The 5 Oldest Books On My TBR

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My giant TBR is a time machine. It is also both a black hole and a towering stack, threatening to crush me. But for today’s post, I am interested in its time-warping capabilities. I’ve collected quite a lot of books over the years. So today, let’s take a trip down memory lane as I share the 5 oldest books on my TBR! As in, the books “I am definitely going to read soon”…for multiple years.

I determined this by looking at which books I added to my Goodreads TBR when I first started using the site. It’s obviously not entirely accurate, but it’s close enough. Do I have any plans to either read or unhaul these books? Well, I guess you have to continue reading to find out 😉

The Drowning of Arthur Braxton – Caroline Smailes

Unless I count some childhood books still in my old bedroom, this is probably the oldest book on my TBR. It’s been over 5 years and I still haven’t read it. But I just can’t let it go! At this point, I couldn’t even tell you what this book is about. All I know is that the main character is a boy named Arthur Braxton who apparently meets a mermaid in some old bathhouse? Admittedly, I may be holding onto this book out of pure nostalgia. Surely, if I wanted to read it I would have done it by now?

However, something about it still intrigues me. Flipping through, the book switches between multiple formats, including a screenplay. So maybe I’m simply intrigued by this multimedia aspect? Honestly, I can’t tell you why I still own this book other than that I’m not quite ready to let it go.

The Art and Craft of Playwriting – Jeffrey Hatcher

It’s a nonfiction craft book! Technically, this isn’t even the oldest one I have, but I wanted to talk about it here nonetheless. These types of craft books are a weird part of my TBR because to me, they’re not really books I’ll read cover to cover. Subsequently, I feel no real pressure to read them anytime soon. I’ll do it when the time is right and I feel like I can learn from them.

Next to this particular book about playwriting (which was recommended to me by one of the directors at the theatre I used to work at) are books about acting and more writing! It’s almost enough for a little “books about creativity and art” post…maybe one day!

Either way, this book isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It might be years before I decide to dedicate the time to go through it and do all the exercises, but I’m okay with that.

The End of the Day – Claire North

I found this book in my local bookstore and thought it sounded so cool! As far as I can remember, it involves a man who is basically the harbinger of death, meeting people before death comes for them. If that doesn’t sound like my kind of book, I don’t know what does!

Unfortunately, I’ve tried reading this twice and just never got into it. Something about the writing style didn’t work for me and I never made it past chapter one.

This book is definitely the greatest contender to unhaul (or at least relocate to my childhood bedroom) to free up some shelf space. I’m just no longer interested right now, but don’t want to write it off entirely just yet.

To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis

This one is an ebook so at least it’s not in danger of taking up precious shelf real estate. It’s a time travel story that a good friend recommended to me shortly after we met for the first time. 

Its digital existence on my kindle is also part of the reason I haven’t read it yet. I tend to buy a lot of ebooks on sale and then forget about them as they vanish into the depth of my digital library. If anyone has any tips on how to deal with this black hole of an eReader…please let me know!

However, I am not getting rid of it. I bought it, it’s not taking up space and I have a feeling I might enjoy this book! 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers

This book also used to live in the depth of my kindle library. However, I recently got myself the audiobook version, too. Mostly in hopes that it’s going to give me the push to finally read this book! My audiobook library has also grown more than I’d like to admit so I just have to cross my fingers it doesn’t end up like my collection of ebooks.

Once again, I feel like I might absolutely love this book which makes it even sadder I haven’t made it a priority yet. So this book also gets to stay on my TBR but my god, someone please give me more hours in the day so I can finally tackle my TBR.

Let’s Chat!

Do you have a TBR or are you the kind of person who doesn’t own a lot of unread books? If you do have a TBR in any form, do you regularly unhaul books or reassess which ones deserve to stay? What’s the oldest book on there that you can’t get rid of quite yet? Let’s chat in the comments!

I hope you have a lovely day,