So I’ve started this before in a few places. Had a Tumblr for a while that I got lazy about updating, then was recording my progress on TikTok before the deluge of slop became untenable and I wound up stepping back. This is now the third attempt to establish a space for ongoing thoughts in a project I’ve taken to calling the Journey to the End of the Shelf.

I’ve come to hate that name. It feels annoyingly lofty, but the concept is simple: one day I realized I had too many unread books on my shelves. My pace of accumulation had far exceeded my pace of consumption. So, much like some folks endeavor to get to inbox zero, I’m on a mission to return to shelf zero, meaning nothing unread before my library can once again expand. If I truly, madly, deeply want a new book, I have a one-in-one-out policy. I have to choose one unread book to get rid of, usually by admitting to myself that I’m probably never gonna be in the mood to read it.

More than one person I’ve described this project to has professed to find it draconian, but I’ve found it refreshing and motivating. No longer do the books get to sit there, purchased and then unconsidered for God only knows how long as other books pile on top of them. No, they will get read, or they will get gone.

At present, the unread list stands at 124 titles, whittled down from close to 160 at its peak, before I implemented the one-in-one-out rule. You’re free to peruse the remaining titles on the popular literary social platform of your choosing (Goodreads profile here, Storygraph profile here), in the unlikely event that you’re all that interested.

I’m trying to get better about quitting the books that prove to be unrewarding. I’m trying to figure out how to factor in the books of the book club I joined at the beginning of this year. But those details will get sorted as this continues to move along. My only referee in all this is myself, so the stakes are low.

And otherwise, the vision going forward is the same as it was in my initial Tumblr post (now a decade old—good Christ):

I don’t have the time, money, or training to hike the Appalachian Trail, row the Atlantic, or summit Everest, but I do have a quiet reading nook ... so I’ll devote myself to wandering through the unexplored reaches of my shelves instead.

See you on the trail.