Hi guys, it's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe and today, as of me filming
this, it's June. And it's the end of June
which means my buying ban is over! I
survived! I survived one year without
buying a single book! I can't believe
I've done this. So let's talk about it. Last year I did a video... I counted all of
my books and was quite shocked by the
number of books I had and the number
of unread books I had as well. After I
discovered that number I decided I was
gonna go on a year-long buying ban where
I'd not buy any books and for that year.
I would try and read as many of the
books as I could from my shelf. My
numbers were as follows last year at the
end of June. So last year at the end of June
I had, last year at the end of June, I had
323 read books on my shelves. And 232
unread books on my shelves which are
palindromes of each other. And that went
to a grand total of five hundred and
fifty five books in my collection. Which
was very even and very satisfying.
I just finished counting right now and
I've actually have a spreadsheet which
helps me so I don't have to count
physically every single time. But I now
own 590 books. I have 365 read books on
my shelves and 225 unread books on my
shelf. And side note is that this number
does not count my Kindle. I don't count
my Kindle reads. I'm not ready to tackle
that yet. So we're just focusing on my
main shelves. You may be wondering: Olivia,
last year was your most prosperous
reading year that you've ever had. How
comes your numbers have grown and have
not changed that much? So I'm gonna give
you a couple reasons why my numbers are
not as amazing as I wish they could have
been. So the first thing is that I still
get books. You see my hauls. I still haul
in quite a few books as a book
blogger, bookstagrammer and booktuber
I do receive review copies from
publishers who very kind.
They send them to me to review and that
means I'm still getting books in. Also
Christmas and my birthday happens. And to
navigate my buying ban for my Christmas
and birthday I did ask for bookish
presents. And some of you also kind
enough to send me bookish presents so I
did still receive books. I also tend to
look at people who are unhauling books
and sometimes they are kind enough to
just give me the books that they don't
want for free. I really have a bookish
problem. Then why my read books number and
count is not higher than would have
been expected seeing as I have been
reading the books on my shelves... it's
because I've become quite a fan of
unhauling.
I recently unhauled all of the books that
I rated 2 stars or less on my shelves,
excepting one which I want to give a
second chance. So if I don't like a book
I just unhaull it. And I've gotten into a
habit of if I read a book and I don't
particularly like it and it's mine, I
just put it straight until pile of books
I want to unhaul. And I just gradually do
like, huge unhauls of getting rid of
books that I don't particularly like. Which means even if I read a lot of
books it doesn't mean all of them
stay on my read shelves. Because they just
get passed on, or given away, or donated
when I don't enjoy them.
There's no time or space on my shelves --
because I only have one shelf! -- for a read
book that I did not enjoy. I also got a
little bit distracted because I went to
Australia last year for my year abroad. When I went to Australia I did not bring
that many of my books. I think I bought
like, ten or something. And I came back
with way too many. There's a haul of
those books that I came back with. But I
did only bring a few books and my plan
was to go to Australia and to use the
library that I would have over there. And
just borrow books from my shelf which
was why I created the spreadsheet in the
first place. I had a list of my own
unread books and I was going to borrow
those unread books and then read them
while I was abroad. Ao I was still
reading from my shelves. That plan did not
work! Because I went to the library and I
looked at all the beautiful manga and
poetry and Australian literature that I
don't usually have access to... and I went
and read as much of it as I could. I
read as much manga, graphic novels, poetry
collections and Australian literature as
I possibly could while I was over there.
And that means I didn't read the books
there were on my shelf. Oops. That
totally ruined this plan of a year-long
buying ban read my own shelves. And last but not
least there's ebooks. I do read quite a
few ebooks and while I was abroad ebooks
was something that really helped me
through. The fact that I needed to either
be with my library, or when I went on my
forty days travel where all of those
travel vlogs you're seeing still come
from. I was reading a lot of ebooks and
that really helped me to just keep
reading while not carrying a lot because
we were traveling for forty days with
two bags each. So when I was six months
in I did make a video about how I stuck
to my buying ban, what I was doing to
help me stick to it and some tips and
tricks if you want to go on a long-term
buying ban. But what I've mostly learned
from this experience is that there are
more books in this world than I can
possibly read. Even though I do try my
very best. And I'm just learning to be
okay with that. I do keep making my list.
I do keep writing them all down. And who
knows how many I'm ever going to really
truly get to. But the thing I've also
realised is how much I've missed buying
books. And I do want to start buying
books again but I want to do it feasibly
because I really do want to read those
books that I have myself on my shelves.
And I want to tackle my TBR once and for
all. My goal is to kind of get my TBR
down to 60 books. I feel like in the
months where I'm more into reading and
I'm not slumping out like I'm doing this
month, I typically read anywhere
between 10 to 20 books a month. And you
know, if there's 60 books on my TBR
that's like... three months ahead. And I
feel like that's just a really
comfortable number. I don't feel like I
want to have like, no books on my TBR
because then I feel like I'll just go
crazy with the buying. So yeah, 60 books
is what I'm aiming for my TBR to be at. But right now it's at 225, not 60. So
my plan looking forwards is this: I am
going to focus on reading the books on
my shelves. Do my very best to not read
ebooks because that's not helping.
Tackling my Kindle is just gonna have to
happen another time. Not right now. Let's
focus on the books I bought and have
physically. So I'm gonna be focusing on
really trying to read my books from my
shelves and to just read what I own. But
at the same time I'm gonna do one thing
with my book buying. So what happens
often is when someone comes off of a
buying ban they just buy all of the
books. Don't blame them. Definitely
understand.
So I'm limiting myself to at least
for the rest of 2020, at the very least,
to only buy two books a month. That's all
I can buy. Maybe I'll receive more. Maybe
I won't. Two books a month, Olivia, that's
all you buying. I am going to do this
with one book I'm going to buy as a book
I've already read and really want to own.
And one book is a book that I have not
read and I also want to own. Ideally it'd
be a series book. I want to finish with
these series that I've started or only
have the first book in. So I feel like
I'll probably be buying a lot of sequels.
But we'll see how that goes. And the
reason why I want to buy one book a
month that I've already read... it means
that it can go straight onto my read
shelves. And there's only one book that I
bought myself that's being added to my
TBR. So the read book comes from when I
was using the library. I read a lot of
amazing books that I would love to add
to my collection that are new favourites
for me. And I feel like it'd be really
nice if I could just find a lovely
edition of it and then buy it and have it
on my shelves. And I've read it and it's
part of my collection. Because my
bookshelves are a book collection. I
enjoy collecting and owning books. Yes,
that's me. That's what I enjoy. So I'm
gonna try and get the ones that I've
really really loved and highly rated.
Ideally in the future I could just be
reading books from my library and only
buying them once I know I love them, but
I've got to get through my TBR to reach that
level. So yeah that's my buying intention. There's only gonna be four exceptions to
the rule of buying two books a month and
that's because of university. I'm doing a
dissertation which I'll talk about more
in another video.
Once I organize myself a little bit more
and figure out how I want to talk about
it. But for that I do need to get a lot
of reading material and I like to own my
reading material for university because
I like to tab, I like to underline, I like
to just have it with me for whenever I
write my essays. So for my dissertation
I'm gonna have my self-made reading list
and I'm gonna buy those books. I'm also
doing a creative writing project which
is for the creative writing side of my
degree. And it kind of works like a
dissertation where you write whatever
you want to write, and it's like a
year-long project with the word count
and all of that. So for that I have an
idea. I need to get it approved. And I'll
have my own reading list for that one
which I need to buy the books for. I'll
also have two modules which they haven't
told me what they are yet even though
they usually do. I think it's 'cause they're
trying to figure out how learning is
going to go with the pandemic
and how learning is going with the
pandemic. So for those two modules I will
have a reading list of books I need to
read and need to get. And I'll have to
haul those in. So excepting books I'm
gonna buy for university, this is my goal. Hold me accountable!
I have announced it. And I think I'm just
gonna make it a thing on my channel
where every year I count and tally up
the books and see where I get. So this
time next year June you'll see another
video where again I've counted all of my
books and hopefully, hopefully, you'll see
that I have more read books on my
shelves and less unread books on my
shelf. So that is all for this video.
Please let me know in the comment
section down below do you count how many
books are on your shelves? Do you have a
large TBR? Do you have a small TBR? Does
your TBR stress you out or bother you? Let me know. Let's discuss. And yeah,
please give this video a thumbs up if
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updated every time I have a new video. And you know what they say: onwards and
upwards. Excelsior!
