Writing With Abandon

Five years ago, I traded in Goodreads for The Storygraph to track the books I read each year along with the books I want to read. I swipe open the app and see:

Current Reads (3)

• The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell

Whipping through it, will probably finish today. Absolutely loving the various characters and how Lisa Jewell manages to write books that you can devour without sacrificing quality of writing.

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Reading the interactive illustrated version by MinaLima with P, alternating who reads out loud. Going slower than Sorcerer’s Stone, because, as we all know, Chamber of Secrets is the worst book of the bunch.

• The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad

Haven’t picked this one up in weeks. My original idea was to use these essays and prompts to help me slice this month, especially if I didn’t know what to write about, but it’s remained on the bookshelf by the dining table and is now starting to gather dust.

To-Read Pile (1280 books)

• The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Our next book club read after Untamed by Glennon Doyle (which I’ve read twice, so won’t be re-reading before our meeting). On hold on my Libby app.

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Which is sitting on my bedside table stacked on top the following books, also on my TBR:

• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
• This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes
• Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit by Brené Brown

Have briefly started these last two, but am favoring the reads on my Kindle lately, which include the following borrowed and TBR books:

• My Friends by Fredrik Backman
• Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
• Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
• The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
• Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

And then P sent me an Instagram reel last night that made me bump the following up farther on my TBR, though they all have long waits on Libby:

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

And then Tillie literally just texted me that what she finished reading and is currently reading, thrillers that I know will be my vibe, so they get added too:

• These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean
• My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney

And of course, I can’t forget the ones already on my shelves that I purchased or were gifted to me or I got from a little lending library that I’ve been wanting to read:

• The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
• Money For Couples by Ramit Sethi
• The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López
• Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

I won’t get up to log the rest.

It’s too many books, I think. Not enough time.

I’ll probably finish my current read today. Then the dilemma becomes: which of the above should I dive into next?