A TBR list, short for To Be Read list, is simply a running collection of books that have caught your eye, the ones you want to read someday. That’s it, there’s no test at the end, no deadline, and no number you are supposed to hit.
When I first started keeping a TBR list decades ago, long before barcode scanners and apps were part of the picture, I treated mine like a to do list, which is exactly why it stressed me out. Every title felt like an obligation waiting to be checked off, and the longer the list got, the more it felt like I was falling behind on something. Once I started thinking of it as a wish list instead, the whole thing changed. A wish list doesn’t pressure you, it just sits there until you’re ready for it.
What a TBR List Actually Is
The name undersells it a little though. Your TBR list isn’t a queue you have to work through in order. It’s more like a companion, something that travels with you and quietly fills up with anything that sparks your interest, whether that’s a novel your sister recommended, a cover you noticed at the library, or a book someone mentioned in passing months ago that you never quite forgot.
How It Finds You
This is the part people forget. You don’t sit down one afternoon and build your TBR list from scratch. A title catches your eye on a library shelf. A friend mentions a book she couldn’t put down. You’re scrolling late at night and a cover stops your thumb. A bookseller hands you something off a display table you weren’t even looking at. Someone in your book group mentions an author you’ve never heard of, and that name lodges itself somewhere in the back of your mind. You catch the last few minutes of a movie and find yourself wondering if the book is just as good. None of it happens on purpose, and none of it happens all at once. Your TBR list exists so those small moments don’t disappear the second you close the app, walk out of the store, or hang up the phone.
How to Start Building Yours
There is no single right way to keep a TBR list, only the way that actually fits your life. Some people use an app like Goodreads, StoryGraph, Bookly, Bookmory, or Bookshelf, especially for the barcode scanning feature, which makes it easy to add a book on the spot while you’re standing in a bookstore, a library, or even browsing a used book sale. Others prefer a spreadsheet, a word document, or a plain paper journal they keep on the nightstand. None of those is more correct than the others. The only wrong way to keep a TBR list is the one you won’t actually use.
Whatever format you choose, a few details are worth capturing for each title: the author, the genre, a line about what it’s about, and whether it’s part of a series, so you know to track down book one first instead of accidentally starting in the middle. Genre is worth a little extra attention on its own. In my own Goodreads, I keep separate shelves for different genres, which makes it easy to see at a glance what I’ve already read or still want to read in any particular genre, especially on the nights when I know exactly what mood I’m in but not which book matches it. Noting the publication year is a small habit that pays off too, since it’s an easy way to check later on whether that author has written anything newer since.
And if you are out somewhere without time to type all of that in, my own shortcut is to just take a phone screenshot of the front cover, the back cover, and the inside flap if there is one. You can always log the details later. The point is not to lose the book in the moment, not to do the paperwork on the spot.
Permission to Let It Grow
Here is the part that matters most. You are probably never going to read everything on your TBR list, and that is not a failure. That was never the point. The point is having somewhere to reach when you finish a book and have no idea what comes next. Let it include the old summer reading titles you never got to, books you have been meaning to reread, recommendations from people you trust, even books you added on a whim and are not sure about anymore. None of that needs explaining or pruning unless you want to. A TBR list that never gets finished is not broken. It is just doing its job.
Closing
Your TBR list is a tool you use, not a standard you are measured against. If you do not have one started yet, my Summer of Reading list is a generous place to begin. And if you have ever felt guilty about a list that never seems to shrink, it might help to read. “Is It Okay to Stop Reading a Book?”, since the same permission applies there too.
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