Now I'm ordinarily the type of person who doesn't really have a TBR pile. The only time I'll have more than one book waiting is when I've just been to the library or the bookstore (or both) and I'll read through what I've brought home generally within a few days and before I go out to get any more.
However, I have just made the book haul to end all book hauls, and obtained for myself a mind-boggling TBR "pile."
A while ago I received some junk mail advertising something called "The Ultimate Library" 10,000 books on CD-ROM. It sounded too good to be be true, but I did some research around the internet and it looked legitimate: tons and tons of old books that have lapsed into the public domain and someone has made into e-books. Also, I was able to get it for about $25 on ebay, so the husband and I decided to take a chance.
It finally arrived. We had a lot of trouble opening the files on our old PC (it only works on Windows 98). Once opened, it's sort of hellish to navigate -- in a way that leaves one with the frustrating feeling that there are many, many little gems one is never going to be able to find unless one thinks to ask specifically (not listed with the others, but if you search for them they're there). Some of what they list as "books" are actually quite short. And this might have been a quirk with our operating system and not a problem for others, but when you bring up a text it comes out in a heavy old English Black Letter font. We have to export a file and open it through a word processor in order to get it into a readable font.
But aside from all that, it's the real deal.
I'm finding all sort of things I read years ago and could never get my hands on again. (Books I don't remember which library I borrowed them from or where I was living at the time. Old books that used to belong to my mother when she was a girl, and probably got disposed of after my grandmother died. Short stories that I don't even remember what anthology they were in when I read them). I'm also finding books that I've known about and looked for and could never find in used book-stores or online, or if I did they were sold as rare collectable at exorbitant prices.
Since I hate reading books on the computer I'm having to print everything out, which is going to get expensive. But since many of these are books that I'd have a hard time finding at any price (and have to pay shipping on if I did), I'm going to have to resign myself to that. And many of the books are classics by Dickens or Austen or H.G. Wells that I could get from the library for free or buy cheaply in paperback in any large bookstore, so I'll have to control myself if I have a sudden urge to read them, and wait to get them some other way.
But still, I'm having a great time poking around and uncovering some really fascinating things. Little known works by well-known Victorian authors. Memoirs from just about every era of history. Obscure translations of medieval Alchemy books. Heaven alone knows what I will uncover next.
I foresee few trips to the bookstore or the library in my near future, but lots of expeditions to buy paper and printer ink. And, of course, a TBR list with 10,000 books!
