Keeping the Dreaded Slumpies at Bay

I wrote a few posts back about my reading slumps and what they mean for me and how I have tried in the past to interrupt them. I've been climbing out of the latest slump slowly, settling back into reading as a thing that feels right little pieces at a time. I'm still abandoning more books than I would like, still setting things aside for no other reason than that I wake up feeling like I want to start something new. But that impulse is waning, and my desire to stick with reads is increasing (it helps to have books at hand that one desperately wants to read). I've been thinking lately about what causes the slumps in the first place, and what little tricks I can employ to avoid letting them set in. So I bring you my Pretty Good Guide to Keeping the Dreaded Slumpies at Bay.

Reduce Choice

When I have a huge pile of books I want to read soon (or even someday), I get overwhelmed by all that choice and have a terrible time not only keeping with a book through any minor draggy parts but also in choosing what book to read in the first place. For years I have kept a literal, physical TBR shelf somewhere in the house, a spot where I pile new books that come into the house and any older books that had come back to my attention and that I wanted to remember about for reading soon. Recently I have gotten rid of this shelf, incorporating all of the books that used to reside there into my regular shelves. This may seem counterintuitive (haven’t I increased the books I’m choosing among, by eliminating the TBR, by eliminating the smaller shelf of books to choose from?), but thus far I have found it incredibly liberating not to have that TBR staring at me. It’s as if someone was breathing down my neck before, and now they’ve buggered off to a different room. I still have a list of my TBRs as part of my catalogue on LibraryThing, so if I absolutely must know what books I’ve got that I thought I should read “soon,” I’m not out of luck.

Commit to Committing

I sometimes haul a huge pile of books over to my reading chair and sit down to read the first five or ten pages of each, intending to carry on with whichever one best catches my attention. This practice fits well with my overall method of choosing reads, which is to select something that grabs me in the moment, that suits my mood and my interest at the time. But what usually happens in this situation is that I end up reading five or six books at once (and often not finishing even one of them). I’m not against reading more than one book at a time (I almost always am, even when there’s no slump in sight) but I do much better if I can commit to two (or three if you count audio books, of which I always have one going). But if I’m going to read the opening of several books in order to choose one to read, I’ve got to force myself to commit to one of them, instead of trying to carry on with them all.

Make Decisions

I have a bad habit of quitting books for reasons that have to do with other books, not the book I’m actually quitting. That is, I tend to just wander away from reads because something else grabs my attention. Now, I have no problem DNFing any book that I’m actively not enjoying. And sometimes walking away from a book in favor of another one is a solid sign that the first book wasn’t for you. But most often when I quit a book in favor of another book, it’s just that I’ve been distracted by something shiny. Actively deciding to quit a book for real reasons makes my reading life better and, of course, goes hand-in-hand with committing to my currents reads.

Banish FOMO

Ah, FOMO, how I hate you. How you rob me of peace. How you keep me on the internet so much longer than any human person should ever be. How you convince me to buy books I know I won’t get to for years, if ever. How you entice me to buy things now because “they might not be available the next time I go looking for them.” (What weird dystopian world is my brain living in where most new books suddenly disappear from all stores and the entirety of the internet within a few weeks of coming out?) Of all the things I can do to help myself stick with reads, this is probably the one that is the most difficult. Avoiding that fear of missing out requires that I separate the excitement over a new book from the fear that I will miss all the new books that would be most exciting. That’s a tough ask, one that involves staring down the fact that I will never be able to read everything I want to, that I will never be able to keep up with what’s coming out, take a deep breath and be okay with it. I ask you? How?

But Where Are The New Releases?

I spend what some might call an absurd amount of time in Barnes and Noble. I love books and bookstores, B&N is the only bookstore selling new books in town (though we do have an excellent used bookstore as well), and my favorite of our two B&Ns is right next to the grocery store in which I most often do my shopping. I mean, I can practically not not go in there at least once a week, right? Right.

This habit is not great for my wallet (or our groaning bookshelves--okay, or for my desire to have a less ginormous TBR (*whispers* even by the most conservative count, it's in the 500s)), but it does mean I'm really familiar with the store. It's not uncommon for me to walk in there, stop, squint, and go, "Huh, they moved that little table to the left of the paperback table what had the cookbook display on it." I notice things. And you maybe now are catching on that when I saw I'm in the store a lot, I mean a lot. So the recent flurry of shelf jockying that's been going on in there the last few months certainly hasn't escaped my notice. I'm not in the store often enough to know exactly where it started (whole days go by where I don't set foot in the joint, you guys), but I first noticed it in the genres: the mystery section, the sci-fi section, the romance section. And I have to tell you, I'm not best pleased at what I saw.

They're taking away the New Releases Shelves.

They are. taking away. the New Releases Shelves.

Why, I ask you? Why?

I asked one of the friendly booksellers too. I didn't get much of an answer, just that it's a decision from corporate (I mean, natch), and that, apparently, a lot of the managers thinks it's a great idea.

Well, bully.

I have never worked in a bookstore, so I don't really know how they work, but I've gleaned enough about how they work to know that if you've never worked in one, you don't know how they work. But I have some ideas about why people running one might like to do away with those new releases shelves at the front of each individual section in the store. Firstly, I imagine it makes it easier to shelve the books: it's just Section, Alphabetical Order now, rather than Section, New Release?, Alphabetical Order. Secondish, it miiiight save space in the section? The new releases were all shelved cover out, what takes up more room than spine out. I was told (and I've observed) that the new releases will still be shelved cover out within each section, but I still suspect that overall some space is gained. Thirdesque, customers looking for a new release may be more inclined to browse more of the section than if all the new releases were shelved together. Oh yes, I can think of reasons why it makes sense.

BUT I HATE IT.

That was my knee-jerk reaction when I first saw what they were doing at B&N, and then, eventually, I thought that it would be annoying for a bit and then be just fine. It's been a bit now. The reshelve has hit all the store sections (or at least all the ones I ever browse--which is most of them, though not all), and I've been browsing the store with this new configuration in some of my favorite sections for weeks. I still hate it. I want the new releases in any one section all in one place. That's how I find them. If I'm going to learn something new in the bookstore about what's out, browsing a New Release Section is how that's going to happen. I have lots of other ways of finding out about new releases, but nothing beats that sense of discovery in the bookstore itself. That just can't happen when everything that's new is shuffled in among everything that was on the shelf the last time I was in the store, and the time before that, and the time before that.

I've already noticed that my trips to B&N are shorter than they used to be. I often have something in mind when I stop by. In the past, I'd look for that book and then spend half an hour browsing the New Releases Shelves in my favorite sections. Now, I go look for the particular item, then wander over to Sci-Fi or Romance or Fiction or what-have-you, wrinkle my nose at the shelves that used to contain the new releases (and which are labeled as if they still do), half-heartedly try to scan for those covers-out books, then give up, and leave. Bummer. Bummer for me, and, honestly, bummer for B&N. I can't browse what I want to browse, so I'm not finding books I want, so I'm not buying books I find. I doubt I will ever stop going to B&N, because I like just being in a bookstore, but I bet a fair number of people will, especially readers who shop mostly in the mystery and romance section. If all you want to know is whether any of the authors you follow have a new book out this week, how long are you going to keep going to a store that forces you to scan eight shelves for each author's name rather than gathering everything that's new on one shelf? It is so easy to just click that Amazon.com link, isn't it?

 I still don't know why Barnes and Noble has gone this route (I don't think they are alone; if memory serves, Books-A-Million has had their stores set up this way for awhile). Maybe there's a really good reason for it; maybe it's going to help keep them in business for years and years and years. If that's the case, yay! I want them around, even if my pleasure in shopping there has been diminished. But I have a hard time seeing the consumer-facing benefit here. Among the appeals of going to a brick-and-mortar store over online (including supporting a business in your town, interacting with other human beings, and being able to pick up the books and look at them before you buy), one of the best is browsing the shelves for what's new rather than just typing in what you're looking for and making tracks. As far as I can see, B&N is just making it harder to enjoy what makes them appealing in the first place.