Tag: Calibre library

My ebook library is up to 940 1222 books** now in Calibre. The last book I bought, I didn’t finish, but I do plan to finish it. ;) I do! I’m on page 73 of 367 in Aldiko*. But several other books caught my interest, even though they too have ended up unfinished, and it occurs to me today that my library is just too big. Not just my ebook library, my physical one too, tbh.

I can’t find, or focus on, the good books. It takes me too long to decide what I want to read because I have so much available. A month or two ago, I subscribed to BookBub. I received emails everyday and I couldn’t resist at least one or two books each day and so my ebook library swelled. I went to update my Nook, Kindle, and phone libraries and the whole idea that I have all these books in my library that I probably won’t ever read smacked me like a limb whipping in the wind. It was a sudden and shocking realization, and although I’m generally against minimalism and de-cluttering (one of my favorite books is A Perfect Mess), I’m having the most irresistible urge to declutter my libraries. Starting with the ebooks.

So, I think I’m going to delete some stuff today, in between reading and copy editing the book I’m working on at the moment. And I’m not going to regret it. And if I do, well, regret is not so hard to live with when there’s nothing that can be done about it. :D

*I highly recommend Aldiko. I use the free version on my Kindle and the premium version on my android phone. The free version is good enough that with my particular reading habits I can’t even tell the difference between the two. (Update: I discovered the premium version was compatible with my Kindle Fire and Fire tablets and upgraded them too.)

**I hadn’t imported my Kindle books in a while. Ouch.

I’ve been too busy converting and transferring my ebook collection to and from Calibre to Aldiko on both my Android phone and my Kindle so I can have the majority of my books, regardless of format or retailer, available on whichever device I prefer, to write much this morning … and now afternoon, yikes!

It’s obviously been time consuming. Hopefully worth it though. I’d like to get back to reading a book every couple of days. I need to do more reading both because I love it and because it’s the best way to keep getting better as a writer (combined with practice!) and I have so many books but it seems never what I want when I want because my collection is so scattered.

I have both a Nook and Kindle reader. Then both apps on my phone, along with Aldiko on my phone and my Kindle and Calibre on my laptop.

The one thing I almost always refuse to do though is read on my computer. I hate it. If the book doesn’t make it to one of my devices, it doesn’t get read.

I’m sure there are tons of people with more books than me, but I have 4 bookshelves full downstairs, 2 bankers boxes stuffed to the brim, and 2 bookshelves full upstairs. All my shelves are stuffed and many are double-stacked (one set of books in back and one set in front) and turned whichever way makes it easiest to fit more books.

And I have 796 ebooks in Calibre, not counting those I just deleted because there ain’t no way I’m reading them again, ever.

I’m making it a priority to start working my way through this backlog as quickly as possible, print or ebook, whichever catches my fancy. :D

Goal: read at least 60 of these books by the end of the year. I think I’ll start a reading log page here somewhere to keep up.

UPDATE: Yep. I started a log.