Booking through Thursday Meme

I discovered this meme blog on books and reading while browsing through some blogs and just had to play ... as an avid reader, I love to talk books! The meme blog posts a few questions every Thursday about, you guessed it, books and reading, and others post their answers on their blog. Even though a new set of questions will be posted tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and answer last Thursday's questions today to get the ball rolling.

Booking Through Thursday

Do you plan ahead for your reading? Work off of a to-be-read pile? A reading list? Or do you wing it, choose whatever you're in the mood for? I don't really plan ahead too much, but I do keep a running list of books I want to eventually read. And I almost always have a pile of books to work through at any given time. I take my kids to the library every Friday and I usually pick up a few for myself at that time (depends on how many I still have waiting at home). We keep our library books on 2 shelves in the playroom (one for their books and one for mine). When I finish a book, I take it back to the shelf and pick out another one. If I'm reading something in a series and have the next one on the shelf, I'll usually pick that one next. Otherwise, I just pick whatever interests me, or sometimes I might pick a book that has to go back to the library soon LOL! I don't follow any current reading lists, but I occasionally read them looking for books that sound good, and I also check out books that are recommended by people on my various Yahoo groups.

If you do plan ahead, how far ahead? Do you have two or three books waiting in queue? Or are you backed up by dozens of volumes waiting their turn? I don't plan too far ahead ... with kids, and with homeschooling, I don't have alot of time for personal reading. I usually have about 6-7 books on the shelf waiting to be read (though currently I have about 20 books waiting because so many books became available through the library's reservation process in the last 3 weeks ... yikes! I better get moving if I'm going to finish them before they're due!) I also listen to books on tape, usually while cleaning the house and cooking dinner, and have 3 in the queue right now.

If you do not plan ahead . . . well, *never*? What about if you're reading a series? Or someone gives you a book for a present? I guess I do sort of plan ahead ... I like to read series in order if I can. And if I have more than one book by the same author on the shelf, I usually read them all in a row, by publication date. But otherwise, I just grab the next book that looks interesting.