated book shelf for ones I want to read after the ones I read next. Put books I’ve newly cleared out into the four piles above

• select books for upcoming holiday.

Here are the 50 books I selected to read next: 25 novels, 15 non-fiction, 10 classics.

I read around 40 books in the first half of this year, but I’m leaving room for error. I DNF about 20% of the books I start — I’ve already abandoned one of the below since I took the photo two days ago! (Life is short and there are many books.) So 50 books will amply cover the second half of this year.

I am sure new entries will come in and knock some of the below off their perch — that it will deviate by a further 20% at least — but it’s quite fun to have a reading plan for the first time in my life.