I Made a TBR Jar (or Two)

Welcome to another edition of All the Reading-Adjacent Things I do Instead of Reading.

TBR jars are nothing new to the reading community, nor is the concept new to me, but to ensure I read more of the books I already have rather than having my head turned by something new, I’ve made one. Well, two. One features the titles of all my Kindle books and the other all my physical books, all ready to be selected at random when the mood strikes.

Generally, I love a good jar. When a jar filled with food enters my home, I wait impatiently for it to be empty so I can strip off the label, give it a good wash, and fill it with anything ranging from makeup brushes to spare change. In this case, I added a little paint to the jars to make them a little more exciting before I repurposed them, though it’s not necessary.

Since I’d decorated the jars, I wanted to keep the actual TBR aspect simple to avoid wasting any more time when I could be reading putting these together, so I simply cut a few pieces of paper into strips, wrote the titles and authors of all the books I already own on them, folded them once, and dropped them into the jars.

Now, I’ll be able to randomly select my next read if I’m overwhelmed by my options. The beauty of it is that if I find myself picking out a book I’m not in the mood to read, I can put it back, shake it up, and select another one. But really, a TBR jar is as simple as it sounds: a physical representation of all my unread books in one place (or two places, I suppose).

Why use a TBR Jar?

I’m indecisive. That’s it. As most readers do, I have access to a lot of books that I’ve wanted to read at one point or another and the truth is that more books equal more problems. The jar will help me to narrow my options without much work in the long run, since I’ve done all the hard work of gathering everything for myself already.

It’s also a lot more fun to draw out a random book than it is to just read whatever your newest book is. When I was writing down the titles of my unread books, I was confronted with a lot that I’d forgotten I had, like The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. So, not only will the TBR jar help with my indecisiveness, but it will also help me to read a lot of the books that I’ve let sit on my TBR for years.

Finally, it’s cute. I like jars, I like pastel paper, and I think it’s cute and that’s that.

Although it may seem unnecessary, I like having the idea of being able to pick my next read from a jar instead of just on a whim. I may not always use the jar, but I like knowing that I can if I ever find myself struggling to figure out what to read next. I’m a firm believer that problems that should not exist (such as not knowing what to read when you have plenty of options before you) need creative solutions, not practical ones.

I’d love to know how you pick your next read. Is it a simple process? Because if it is, I envy you.