Guest Post: How to Gamify Your TBR Featuring Jennifer from Book Den

Back in November I had this post where I laid out my strategy for handling TBR anxiety. I got a lot of positive feedback from a wide range of readers thanking me for the post, for acknowledging this anxiety and for trying to help you combat it.

Many people have been informally sharing their strategies with me, but back in January, my friend Jennifer from Book Den had a post about how she turns her TBR into a game with the TBR mug. I asked her to write up something for my readers to help them battle their own TBR anxiety.

Jennifer’s TBR mug is a fun way to gamify your own reading list. Gamification is one of the biggest trends in society and thanks to The Center for the Future of Libraries [here], there was some direction on how to move this trend into libraries specifically. Gamification in libraries is pretty mainstream by now, but why not gamify your own reading too? What a great motivational tool, and it is fun.

Thanks Jennifer for sharing with my readers. She will be updating her progress on her site all year long if you want to follow along for fun or inspiration.

Here’s Jennifer.

Every year I have a select list of books I'm hoping to finally read. More often than not, the year goes by without me getting to read many of the books that have been sitting on my shelf for years. This year I decided to implement a TBR jar. I went through all of my unread books and selected 15 books I'd love to finally read this year.

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
Neverland by Douglas Clegg
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
The Fury by John Farris
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Rebecca by Dauphne du Maurier
1984 by George Orwell
Little Brothers by Rick Hautula
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Tell No One by Harlan Coben
The Orchard by Charles L. Grant

Each of the these titles have been placed into a mug that sits on my bookshelf. I plan to select one title each month through 2018. (There are 15 titles in the jar instead of just 12 so I can have a little wiggle room to mood read if I want to put a title back into the jar.)


The first title I pulled from the jar was Summer of Night by Dan Simmons which is turning out to be a fantastic read.
Since February is Women in Horror month, I may cheat a little and read My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due without pulling it from the jar. Even if I don't follow the rules exactly, having my TBR jar sitting up front on my shelf will help keep the books I want to read most in the forefront of my mind. 

I'd also like to mention how fun it is to pull a random title out of the jar. I was so nervous and excited to find out which book I would be reading first. I have a feeling by the end of the year I will have finally read many of the books I've been wanting to read that I already own.

If you decide to do a TBR jar of your own, you can put as many or as few titles as you would like. I tried to keep my list small because these are the books I'd really like to focus on this year. I'm already thinking ahead to which titles will make the cut next year!