Let me indulge and tell you all of my TBR Prompts. Slap some of these in your TBR games or ignore the lot.
Big book - pretty self-explanatory. For me this constitutes as any book of 500 pages or more
Small book - another obvious one. For me this constitutes as any book of 200 pages or less
Supermarket buy - a lot of book snobs (no offence) are going to do their book shopping in Sainsbury's. But let me tell you; when a mass market paperback is released, and you see it everywhere, and it's on the bestsellers list, it's probably being sold here. In my experience, this is THE CHEAPEST place to get those reads. Even cheaper than secondhand a lot of the time. Check it out
Charity shop buy - book snob or not, who doesn't love a charity bookshop? Anything you can find in a charity shop works for this prompt. If you're a south London local, Barnado's in Brixton sells the occasional gem for £1
Highest rated (owned) - goodreads lists are split into books I've read, owned/unread and not owned/unread. Sort your owned/unread list in order of average rating and go for the best of the best according to goodreads users
Lowest rated (owned) - this is cruel. But a nice way to find out if you are someone with an unpopular opinion
Highest rated (not owned) - woooooo you get to go shopping!!! I like to source my books as cheap as possible. Not always, sometimes I think it's a real treat to go and explore a special bookshop and buy a copy. Always great to support independent stores of course. But sometimes, food and rent is a priority so here is my god-send website. Type in a title and select your book; then it'll show you a bunch of used and new prices
Randomised (not owned) - from my not owned/unread list on goodreads, randomise a number between 1 and total books. Another opportunity to shop
Classic - this is going to be either something you love or you hate. I am not the biggest classics fan but am trying to make my way through the Penguin Clothbound Classics Collection. One day I'll get there, and this prompt definitely helps it move along
Non-Fiction - another one that won't always be popular with the masses. I always enjoy memoirs and non-fiction reads around feminism or politics. But sometimes they can be a bit daunting to pick up and that's where this system works! Sometimes you're pushed out of your comfort zone
Thriller/horror/mystery/crime - did a miss anything out? Pick something from this genre
Romance - swoon. Read a romance
Contemporary - one of my favourites. Another genre prompt
Historical fiction - I want to read more of this genre, so this prompt is a must to push me to do it
Paranormal/weird - I am a fan of a weird book which is where this prompt comes in
Magical realism/light fantasy/sci-fi - you're not going to see any heavy fantasies on this list. Look at that; I want to expand my reading horizons... but not THAT much
Young adult - anything from this genre
Dystopian - big fan of this element in books. Think outside the box
Set outside of the UK/USA - this is generally where a lot of my books are set so any setting works for this
Unread jar - I have a jar with all of my owned/unread books on slips of paper, pick one at random! Come to think of it, this took a huge amount of time, so a random number generator correlating to your shelves works just as well
Boyfriend pick - I'm a show off. Someone likes me. He picks
Booktuber 2018 favourite - a booktuber's classic end of year video, going over their top 10 of the year. Pick any from the list and it's another opportunity to shop. Booksandlala, I'm coming for you
Booktuber 2019 favourite - same again. This is the video I will most likely go for
Latest purchase - what was the latest addition to your collection? I bet you're itching to read it
Shelf veteran - a book you have had sat on your shelves for far too long. It's time to read it, or unhaul it
Bestseller list - anything on any bestseller list of your choosing. I personally like to go for the Bookseller one. You do not need a subscription to view the first 10 on the homepage. A lot of them overlap anyhow. Perhaps another shopping trip is in your future; unless you buy bestsellers and never read them
Most beautiful cover - we all buy those stunning books without knowing anything of the contents. It's time to see if the words match up to the marketing
Ugliest cover - stop being so vain. Ugly books need love too
Author of colour - variety is so important in this community. I read a lot by authors of colour and they often turn out to be some of my favourites. A great prompt to include if you want some more diversity
LGBTQ+ - any book that shows this kind of representation in fiction or non-fiction
Shakespeare play - my dad bought me the complete works for Christmas and I am keen to read all the plays at some point. This prompt is the only way I'm getting there
Short story - some short story collections are reasonable in length. Some, are all on a different subject and come in intimidatingly massive books. In this instance, I'll only pick out a couple of short stories from a collection and tick them off on my contents page
A-Z - randomly generate a letter from the alphabet. Whichever one comes up will be the first letter of an Author's surname
Colour - this works for the wheel spinning method. Each section has a colour, spin the wheel again and whatever colour it lands on must appear on the cover or spine of the book. Or pick any colour at random
Gifted - any book that was gifted to me
Stephen King - I want to read all of them at some point, so anything by this crime writer
Phone a friend - give a bookish pal a call and they can choose any of my unread owned books
Gift card - we all get one at some point over the year. Whether it's Amazon or Waterstones, treat yourself to something special this month that you'd really like to read
Twitter poll - I'm going to ask my lovely Twitter followers to complete a poll of a handful of books. Fingers crossed everyone is nice; @evasbookcorner to get involved
Instagram poll - Instagram followers pick! Head to @evasbookscorner to join the vote
Buddy read - hopefully I can get a friend of mine to agree on something for us to read and discuss together
BWAC - read a book from my subscription box: Books with a Conscience
Blank - ultimate freedom! I can pick anything I fancy
Horror - something extra spooky in the hope I won't sleep for a week
Wow. Thanks for making it here. We did it!
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