The Invisible TBR Pile

In the battle between e-readers and physical books, I’m firmly in both camps. I read both, avidly. That means I have any number of books waiting on my Kindle, as well as stacks on my bedroom (and living room and office) floor.
I’ve discovered, however, that a TBR category on my e-reader is not the same thing as a TBR pile on my nightstand.
One advantage of e-readers is that the books don’t clutter your living space. Limited shelf space is no longer a constraint for the collection! This also turns out to be a disadvantage. Books piled on the floor are stumbled over regularly. Books stacked on my nightstand snag my eye daily. The beautiful covers are like little ads and each exposure nudges me closer to page one.
The shelf on my e-reader is very different. The files do not clamor for attention. They wait patiently for me to rediscover them, even as I add more and more files to the folder. The “shelf” will never need to be weeded out to accept more books. It is, in one sense, an infinitely deep well and I can no longer see to the bottom. As a result, I fear, I have many wonderful books awaiting me that I have, simply, forgotten about.
As with my physical shelves, I have started, and abandoned, more than one organizational scheme. But moving files into folders is no less time consuming than rearranging physical shelves and somehow less rewarding, so there is now little organization to my e-reader files at all. Alphabetical? By author? By date of download? And though the reader does sync across devices, the samples don’t. And some files are “archived” and not downloaded unless I ask for them. As a result, I may stumble across a book on my phone reader that doesn’t surface so quickly on my main reader. And what’s on my PC looks entirely different.
I guess, perhaps, they aren’t so different from my physical shelves after all. The misplaced title, the double shelved rows hiding a different collection behind the first – these are parallel to the discovery that awaits, some day, when I go through my e-files seeking the next thing to read.
How about you? Do you have a TBR file on your e-reader? Do you go searching regularly? Have you ever stumbled across a book you’d forgotten you had?

Bookshelf Makeover Needed. Help!

As I am about to embark on a remodeling project, I’ve been thinking about how to (re)organize my books.
Once upon a time, they WERE organized. Research books and non-fiction grouped by time period. The biographies were in alphabetical order by name of the subject. The “keepers” from my childhood (Betsy-Tacy, The Little Colonel, Cherry Ames) had their own proud place. Travel books and maps where separate and close to the Really Useful tomes on How To Fix a Toilet and First Aid for Dummies.
There was a section for poetry and one for those beautiful books on art. Inspirational books were neatly shelved. And writing craft books were handy, along with a dictionary, thesauruses (yes, more than one), and a book on when specific words came into use. (Imperative to know when you write historical fiction.)
There was a separate shelf for signed books written by my friends. I had a “keeper” shelf (literally) and it was (symbolically) the highest shelf – books I would aspire to write.
There was even an “incoming” shelf for books I had purchased and not yet read, easy to peruse whenever I finished a book and was ready to choose the next.
This list is not exhaustive, but you get the idea. Once, in a former life, I was Organized.
Time passed.
I sold my first book.
I started a shelf of the books I had written. (One copy each, including the foreign editions.)
I had more friends who were writers. They sold more books. I bought them.
I learned about more books that I wanted to read. I found more keepers.
I went to writers conferences. I bought more books. I was GIVEN more books.
I changed time periods. I had ideas for books I hadn’t sold yet. My research library grew accordingly.
My deadlines grew shorter. My reading time briefer. “Incoming” no longer had its own shelf. I doubleshelved paperbacks. Research books for books I intended to write someday were relegated to bags on the floor in order to keep the shelves available for research books about projects I was actually writing. I had books stashed anywhere there was a flat surface, including on top of and underneath chairs.
And, let’s be honest – the floor of my office. (And yes, that is an actual picture of an actual bookshelf in my office.)
So now, as I am forced to box it all up and start over, I’m wondering how the rest of you do it. How do YOU organize your reading material?
Can these shelves be saved?

Why I read Historical Romance by Michelle Styles

I will be the first to admit it. I love historical romance. It is my favourite genre and has been for a very long time. I first cut my teeth on Victoria Holt, Georgette Heyer and Barbara Michaels aka Elizabeth Peters. My earliest literary crush was on Rab from Esther Forbes Johnny Tremain. I wept buckets when he died. Sir Percy Blakeney in the Scarlet Pimpernel beat all the boys I knew hands down when I was *forced* to read him in 8th grade English. So it went. Then when I discovered Johanna Lindsey, Jennifer Blake and La Vryle Spencer, the deal was totally sealed.


I suppose it was inevitable that I became a historical novelist. I love history and want others to develop a love of history. I started off trying to write contemporary and hoped that some day I could write historical. The HMB editor I was working with suggested that I might be really good at writing ancient historical and the rest as they say is history. Thankfully the editors have agreed to indulge my love of history and let me write in different time periods.

A historical romance can be a way into history. But the primary reason I read historical is to escape into another world. They are fun page turning reads.

In a good historical read, no prior knowledge of the period is required. Just as you don’t have to know how the police run an investigation to enjoy romantic suspense or how corporate finance works to enjoy an office romance, you don’t have to know history to enjoy historical romance. Sometimes when I want to know about a new period or place, I read historical romance. Historical romance is also a broad church. Lots of periods, settings and story types. From romantic suspense to straight romance. From super sexy to sweet and every flavour in between.

As you can see from other blogs on the Harlequin Historical blog, the authors take their research very seriously. Actually for me, research is not a hard slog but the fun bit. Recently I’ve had to reread about Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, and in pursuit of knowing more have read the earliest English travel guide to Egypt. Along the way I have also read about two bible hunting sisters from Glasgow whose adventure you couldn’t make up and how Florence Nightengale and Gustav Flaubert before they began their life’s work were both on the Nile in the winter of 1849 and how the experience shaped their lives. But the research only underpins the story. It is the growing relationship between the two main characters that drives the story. The history adds the flavouring. Of the research I do, maybe 10% gets in the book.

So what got you into reading historical? And if you haven’t tried one recently, why not?

Michelle Styles is the author of over 16 Historical Romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon Historical. Her next release in the UK will be The Viking's Captive Princess (Dec 10) and in US, A Question of Impropriety (Dec 10). She will also have an Online reading on e-harlequin starting 15 Nov. You can read more about her books on her website.