What does TBR mean?

TBR in one sentence

TBR is short for ‘to be read’: the books you have not read yet but want to. That can be a stack of real books on the floor beside your bed, a list in an app, or both at once. When someone on BookTok shows ‘my TBR for October’, they mean the books they plan to read that month. When someone sighs about ‘my TBR’, they usually mean all of it, and it is usually too long.

The word comes from online reading communities, where it is used so often that nobody explains it any more. You will meet it on Goodreads, Instagram, TikTok and in book club chats, mostly as a noun: ‘it is on my TBR’.

TBR list, TBR pile, TBR jar: what is the difference?

• A TBR list is written down: in a notebook, a note on your phone or a reading app. It can include books you do not own yet.
• A TBR pile (or TBR stack) is physical: the books you have bought or borrowed and not read. Readers photograph theirs with a mixture of pride and guilt.
• A TBR jar is a jar of folded slips, each with a title from your list. When you cannot choose, you pull one out and read that.
• A monthly TBR is a short list of three to five books you plan to read in one month, chosen from the long one.

The Japanese have a word for buying books and letting them pile up unread: tsundoku. It is not a criticism. A full TBR means you will never be without something to read.

How to keep a TBR list

Pick one place and keep everything there. A list spread across three apps, a notebook and your camera roll is not a list. Then, for each book, write down a little more than the title.

1. Where you heard about it. ‘Recommended by my sister’ or ‘seen in the bookshop window’. Six months later that is the only thing that tells you why it is on the list.
2. Why you want to read it. One sentence. If you cannot remember, that is a sign.
3. Roughly how long it is. So you can pick a short one when you need a short one.

In a reading app the list is a shelf. On Goodreads it is Want to Read, and in Time to Read it is Want. In Time to Read you can filter that shelf by length (under 200 pages, 200 to 400, over 400) and see how each book got there: from Today's books, from a reader's answer in Ask, from the monthly pick, from a scan or an import.

A TBR that is too long: what do you read first?

Every reader's TBR grows faster than they can read. That is fine, until choosing from it becomes harder than choosing from nothing. A few ways to cut through:

• Read by mood, not by order. The book you added first is not necessarily the one you want now. Ask yourself what you are in the mood for, then look for that.
• Sort by length. In a busy month, choose from the short ones. Save the doorstops for the holidays.
• Read the first page of three. Take three books from the pile, read one page of each and carry on with the one whose second page you wanted.
• Clear out twice a year. Go through the list and remove every book you cannot remember adding, or would not choose today. A book you took off can always go back on.
• Let somebody else choose. Show a friend your list and let them pick, or use a TBR jar.

A TBR is a promise to yourself, not a debt.

And when your TBR is empty, or full of books you no longer fancy, that is the moment to ask for a new one. See what book should I read next.

More book words: DNF, ARC, buddy read

• DNF: did not finish. A book you stopped reading on purpose, and also a verb: ‘I DNF'd it at page 80’. Goodreads and The StoryGraph both have a DNF shelf.
• ARC: advance reader copy (or advance review copy). A copy sent out by the publisher before the official publication date, usually to booksellers, reviewers and readers with a following.
• Buddy read: reading the same book at the same time as one or more other people, and talking about it as you go.
• Readathon: a set period, a weekend or a week, in which people read as much as they can, often together online.
• Reading slump: a stretch when nothing grabs you and you read very little. The usual cure is a short, easy book, or a reread of a favourite.
• Backlist: books that came out more than a year or so ago, as opposed to new releases, the frontlist.

Filling your TBR with books that fit

A TBR fills itself from everything you see: shop windows, BookTok, a friend's shelf. Not all of it fits you. In Time to Read, books reach your Want shelf in three ways. Today's books are ten books a day, one to a page, each with a line saying why it is in front of you: shelve the ones you want to read and skip the rest. In Ask, readers whose shelves overlap with yours each answer your question with one book and a reason. And the monthly pick is one book a month, chosen for you and signed by the Time to Read team. If you want to read more of what is on the list, see how to read more.