How I Select the Books I’m Going To Read

How do I select the books I plan to read? Now that I’ve garnered reading experience over the years, I think it’s time to talk about this topic. Plus, my bookshelf is always full so I have a bit of an endless supply of books to keep me busy. But, to anyone out there who could be wondering on how someone chooses his books, I’m going to share on how I select mine to read. Unlike the trends that says if someone were to be any type of reader, I don’t go with those labels. I’m someone who has a deregulated approach to choosing, so here is how I would go about choosing the books that I plan to read.

Woman, in a library setting, searching for a book in the shelves.

1. What Book Do I Want To Read That I Should Select First? That is the question.

   It all starts with me being in front of the bookshelf and observing that inner voice inside, telling me what to read for the next couple of months. I have Stephen King, JK Rowling, Ernest Hemingway, Anthony Doerr, Walter Isaacson, Marcus Aurelius, J.R.R Tolkien, and many other authors in which I still have to finish their books or sagas that they’ve written. Since I tend to have an endless pile of books, this makes it a bit harder to actually narrow down on what I want to read… but it is wonderful in a way because I can diversify my genres without having to stick to one. This leads to…

   
   

2. Many Books On the Shelf To Select From

   That is the beauty of my bookshelf! I don’t stick to any niche, a reason why this bookblog doesn’t focus too much on one specific genre. When I have too many genres to choose from, I feel this liberty to pick whatever book I desire from the bookshelf since there is a lot of diversity. I mainly choose at least 3-5 books to from different genres. Here is a picture of my current reads to give everyone a good look that I don’t stick to any genre:

   
   

   

   A stack of diverse books on a desk: horror, biography, science fiction, philosophy, and magical realism.

   See that? The majority of those books don’t belong, for example, in the horror genre…except the top one on the stack, oops!(which is my current reads at the moment). What I’m saying with this is that I don’t stick to any genre because as a reader it is important to read a bit of everything in order to become a well informed individual from a literary aspect.

   
   

3. It all depends also on the mood of JES

   
   

   High & Low Frequency

   This is the next step that I do when it comes to choosing books. It depends on the mood that I’m in. Am I in the mood for something that’ll scare me? Or do I want to get lost in Hogwarts again by reading what remains of the Harry Potter books that I have yet to read (books 5,6, and 7)? There are also times where I tend to reach out to biographies when I’m traversing a hardship. For example, I read Abraham Lincoln’s biography at a time when I was emotionally down and empty after a heartbreak since I wanted to relate to someone who endured more heartbreak than the average person (Read any five star rated biography of Abraham Lincoln and you’ll discover how many obstacles he had to endure.).

   
   

4. JES loves having the freedom to choose what he picks out of his shelf

   
   

   Freedom

   
   

   Finally, this is what I mean by having a bit of a deregulated approach to selecting the books I’m going to read. It is that I don’t stress out at all when I’m in front of the bookshelf. Even if I have so much to read, I don’t let that get to me due to one thing: the freedom to choose what I have yet to read, which is a great thing to have if you are a constant reader. There’ve been times where I’ve stared at my bookshelf and was stressed out about the amount of books. However, one thing that I’ve received to myself, whenever in front of the shelf, is that at least I have a big collection of books that I can freely choose from… and that is what matters.

   
   

   THAT IS HOW I CHOOSE MY BOOKS. ANY QUESTIONS? PLEASE COMMENT!

   
   

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