The Curse of the TBR* Pile

 The pile of books beside my bed is growing. There are the ones I bought for my new reading project (the one I haven't started yet). There's the bunch my sister-in-law lent me the last time I was there (six months ago). There are the freebies. There are the books other writers have lent me because I've just got to read them. There are the writing guides and reference books I'm currently browsing when I can't get my head into fiction. Oh, and there are the books I've bought myself because not only can I not pass a bookshop without going in, I pretty much can't pass a bookshop without buying at least three books (four always seems to be overdoing it, though, when I have my daughters with me, we generally come out with four, theoretically one each, but we will all read each other's).

The TBR pile is a beast. It makes me feel guilty when I buy new books and they skip the queue. Some books are never going to make it off the pile. I feel guilty about them too. Occasionally I slip the odd one into my husband's pile, which feels slightly less like I'm rejecting it.

You'd think having a great stack of books to read would be a joyous thing, but somehow it's not. It's off-putting. Like having a vast heap of food on your plate. You'd probably eat more if you started with a small helping and then took more. So maybe what I need to do is to rethink my TBR pile. maybe I should put them on a shelf somewhere, not too far away from where they are now, but far enough that they don't feel like they're nagging at me. Maybe then they'll look at appealing as they did when I bought them or was given them. Maybe then I'll browse through them for the next thing to read with more thrill than at present.

There's only one problem...

 .... no spare bookshelves.

*To Be Read (but surely you already knew that)