For most book bloggers and avid readers, there’s one common and pressing question – how long will it take to get through all the books I have to read, so I can buy new books guilt free?
There are so many opportunities to add to your TBR (new ARCs, presents, books you simply HAVE to get right now) that it all starts stacking up. Literally. Like many people, my current TBR is taller than I am.
Every time I go shopping I add another book to the family, despite knowing I have so many to get through, I’ll never be finished it all any time soon.
Just how long will it take though? A great website called Read It Forward has a calculator that will tell you how much time you need to set aside. It’s calculated on continuous, non-stop reading, though, so you’ll need to keep that in mind when you get your results back.
I took a look at how my TBR stands on Goodreads right now (and added in a few for luck, because there’s definitely a few about the place that I haven’t added in or found yet) and added in how many books I read last year (thanks to my Goodreads challenge, I knew I’d gotten through 82) and my age.
As for how long it will take with breaks, there’s every chance I’ll go to the grave with books still left to read.
How long will it take to finish your TBR? Let me know your test results in the comments!
Pretty Purple Polka Dots 
When I started the 746 I calculated that at my then reading rate it would take me 21 years to read them all!! At the minute, I’m hoping for 6 years tops!
Six years wouldn’t be too bad! But 21 feels like an eternity!
I am an avid reader and teacher so I get holidays in which I used to read an ample amount. I now have two small children and it has taken me a MONTH to finish my last book. I will never get to buy new again😨 (I did buy the Harry Potter script though…I mean, come on that is a MUST!)
There’s always something trying to get in the way of some reading! If I decided to never buy a book until my TBR was complete, the book industry would really suffer.
Just buy ’em I reckon! !
That’s an awesome tool!! I’ve borrowed a term from knitting to describe my TBR – BABLE (books acquired beyond life expectancy)!
That is such a clever term for it!
If I only read what is currently on my Kindle at the side of the bed, It’ll take me a year and 2 months. Doesn’t sound too bad – all I need to do is not buy, borrow, be sent any more in the meantime…..
Ugh, I feel your pain with the massive TBR problem – I probably have about 40 books on my bookshelf that I need to read, more on my sister’s shelf, and about 80 on my Kindle (plus a stream of ARCs that I can’t seem to turn down). I’ll have to use this and see if I’ll finish them before I die…
It just never ends does it! I’m fully convinced my time will come and ill be like ‘sorry, have you seen how many books I still have to read?!’
“Come again when I’m 156, I might have finished them by then!”
A year and 4 months apparently and it thinks I’ll be the same age I am now when I do finish. So I guess I turn immortal this year!
Hey, if nothing else you found the secret to eternal youth!
It would seem so! And if I’m immortal I can definitely keep buying all the books ever.
A year and a half if I only read the physical books on my TBR shelves. Obviously that’s not going to happen anytime soon 😂
Hey you never know! You might find a love of just physical books 😉
I always keep my tbr small and only include physical books so I only have fifteen physical books and one on hold at the library. Having too many books makes me anxious.
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The calculator now says it will only take me a year. But that would mean not buying more books, so that’s not going to happen.
I actually keep my Goodreads TBR pretty low, so I only have 40 books on there at the moment. But since I have at least 20 other books that I borrowed from friends of the library on my shelves at the moment I included those as well, but still got that it would take me less than a year! I don’t believe a word it says though, since TBRs are known to grow out of control the second you think you’ve tamed them.
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