It’s that time of year again… the point, close to the end of summer, when I look at all my reading plans and commitments, and feel entirely overwhelmed.
And so, I’m doing something about it.
I know we book bloggers and avid readers say this constantly — it’s so easy to get bogged down by ARCs and other reading obligations, and not make time for reading on a whim (which is my favorite way to read).
I’m not a huge fan of reading challenges, simply because I don’t like the pressure of structuring my reading around checking off prompts on a list. I know people LOVE reading challenges… but they’re generally just not for me, other than some very loose challenges around the number of books read in a year, or my current reading challenges on Storygraph (20th Century Decades Challenge and a challenge shared with my daughter focused on a bookish calendar we both own).
As for ARCs… it’s the eternal struggle! It’s wonderful to get early (free!) access to new and upcoming books, but they come with strings attached — namely, to read them and review them relatively near to their release dates. It’s easy to click that NetGalley request button every time some shiny new book catches our eyes… but then we need to find time to read them all!
I keep a spreadsheet of my ARCs, sorted by release date and with subtotals by month. (Yes, I’m an Excel nerd, and proud of it!) Despite trying to restrict my requests to no more than a few books per release month, somehow it’s all gotten away from me recently. So, I decided to take action.
I just went back to my NetGalley shelf, looked at all my upcoming ARCs, and put a cold, hard question to myself: How much do I really want to read each of these books? Are these books that would call to me if I were browsing in a library or bookstore? And, maybe most importantly, do I want to read these particular books more than all the other books already on my shelves?
I was able to identify about five books that didn’t feel all that important to me. Maybe something had caught my eye in the first place, but in going back through the list, I could honestly admit that I wouldn’t feel sorry to let them go. And that’s what I did: I went to the feedback page for each book, and clicked on the “I will not be giving feedback for this book” option. And lo and behold, the books are no longer on my active shelf. Instant sense of relief!
I’ve gotten myself down to 10 ARCs left for the remainder of 2025, plus 2 for 2026 releases… and that feels manageable. Of the ARCs I’m still planning to read, I can sincerely say that I’d read these books even if I didn’t have ARCs. And of course, if I start one and find it’s not grabbing me, I’m going to use that “not giving feedback” option. (Try it! It’s really freeing!)
Going forward, I plan to be much more restrictive with myself in terms of requesting ARCs. For certain authors and series, absolutely yes — but for new-to-me authors or books that look cute or fun or interesting but aren’t yet on my radar, I’m going to make my best effort to hold off on hitting the request button. If I still want to read a certain book by the time it’s released, well… there’s always the library!
I do hesitate a bit to acknowledge both cutting back and pruning my NetGalley shelf — does this mean I’ll be less likely to get approved for future ARCs that I really want? But you know what? That’s a risk I’m willing to take! Again… libraries!!
My other clean-up projects are a little simpler (I hope!). First, I get way too many book-related emails — I’m on so many lists about price deals and new releases and publisher spotlights, and I end up just deleting most of them anyway. (A lot of these can probably be traced back to entering giveaways… so hard to resist!). Anyway, one of my goals for these new few weeks is to get a little ruthless and click on the unsubscribe option as often as possible.
As for the TBR clean-up… well, this is a never-ending goal, but it’s nice to make a little dent. I tend to mark books as to-read on Goodreads every time a new title catches my eye, whether from reading a review or seeing an article about the author or stumbling across an interesting social media blurb. It needs to stop! My TBR on Goodreads is well and truly out of control, and I could probably stand to delete hundreds of books that I’m clearly never going to actually read! I started tinkering with this a bit over the weekend, and have gotten my Goodreads to-read shelf down from 856 books to 696 so far!
My physical shelves at home are another story, and I’ve been working on these all year. I started selling on Pango Books last year, and it’s helping me cull the books I don’t really need to keep. I haven’t done a tremendous amount in terms of actual sales, but even just listing the books is helping me separate out the ones I don’t need to keep and move them into storage bags. As a result, I’m able to free up some shelf space, which lets me make things a bit tidier and easier to enjoy.
This week, I’ve been adding more books to my Pango listings and dropping the prices on books that have been listed for a while, just to see if that helps move more books out of my house. Hint: If you’re new to Pango and use the discount code in my sidebar, you get a discount!
I’m also shuffling off a bunch of older, shabbier books that aren’t quite in sellable shape (or might be so old that no one would be interested), using them to restock my Little Free Library whenever the space empties out.
The goal, of course, is to improve my reading life! To me, that means free myself from reading obligations and deadlines, and basking in the luxury of reading whatever suits my mood in any given moment.
Here’s to reading on a whim!
Has anyone else considered getting off the ARC merry-go-round? How are you feeling about your reading commitments these days? And do you have any tried-and-true approaches for making sure you can read according to your whims? Please share your thoughts!
Bookshelf Fantasies 
I read a book on a whim last week and it will be on my best reads of the year list! So fun! It’s nice to have the space to do that occasionally!
If I have a book on my NG shelf I don’t want to read for some reason, I give a brief feedback…to say something, anything…..even if it’s to say that after a few pages it didn’t engage me. The only reason I do that is because I heard that using the ‘not giving feedback” feature affects your ratio. So I always say something. I’m learning to vet my requests carefully!
Ah, good point about the ratios. I’d assumed that “not giving feedback” removed the book entirely from the calculation, but if that’s not the case, I may need to rethink my approach. (Then again, I’m at 90% right now, so I suppose it doesn’t much matter).
It’s just something I heard once…so i’ve avoided the temptation!
I’m a failure at getting off the ARC merry go round, lol. I try every January but it’s hard when publishers are literally begging you to read their books. But I like your idea about clicking the “will not review” button on NetGalley. I’ve only done that a few times but for legit reasons, like the formatting was awful. I love the idea of culling my GR TBR, I may start that!
Every year I say I’m going to do better, and then end up in the same ARC rut! I end up so frustrated, so I’m making a big effort right now to do this clean up and stick with it.
I always tell myself I’m going to request fewer ARCs so I can more freely mood read and knock out some backlist books but I fail every time! I have been doing better about managing the number I request/accept but darn it, it’s just SO tempting!
The temptation is real! And then I find myself staring at my NG shelf and wondering what I was thinking!
Sounds like you’ve made a great start! It’s impossible to just wholesale turn things around when it comes to things like this, so baby steps seems to be the way forward, and keeping on chipping away at it!
I’m not on NG, so ARCs aren’t an issue for me – I do occasionally wonder about joining, but do worry that the commitment element will drain the fun out of it. I love reading challenges, but I’m only accountable to me when it comes to those, not the NG ratio!
I love the way you put it — being accountable only to yourself! I’m not ready to quit NG entirely, since I do love getting access to the ARCs I truly crave. The problem creeps in when I start adding books that look appealing but aren’t must-reads for me. I’m really going to continuing chipping away!
Way to go on achieving some culling!!
I don’t read ARCs, partly because I find the demand to review them too much (although that was before I started doing book reviews as part of my blog. 🤷♀️) but also because I discovered that sometimes there are significant changes in content between the ARC and the official published version, and that just throws me off too much!
But as for the TBR list… UGH! I’m with you on that! I’ve found the most effective method to, as you’ve said, tackle it in small bits, and count every book culled a success! But I am going to have to make a serious effort at a substantial culling again – space restrictions and all! My nonfiction strategy hasn’t resulted in any significant culls yet (though I suppose stage one – the categorization – isn’t over yet, but at the same time, I’ve had plenty of time to consider the categories I have identified and decide which I’m no longer interested enough in), so I may have to come up with a different tack. As for the fiction… I may just have to get ruthless again! Eek!
It feels strange being ruthless with the TBR list… but also freeing! I had to laugh at how many books on my TBR I had no memory of adding and/ or no idea why I’d added them in the first place — those are the easy ones to delete!
😂 I need to do that with my TBR lists of books I don’t own!! For Kindle, the library, and ones I may someday want to own that the library doesn’t have! 🤦♀️😂 Needless to say, it’s gotten rather out of hand! Especially given how long some of those books have been on there!! … Of course, I keep saying this and then can’t follow through when I make the attempt! 🙄🤦♀️
Lol I’ve considered getting off the “ARC merry-go-round” and was able to successfully do so for a year, and then I went back on it and overdid the requests. Now I think I need to copy you and take a hard look at what I’ve got and let them go. Except for a handful of authors, I’m not too enthused about getting ARCs anymore, so I might stop requesting them on NetGalley.
I was thinking to weed my physical and Goodreads shelves recently — thinking about it with no real plans to do it. But I’m gonna take your post as motivation to actually make the effort.
Glad to help! 🙂 I just don’t want to be stuck in this cycle of checking dates and planning my reading according to commitments any more — I know I’m much happier when I don’t have to stick to a plan.
It’s definitely really important to keep space for reading what we feel like! I’ve got quite a significant TBR this month and I’ve still picked up three books that aren’t on it… despite being super behind on the ones that *are* on it. (Oops?) I hope your newly-pruned ARC list remains nicely pruned and that you can really enjoy the perks of free books without the stress that comes with them!
I think it’s great that you’re picking up the books that grab you in the moment, even if you do fall behind on the TBR side of things. I’m really looking forward to feeling like I’ve worked my way out from under that list of commitment books and can feel freer to just read whatever!