Ariel, I believe there is another option for your eye journey... you could just use the hard contact lens in one eye and, I dunno single-handedly BRING BACK THE MONOCLE??? 🤔😍
My problem with rainbow bookshelves is that I don't find them aesthetically pleasing, but I don't understand why some people get upset about how other people organize their own books
I organize my bookshelves by color… but not by rainbow! I have black and white books on one shelf, neon/brightly colored books on another, and more muted colors on a third. Curiously this system ends up largely organizing my books by vibe as well. Many classics and dark academia books are black and white, many unsound women and queer books are bright, and my other literary fictions/historical fictions tend to be muted. I know this will sound insane to some people but I’m a graphic designer and color theory has won out!
I love this! All the neon books I can think of are either contemporary fiction with unsound women protagonists, or recent Japanese translations. Makes sense to me!
With the TBR question - why not simplify the system slightly and use a dollar bill as a bookmark for each TBR book which you then put into your ‘bank’ when read then when you’ve collected enough dollars to buy a new book then you get a wild card
For my bookshelves I have my read and unread separate. My read books are alphabetical and my unread books are loosely rainbow (but also split up by fiction/nonfiction). I find it fun mixing the two ways of organizing!!
For the rainbow adverse I've taken it one step further! Not only are my books organised by colour but this year I only read one colour book each month, so February = red, March = orange, April = yellow and so on. Now I've reached the end of the rainbow I've moved on and am only read books with white covers until I've read all the white covered books I own, then I'll move on to red, then orange etc... AND IT GOES FURTHER! I looked up every single book on my wishlist in my library's database and have created a huge spreadsheet of the colour of all of their covers, and I'm working my way through them as well. Is this the result of my Masters degree turning me slightly insane? Maybe, but I've turned it into a fun experiment in discovering which genres get which cover colours. 😅
I love hearing how other people organise their books. I just... shove mine anywhere on my shelves with no rhyme or reason. I don't have a great memory but I usually remember roughly where I put them. My colleagues would be so ashamed of me. I work in a university library and my whole job is cataloguing things. LOL I DO keep my graphic novels separate though, on a very long sideboard in my living room. Because they're pretty and I like seeing them all the time. But they're also not organised in any way 😅
I think the only reason I don't like rainbow shelves is because I want all my books by the same author to be together. So I sort by author (and genre) and then if I can put books of similar colors together to make it look nice I do that. I think I'd feel stressed if all my Jane Austen books were in different spots because they're different colors. Also, how do rainbow shelves work for series? Do you just have series of books in random places based on their color?
Karina - I see you my fellow type A reader 😂 I don’t know about you, but I get sidetracked by bestsellers and new releases from my favorite authors, so gamifying my shelf is key. Picking a 10-15 book tbr for 2025 might help you figure out what the most hyped books on your shelf are, and give you the chance to evaluate which ones feel more like homework. If they aren’t appealing to you let them go find another reader, you’ll discover them again with you need them 😊 put those shelf titles in a tbr jar if you want to make it more random and fun 🎉
I rainbowed my books briefly, some years ago, and then immediately undid it. It was pretty and I would never judge anyone else for doing it, but I found it extremely annoying for my books. I think the issues I had were literally what you mentioned: with my poor memory I couldn't always recall what books were what colors - especially because cover and spine aren't always the same color - so finding things was not easy, and also do I read quite a few series, some a dozen books long or more, and breaking those up is annoying. But I find other people's rainbow bookshelves very pretty.
re: the prescription sunglasses situations. I remember there was a discussion and I think you might have mentioned transition sunglasses (I got them this year and am very happy with them) but something else that you could do is find prescription glasses with sunglasses clip-ons! My boyfriend got those and they work like a charm for him. There is a little bit of a hustle with keeping them in a case and carrying them with you sometimes, but on the upside you just got one pair of glasses and you're fine to go!
Funny story. As a kid I had magnetic clip on sun glasses, they were great except if I knocked them off my face (which happened all the time.) then my glasses widened so much that the magnetic clip on sunglasses never fit anymore. But it is an option, they might work better as an adult than a child.
No Shame at all Ariel! Thank-you for sharing your experiment with us! Loved hearing the confessions, last that last reader got home safely (eventually).
Hi, about having too many books on your tbr I once heard the best reason. One guy once said he had so many books but had only read about 10% of them and when people asked why didn’t he get rid of them he said that they were a constant reminder of the knowledge he didn’t have yet and the stories he hadn’t experienced and I think it is a great way to see it. Love the pod, greetings to both 👐🏻
Surprised nobody brought up Cursed Child for the second confession, it really soured HP for me at the time (before JK soured it even more herself), it changed characters and added frankly ludicrous plot points that diminished the original series' impact
I had so many unread books that I knew I was never going to read. This year I got rid of 42 books, most I have never read, a few I have. Best decision, I have never felt more freer, I ‘m actually reading more now. I would recommend this to anyone.
While I find a lot of other people (and you two’s!) rainbow shelves very pretty, when I organize mine it feels a bit unpersonal to me. I’ve just ended up sorting my shelves by vibes and color palettes instead. All books doesn’t perfectly match one color but instead an overarching palette. One I have is primarily deep navy and burnt orange, one is reds and pinks and purples. One is earthy and one is primary colors. I think it is the best of both worlds of aesthetically pleasing and personal to my collection!
Both of you girls are absolutely delightful.! Thank you so much for sharing your youthful wisdom and enthusiasm and energy! My sister told me about your podcast and we both look forward to everything you chat about including books. Thank you!❤❤
Rainbow shelves: I really don’t care if you have your books in rainbow but since I’m a genre mood reader I need them divided that way, that being said I have my romance section in rainbow order because 1 - they are rarely series and 2 - I think romance deserves to be in rainbow and surrounded by flowers💐🥀
I enjoyed the TBR confession, and I think, in her place, I would do a bit of both of the solutions. On one hand, I'll check if I still want to read every unread book, and after un-hauling, then I'll go with a stamp card or something like that to keep track.
I am 75 and years ago I realized my book collection was about my ego and pride so I decided it was fine to pass my books along and if I kept all my books over the last 60 years I would have to add more weight bearing walls. LOL.. I don't care about making rainbows plus I rotate books.
I organize my bookshelves by how the main characters would like each other or not. I have been doing this for a long time now, basically asking myself "Would the characters of those books would like to have a chat with each other through pages?"
i always feel like an outsider when it comes to rainbowshelves. my issue with them is not the "missing organisation", i just hate the look of an giant rainbow. though i can get behind ariels mini rainbows...what i love about my bookshelf is that its so easy to tell what books are where: the black and red spot on the shelves are horror/thriller, the colorful one is contemporary/romance, the gold foiled one is classics and special editions, etc... its sort of an organisational system at a glance
The issues with driving at night are also the reason I eventually stopped wearing night lenses. Also it really sucks if you miss a night of sleep. Then your vision gets really blurry the next day.
I put off getting prescription sunglasses for ages… finally getting them made my life so much better (I also have sensitive little light coloured eyes…). It made my driving and just existing outside so much more enjoyable! So, definitely worth the money for me!!
I just found out about this podcast through CarolynMarieReads. She was right, you guys are wonderful!💞 During your discussion I kept thinking about that opening from the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun' when an author starts the story by taking revenge on Francis who gave him a bad review. And then at the end the message from a different author was that her bad review "helped him get to his next book".
I, like Ariel, organize my books by genre and then rainbow. To Raeleen's observation that there are some colors that are more popular than others, I agree! With the caveat that I think it changes from genre to genre. I have an abundance of blue in my romance section, a ton of black and white in my fantasy section, but my literary and historical fiction is mostly red and shades of beigey-sagey green.
Fun episode! Love starting my Monday morning with you two😊❤ also I loved the leaning into TBR stamp card idea for the caller with the awesomely elaborate TBR plan 😄I relate to Ariel, having a big TBR to me is fun, not anxiety inducing but I do love a stamp card!😄
Ariel I would recommend the glasses that are photosensitive which avoids doing the whole song and dance of getting sunglasses. If you don’t know what they are they are basically glasses that have a special crystal which reacts to brightness and gets darker, which meaning your have seeing glasses and sunglasses all in one. I have had them for a year and couldn’t recommend them more, it took me a week to get used to them (because they change colors even when it is bright out with clouds) but now I can’t imagine living without them.
re: new installment in a beloved book/series I thought was over. my solution is to read it out of curiosity but treat it as fanfiction. when a fanfic is bad i don't get upset cause it's not Canon! I treat add on installments the same, I am the Canon master in my own head and add on installments shall never ruin me. mind over matter yall.
I was watching another video on Yt when I saw the notification for a new video from Books Unbound so I immediately changed to watch yours! 😂 Ariel, a couple of weeks ago, I made an order for a book on a second hand website (Vinted,I don’t think it exist in Canada), and I always look at the other books people are selling and I saw 84 Charing Cross Road, I squealed🙈 because you’ve been talking about it so much that I thought I have to buy and read it. So it’s going to be one of the first books I read in 2025 😁
I have had my books as a rainbow fully before. But I do have a lot of series. I have my books organized by read date currently (because I reread a lot and have almost only read books), but that doesn't work too well. Next year I'm going back to series together and standalones as a rainbow
maybe it's because I have monthly contacts and wear them 5/7 days a week, one easy solution i found to the sunglasses deal is that I don't decide if I'm wearing contacts in the summer each day until I know if it's sunny and that I'm going out, so then I can wear my normal sunglasses
So many great confessions. Such a good episode. Considering rainbow shelves - a person should do what they like with their own books. As for myself, though I read other things, I am a heavy fantasy reader & I definitely want my series together. I also mostly group books by the same author together whatever the genre. And there is so much more organized chaos going on since my books are housed in 3 different rooms on 6 different shelves! Heh. Ah.... the long TBR. I don't overly worry about unread books. I am somewhat like Ariel in this. A TBR to me is not all the unread books I own but rather maybe 10 I truly want to read in the next year. The others are just part of my cozy, beautiful collection until I get to them.
Re the Discovery of Witches series - I adored Blackbird Chronicles. That and the first book are my absolute favorites. The focus is almost completely on witches and that is one of my favorite topics. If you are conflicted, I would suggest getting it from the library, reading the first chapter as a sample, then deciding if you want to continue.
Regarding the rainbow organization I think if you have many series is complicated. Right now, I have a mix of non-rainbow and rainbow. One of my to-be-read shelves is rainbow for aesthetic purposes. Then the rest are divided by read and not read, series and non series.
28:49 - Not including exceptions for favorite authors' releases or series, there's about 73 extra books (aka over two years) being added on to this method (assuming one-third is audiobook, two-thirds is physical books) 😂 but hey more reading is never a bad thing!
I CANNOT stand rainbow bookshelves because it separates series, authors and genres for the sake of the aesthetic. You can't find anything unless you know what color your edition of a book was ON ITS SPINE which may be different from the cover. Also there is no heed to the content of the books and the books are literally judged and organized by their cover. I'm sorry, rainbow bookshelves are not it.
I have a confession: I always read up to the last book in a series, & never read the last book. It’s stressing me out not having read the last book, at the same time, I don’t care too much. Only series I have read all the books for including the last one: Hunger Games, Series of Unfortunate Events, HP, Infernal Devices.
Loved the rainbow discussion! For years I've had all my queer books as a rainbow - I actually rearranged it just recently and it's my first time not having a rainbow in many years, but I still love a rainbow! Personally I don't care about splitting series (I actually think it's kind of fun because it upsets people so much for some reason 😂😂). I kind of view my bookshelves in the same way I view the art I put on my walls, I just want it to look nice and make me happy. Recently I created a "serotonin shelf", it's the shelf I see the most and I put favourite books, books I'm really excited about and books that makes me happy to look at for various reasons on it, so now I just get happy and excited whenever I look at that shelf. Would highly recommend! 😂
I find rainbow shelves or colour organisation look too sterile i.e. they look so organised they don't invite me to take something off the shelf. Random shelving just has a cosier vibe I think! I do organise my books loosely by genre but I also like to put my favourites all together too.
I imagine rainbow selves are easier to look through than the method i used, which i refer to as "if i fits i sits". My main book case doesn't have evenly spaced shelves so i really can't organize in a more traditional way.
Re sequels, I love the Rowling/Galbraith series featuring Strike and Ellacott. She is currently working on book 8 of a 10 book series and I’m already going through withdrawal before the series has even concluded.
I agree with Candace I'm not a fan of the rainbow bookshelves. The US has lost its mind, and it's just heartbreaking where we are in 2024, but thanks for your hopeful statement. Be well 📚😊
For Karina (hopefully spelled somewhat correctly)- I feel like you also need to be okay with DNRing books if you aren’t liking them but still count them as “read” since you did try
Caller number 2: Hello! I LOVE the Discovery of Witches series and am currently reading them over again before I crack open The Black Bird Oracle. (I was waiting for spooky season to read) I will say that the story was originally written and marketed as a trilogy, so if you'd like to stop there, then it's totally okay! Not sure if you know about the book Time's Convert, where the author focuses on Marcus' origins, but it is interspersed with regular chapters about Diana and Matthew's life after the ending of the The Book of Life. Also, and this might sway your decision, the author was featured in an Elle article "Deborah Harkness, the ‘Accidental Novelist,’ Has Years’ Worth of All Souls Books in the Pipeline" where it is immediately stated that she is in progress on SIX additional All Souls books after The Black Bird Oracle. (I also saw that she mentioned on social media seeing the cover for the next installment, so they are definitely coming) Not sure if that means focusing on Diana and Matthew's story specifically or opening it up to focus on some of the tertiary characters - but, long story short, if you enjoyed the ending of the trilogy, I think it's perfectly fine to end the journey there, regardless of how many more books come out.
Maybe unpopular opinion here about the rainbow bookshelves but: if you have bookshelves just so that other people can see what you're reading, you only seem to want to impress other people. In my opinion bookshelves should be there to make you happy, to be decor in your house or just to have your books organised. Don't stress about what other people think of you ❤
Hey - random question. In last years listener survey there was a fan fiction that people kept mentioning as their fav book. Does anyone know what it was called?
KARINA I NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT YOUR RATIOS ARE OFF!! I know that many readers are not maths people but I think you need to check yours over With audio books, your regular ratio is 3:1 but if you read 12 then it becomes 4:1 (as it's 12:3). This makes it a punishment because you get to read fewer random books for the same amount of shelf books. At the very least, I think you should change it to either 9 shelf books = 3 random books or 12 shelf books = 4 random books to make the ratios match. But really, I think that you should have a bigger reward as motivation to help you get through more shelf books so 12 shelf books = 5 random books. I also think there is a disparity between the ratios of your physical books/ebooks because there's a massive jump between 10:1 and 4:1 but this is less of a problem as it more rewarding. (I'd change it to 5 shelf books = 1 random and keep 20 shelf = 5 random/1 series because you only get to read about 3 random books a year if all 30 are physical/ebooks on the smaller set) And as long as you can keep some books in credit (so that 11 books in, and you want to read something random you can without loosing too much progress towards those bigger rewards or once you get over 20 books you can carry on working towards another reward if you want and not loose any work towards a random book) whether that be the bank idea, the stamp card idea, or something else, I think this should work.
about the goodreads situation…I honestly wish people would stop treating it like it’s BIBLE. and I don’t understand why authors aren’t allowed to respond to criticism. anyone can leave a review anyone can respond to it…the drama can come from both parties. TBH goodreads shouldn’t be as relevant as it is when it comes to reviews anyway in MY opinion lol.
but more books are fun😭🫣 I LOVED a ballad of songbirds and snakes and I feel like there’s something special about finding more in a world and how stories aren’t over yet. I also think using the world that’s established and loved is a great format to say something new ✨
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
that "good luck to the future!" was so hopefull 😭😭😭😭
coast to coast is gone, so I'm here to pitch: "From the Maritimes to the prairie times!!" 😂✨🍁
Ariel, I believe there is another option for your eye journey... you could just use the hard contact lens in one eye and, I dunno single-handedly BRING BACK THE MONOCLE??? 🤔😍
An INCREDIBLE suggestion 🧐😂
She would absolutely rock it
@@giuliab21 I completely agree
Next years Halloween costume 👌 a girl with astigmatism…and/or Mr. Peanut
I literally came on here to break my general rule of not posting public comments to make this same suggestion! 😂
New intro with Raeleen's move: From the ocean to the prairie.
That's good.
From coast to prairie , so we can keep at least 1 coast 😂
@@Book_love001 I love that too! It's catchy.
@@MJ-in-Canada Thanks, MJ!
@@itchystitchy 😊
My problem with rainbow bookshelves is that I don't find them aesthetically pleasing, but I don't understand why some people get upset about how other people organize their own books
Ariel talking about the sunk cost fallacy resonated with me today.
I organize my bookshelves by color… but not by rainbow! I have black and white books on one shelf, neon/brightly colored books on another, and more muted colors on a third. Curiously this system ends up largely organizing my books by vibe as well. Many classics and dark academia books are black and white, many unsound women and queer books are bright, and my other literary fictions/historical fictions tend to be muted. I know this will sound insane to some people but I’m a graphic designer and color theory has won out!
I love this! All the neon books I can think of are either contemporary fiction with unsound women protagonists, or recent Japanese translations. Makes sense to me!
The US general election 😭 I’ve been binging books unbound content ever since the election results to just get by 💙
21:43 "intertwingling" is my new favorite word. Thank you Raeleen!
With the TBR question - why not simplify the system slightly and use a dollar bill as a bookmark for each TBR book which you then put into your ‘bank’ when read then when you’ve collected enough dollars to buy a new book then you get a wild card
I completely forgot that the US has dollar bills! We have dollar coins in Canada 😅
TBH I’m in the UK so we have £1 coins so that wouldn’t work for me either 😂
For my bookshelves I have my read and unread separate. My read books are alphabetical and my unread books are loosely rainbow (but also split up by fiction/nonfiction). I find it fun mixing the two ways of organizing!!
For the rainbow adverse I've taken it one step further! Not only are my books organised by colour but this year I only read one colour book each month, so February = red, March = orange, April = yellow and so on. Now I've reached the end of the rainbow I've moved on and am only read books with white covers until I've read all the white covered books I own, then I'll move on to red, then orange etc... AND IT GOES FURTHER! I looked up every single book on my wishlist in my library's database and have created a huge spreadsheet of the colour of all of their covers, and I'm working my way through them as well.
Is this the result of my Masters degree turning me slightly insane? Maybe, but I've turned it into a fun experiment in discovering which genres get which cover colours. 😅
I love hearing how other people organise their books. I just... shove mine anywhere on my shelves with no rhyme or reason. I don't have a great memory but I usually remember roughly where I put them. My colleagues would be so ashamed of me. I work in a university library and my whole job is cataloguing things. LOL
I DO keep my graphic novels separate though, on a very long sideboard in my living room. Because they're pretty and I like seeing them all the time. But they're also not organised in any way 😅
I think the only reason I don't like rainbow shelves is because I want all my books by the same author to be together. So I sort by author (and genre) and then if I can put books of similar colors together to make it look nice I do that. I think I'd feel stressed if all my Jane Austen books were in different spots because they're different colors. Also, how do rainbow shelves work for series? Do you just have series of books in random places based on their color?
I’ve actually planned to do the stamp card idea in 2025! My goal is to read the books I already own, but also reduce the amount of books I buy.
Karina - I see you my fellow type A reader 😂 I don’t know about you, but I get sidetracked by bestsellers and new releases from my favorite authors, so gamifying my shelf is key. Picking a 10-15 book tbr for 2025 might help you figure out what the most hyped books on your shelf are, and give you the chance to evaluate which ones feel more like homework. If they aren’t appealing to you let them go find another reader, you’ll discover them again with you need them 😊 put those shelf titles in a tbr jar if you want to make it more random and fun 🎉
I rainbowed my books briefly, some years ago, and then immediately undid it. It was pretty and I would never judge anyone else for doing it, but I found it extremely annoying for my books. I think the issues I had were literally what you mentioned: with my poor memory I couldn't always recall what books were what colors - especially because cover and spine aren't always the same color - so finding things was not easy, and also do I read quite a few series, some a dozen books long or more, and breaking those up is annoying. But I find other people's rainbow bookshelves very pretty.
re: the prescription sunglasses situations. I remember there was a discussion and I think you might have mentioned transition sunglasses (I got them this year and am very happy with them) but something else that you could do is find prescription glasses with sunglasses clip-ons! My boyfriend got those and they work like a charm for him. There is a little bit of a hustle with keeping them in a case and carrying them with you sometimes, but on the upside you just got one pair of glasses and you're fine to go!
Funny story. As a kid I had magnetic clip on sun glasses, they were great except if I knocked them off my face (which happened all the time.) then my glasses widened so much that the magnetic clip on sunglasses never fit anymore. But it is an option, they might work better as an adult than a child.
No Shame at all Ariel! Thank-you for sharing your experiment with us! Loved hearing the confessions, last that last reader got home safely (eventually).
Hi, about having too many books on your tbr I once heard the best reason. One guy once said he had so many books but had only read about 10% of them and when people asked why didn’t he get rid of them he said that they were a constant reminder of the knowledge he didn’t have yet and the stories he hadn’t experienced and I think it is a great way to see it. Love the pod, greetings to both 👐🏻
Surprised nobody brought up Cursed Child for the second confession, it really soured HP for me at the time (before JK soured it even more herself), it changed characters and added frankly ludicrous plot points that diminished the original series' impact
Ariel and Raeleen, have you considered publishing a book based on Reading Confessions? I think there’s a market for it!😁
I had so many unread books that I knew I was never going to read. This year I got rid of 42 books, most I have never read, a few I have. Best decision, I have never felt more freer, I ‘m actually reading more now. I would recommend this to anyone.
While I find a lot of other people (and you two’s!) rainbow shelves very pretty, when I organize mine it feels a bit unpersonal to me. I’ve just ended up sorting my shelves by vibes and color palettes instead. All books doesn’t perfectly match one color but instead an overarching palette. One I have is primarily deep navy and burnt orange, one is reds and pinks and purples. One is earthy and one is primary colors. I think it is the best of both worlds of aesthetically pleasing and personal to my collection!
Both of you girls are absolutely delightful.! Thank you so much for sharing your youthful wisdom and enthusiasm and energy! My sister told me about your podcast and we both look forward to everything you chat about including books. Thank you!❤❤
Rainbow shelves: I really don’t care if you have your books in rainbow but since I’m a genre mood reader I need them divided that way, that being said I have my romance section in rainbow order because 1 - they are rarely series and 2 - I think romance deserves to be in rainbow and surrounded by flowers💐🥀
I enjoyed the TBR confession, and I think, in her place, I would do a bit of both of the solutions.
On one hand, I'll check if I still want to read every unread book, and after un-hauling, then I'll go with a stamp card or something like that to keep track.
I am 75 and years ago I realized my book collection was about my ego and pride so I decided it was fine to pass my books along and if I kept all my books over the last 60 years I would have to add more weight bearing walls. LOL.. I don't care about making rainbows plus I rotate books.
I organize my bookshelves by how the main characters would like each other or not. I have been doing this for a long time now, basically asking myself "Would the characters of those books would like to have a chat with each other through pages?"
Spotted the little christmas tree in the intro 🥰
i always feel like an outsider when it comes to rainbowshelves.
my issue with them is not the "missing organisation", i just hate the look of an giant rainbow.
though i can get behind ariels mini rainbows...what i love about my bookshelf is that its so easy to tell what books are where: the black and red spot on the shelves are horror/thriller, the colorful one is contemporary/romance, the gold foiled one is classics and special editions, etc...
its sort of an organisational system at a glance
The issues with driving at night are also the reason I eventually stopped wearing night lenses. Also it really sucks if you miss a night of sleep. Then your vision gets really blurry the next day.
I put off getting prescription sunglasses for ages… finally getting them made my life so much better (I also have sensitive little light coloured eyes…). It made my driving and just existing outside so much more enjoyable!
So, definitely worth the money for me!!
I just found out about this podcast through CarolynMarieReads. She was right, you guys are wonderful!💞 During your discussion I kept thinking about that opening from the movie "Under the Tuscan Sun' when an author starts the story by taking revenge on Francis who gave him a bad review. And then at the end the message from a different author was that her bad review "helped him get to his next book".
I, like Ariel, organize my books by genre and then rainbow. To Raeleen's observation that there are some colors that are more popular than others, I agree! With the caveat that I think it changes from genre to genre. I have an abundance of blue in my romance section, a ton of black and white in my fantasy section, but my literary and historical fiction is mostly red and shades of beigey-sagey green.
Fun episode! Love starting my Monday morning with you two😊❤ also I loved the leaning into TBR stamp card idea for the caller with the awesomely elaborate TBR plan 😄I relate to Ariel, having a big TBR to me is fun, not anxiety inducing but I do love a stamp card!😄
Thanks Ariel and Raeleen for answering my bookish problem. 💙💙💙 love hearing your seasoned thoughts and opinions.
Ariel I would recommend the glasses that are photosensitive which avoids doing the whole song and dance of getting sunglasses. If you don’t know what they are they are basically glasses that have a special crystal which reacts to brightness and gets darker, which meaning your have seeing glasses and sunglasses all in one. I have had them for a year and couldn’t recommend them more, it took me a week to get used to them (because they change colors even when it is bright out with clouds) but now I can’t imagine living without them.
re: new installment in a beloved book/series I thought was over. my solution is to read it out of curiosity but treat it as fanfiction. when a fanfic is bad i don't get upset cause it's not Canon! I treat add on installments the same, I am the Canon master in my own head and add on installments shall never ruin me. mind over matter yall.
Love this idea 💙
@janaelarsen3222 it's truly freeing!
I was watching another video on Yt when I saw the notification for a new video from Books Unbound so I immediately changed to watch yours! 😂
Ariel, a couple of weeks ago, I made an order for a book on a second hand website (Vinted,I don’t think it exist in Canada), and I always look at the other books people are selling and I saw 84 Charing Cross Road, I squealed🙈 because you’ve been talking about it so much that I thought I have to buy and read it. So it’s going to be one of the first books I read in 2025 😁
I have had my books as a rainbow fully before. But I do have a lot of series. I have my books organized by read date currently (because I reread a lot and have almost only read books), but that doesn't work too well. Next year I'm going back to series together and standalones as a rainbow
maybe it's because I have monthly contacts and wear them 5/7 days a week, one easy solution i found to the sunglasses deal is that I don't decide if I'm wearing contacts in the summer each day until I know if it's sunny and that I'm going out, so then I can wear my normal sunglasses
So many great confessions. Such a good episode. Considering rainbow shelves - a person should do what they like with their own books. As for myself, though I read other things, I am a heavy fantasy reader & I definitely want my series together. I also mostly group books by the same author together whatever the genre. And there is so much more organized chaos going on since my books are housed in 3 different rooms on 6 different shelves! Heh. Ah.... the long TBR. I don't overly worry about unread books. I am somewhat like Ariel in this. A TBR to me is not all the unread books I own but rather maybe 10 I truly want to read in the next year. The others are just part of my cozy, beautiful collection until I get to them.
Re the Discovery of Witches series - I adored Blackbird Chronicles. That and the first book are my absolute favorites. The focus is almost completely on witches and that is one of my favorite topics. If you are conflicted, I would suggest getting it from the library, reading the first chapter as a sample, then deciding if you want to continue.
I was about to go to sleep. As it’s 10:40pm here in Melbourne Australia. But I kinda have to watch this now. Right? Love you guys ❤
I think with the complex reading plan. Try to read more books per year.
Great video/podcast! I hope Raeleen’s move is going smoothly!
Regarding the rainbow organization I think if you have many series is complicated. Right now, I have a mix of non-rainbow and rainbow. One of my to-be-read shelves is rainbow for aesthetic purposes. Then the rest are divided by read and not read, series and non series.
28:49 - Not including exceptions for favorite authors' releases or series, there's about 73 extra books (aka over two years) being added on to this method (assuming one-third is audiobook, two-thirds is physical books) 😂 but hey more reading is never a bad thing!
I used to walk around and read physical books (now I do audio books 😂) and I walked on the wrong metro and tram several times 😅
brb, off to design shelf bucks...
I CANNOT stand rainbow bookshelves because it separates series, authors and genres for the sake of the aesthetic. You can't find anything unless you know what color your edition of a book was ON ITS SPINE which may be different from the cover. Also there is no heed to the content of the books and the books are literally judged and organized by their cover. I'm sorry, rainbow bookshelves are not it.
Ahahaha, tell us how you really feel 😂
I have a confession: I always read up to the last book in a series, & never read the last book. It’s stressing me out not having read the last book, at the same time, I don’t care too much.
Only series I have read all the books for including the last one: Hunger Games, Series of Unfortunate Events, HP, Infernal Devices.
Loved the rainbow discussion! For years I've had all my queer books as a rainbow - I actually rearranged it just recently and it's my first time not having a rainbow in many years, but I still love a rainbow! Personally I don't care about splitting series (I actually think it's kind of fun because it upsets people so much for some reason 😂😂). I kind of view my bookshelves in the same way I view the art I put on my walls, I just want it to look nice and make me happy. Recently I created a "serotonin shelf", it's the shelf I see the most and I put favourite books, books I'm really excited about and books that makes me happy to look at for various reasons on it, so now I just get happy and excited whenever I look at that shelf. Would highly recommend! 😂
This episode feels like therapy, I love it 🫂♥️ Also, Raeleen! I'm reading The God of the woods:)) (Il dio dei boschi, in Italian:))
I find rainbow shelves or colour organisation look too sterile i.e. they look so organised they don't invite me to take something off the shelf. Random shelving just has a cosier vibe I think! I do organise my books loosely by genre but I also like to put my favourites all together too.
I imagine rainbow selves are easier to look through than the method i used, which i refer to as "if i fits i sits".
My main book case doesn't have evenly spaced shelves so i really can't organize in a more traditional way.
Re sequels, I love the Rowling/Galbraith series featuring Strike and Ellacott. She is currently working on book 8 of a 10 book series and I’m already going through withdrawal before the series has even concluded.
my right eye is my worse one too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think too much about all of my unread books 😂😂
I agree with Candace I'm not a fan of the rainbow bookshelves. The US has lost its mind, and it's just heartbreaking where we are in 2024, but thanks for your hopeful statement. Be well 📚😊
Also, I’ve completely given up having some kind of control on my TBR, which is hundreds of books long… 😂
I bought my prescription glasses from zenni and they were super cheap, I think around 30 and really cute
For Karina (hopefully spelled somewhat correctly)- I feel like you also need to be okay with DNRing books if you aren’t liking them but still count them as “read” since you did try
Caller number 2: Hello! I LOVE the Discovery of Witches series and am currently reading them over again before I crack open The Black Bird Oracle. (I was waiting for spooky season to read) I will say that the story was originally written and marketed as a trilogy, so if you'd like to stop there, then it's totally okay! Not sure if you know about the book Time's Convert, where the author focuses on Marcus' origins, but it is interspersed with regular chapters about Diana and Matthew's life after the ending of the The Book of Life. Also, and this might sway your decision, the author was featured in an Elle article "Deborah Harkness, the ‘Accidental Novelist,’ Has Years’ Worth of All Souls Books in the Pipeline" where it is immediately stated that she is in progress on SIX additional All Souls books after The Black Bird Oracle. (I also saw that she mentioned on social media seeing the cover for the next installment, so they are definitely coming) Not sure if that means focusing on Diana and Matthew's story specifically or opening it up to focus on some of the tertiary characters - but, long story short, if you enjoyed the ending of the trilogy, I think it's perfectly fine to end the journey there, regardless of how many more books come out.
Wow that’s so many more… my goodness. Definitely adds to the conundrum. But I’m also so curious about the new stuff. lol 😂 decisions decisions….
That sigh at 9:32!!!!
I found out if you include audible and kindle have over 120 read books. Physical books only like 30 lol
"I still love that right eye, it's trying its goddamn best," 😅
Maybe unpopular opinion here about the rainbow bookshelves but: if you have bookshelves just so that other people can see what you're reading, you only seem to want to impress other people.
In my opinion bookshelves should be there to make you happy, to be decor in your house or just to have your books organised.
Don't stress about what other people think of you ❤
Hey - random question. In last years listener survey there was a fan fiction that people kept mentioning as their fav book. Does anyone know what it was called?
I think it was called Manacled!
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KARINA I NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT YOUR RATIOS ARE OFF!! I know that many readers are not maths people but I think you need to check yours over
With audio books, your regular ratio is 3:1 but if you read 12 then it becomes 4:1 (as it's 12:3). This makes it a punishment because you get to read fewer random books for the same amount of shelf books. At the very least, I think you should change it to either 9 shelf books = 3 random books or 12 shelf books = 4 random books to make the ratios match. But really, I think that you should have a bigger reward as motivation to help you get through more shelf books so 12 shelf books = 5 random books.
I also think there is a disparity between the ratios of your physical books/ebooks because there's a massive jump between 10:1 and 4:1 but this is less of a problem as it more rewarding. (I'd change it to 5 shelf books = 1 random and keep 20 shelf = 5 random/1 series because you only get to read about 3 random books a year if all 30 are physical/ebooks on the smaller set)
And as long as you can keep some books in credit (so that 11 books in, and you want to read something random you can without loosing too much progress towards those bigger rewards or once you get over 20 books you can carry on working towards another reward if you want and not loose any work towards a random book) whether that be the bank idea, the stamp card idea, or something else, I think this should work.
wait but my astigmatism is also worse in my right eye....... coincidence??? 🤔
15:54 not true at all lol
Reviews are for other readers not authors.
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about the goodreads situation…I honestly wish people would stop treating it like it’s BIBLE. and I don’t understand why authors aren’t allowed to respond to criticism. anyone can leave a review anyone can respond to it…the drama can come from both parties. TBH goodreads shouldn’t be as relevant as it is when it comes to reviews anyway in MY opinion lol.
but more books are fun😭🫣 I LOVED a ballad of songbirds and snakes and I feel like there’s something special about finding more in a world and how stories aren’t over yet. I also think using the world that’s established and loved is a great format to say something new ✨
maybe i needed to hear ariel talking about the sunk cost fallacy in relationships, but not today yk😭