For those of you who have said “I am going to read from my TBR pile so that I can dis­cover some great reads” well that great day to get you started will be March 19. Genre — you pick it. How many books you want to read — you decide. Review it, say you liked it, didn’t like it — just post some­thing with a copy­right date with a cor­re­spond­ing title of TBR Day. It’s every third Wednes­day of the month. It’s not too late to sign up because guess what? For the reader(s) who do this con­tin­u­ously through­out this year start­ing March 19 with­out skip­ping up till Decem­ber will get a $100 Ama­zon gift cer­tifi­cate as an incen­tive from me. It’s a one time thing because I’m feel­ing gen­er­ous. If there is more than one reader — there will be a draw­ing. I’ll also cre­ate a spe­cial links page for read­ers who are par­tic­i­pat­ing so if you left a link I got it — if you didn’t and you want me to visit your web­site — leave it. Remem­ber copy­right dates 2007 and back — noth­ing from 2008.

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Mean­while, real life has been inter­fer­ing a lot lately. Staff changes at work. I’ve been annoyed lately with Barack Obama’s cam­paign phone calls clog­ging up my answer­ing machine com­pared to Hillary Clinton’s one let­ter sent to my house. Oh yeah, today is the all impor­tant pri­mary so GO VOTE if you are one of the states doing their pri­maries today.

I have been read­ing — look for my Grim­space review –I know it’s all over the net — soon. Did I hate it? Did I love it? Do you really even care? I will have it up late, late tonight [tomor­row evening]. Any­way, I should be back to my reg­u­lar blog­ging sched­ule –what­ever that is.

Edited to add: Please note that Wednes­day, MARCH 19, 2008 is the day you do post your review, likes or dis­likes for TBR Day, MARCH 19, 2008. So look for your books now and have them read and posted on MARCH 19, 2008. If any­thing is unclear please leave a com­ment so that we can all be on the same page. Thanks!

Edited to add: FAQ for TBR Day:

When do I post my review?

The 3rd Wednes­day of every month. I will post reminders with actual dates for each month. March 19, 2008 is the start date, which is two weeks from now.

How many books do I have to read?

Read as many as you like. For some read­ers (like me), read­ing at least one book from my TBR pile is more than enough.

What is the format?

For­mat is pretty infor­mal — head­ing should state: TBR Day and in your blog post you should have title, author, copy­right date, genre fol­lowed by your opin­ion of the book. Addi­tional info that would be nice is why did you buy the book? What took you so long to read it?[g] Would you read this author again? Was this book des­ig­nated a keeper on a review site or was this a rec­om­mended read or an impul­sive buy? What­ever you want to share, feel free.

Is there a spe­cific genre we must read month to month?
No. You can read what­ever is in your TBR pile.

Must I par­tic­i­pate each month?

This is vol­un­tary and for those read­ers who want to knock down that tow­er­ing TBR pile. You can skip a month, skip two months, join later on in the year but note that I have added an incen­tive with stip­u­la­tions in that in order to win $100 Ama­zon gift cer­tifi­cate, you must par­tic­i­pate each month. I’m think­ing that maybe nobody really cares about that incentive!

Why are you doing this??

I thought that there should be a day where the read­ing com­mu­nity can come together on one day each month to show sup­port and spot­light the books that they have read out of out TBR pile. We’ve bought so many books from over the years and many of us don’t like read­ing books that we already own (I know I speak for myself on that point). But some­times, the real trea­sure of a read is right there in your home, sit­ting right there on your book­shelf. So, read­ers, let’s read some books!

Do I have to stop buy­ing new books? I don’t think I can do that!

I’m not ask­ing you to quit buy­ing books, more impor­tantly I can’t stop you from buy­ing new books (wouldn’t want to either). But the TBR day is devoted to books that are in your pile start­ing from 2007 and back.