Since I messed up with scheduling the last in my Orthodoxy series and it went live on Sunday, I thought I’d ask a question today:

How do you pick what to read next?

My shelf with review books is stuffed, and I keep reorganizing them to reflect my priorities (which change with the day or my mood). The shelf underneath is also packed with books I want to read. And then there are the books that I’ve shelved in other spots that I haven’t actually read. Augustine’s Confessions, for example, and a book of Emerson and a pile of other classics.

Some of the review books are high-priority and they bump what would have been next. One of them has been waiting for me for months.

All of them are books I want to read, really. I just went through the lower shelf, the one with books that aren’t for review, and swapped a bunch on Paperback Swap (if you sign up, tell them I sent you–my user name is sarahreinhard). The ones that made the cut to be kept are books that I do want to read.

But is it worth keeping them around? Will I ever get to them?

On the one hand, I love that I have a pile of books to read, waiting for me like little presents.

On the other hand, I’m OCD enough to hate that the pile does not disappear completely.

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with sort of letting the Spirit guide me (which sounds like a total excuse to the control freak part of my brain). One of the books I’m reading now, Holding on to Hope, is like a lifeline from God.

Now I turn to you, oh wise readers. How do you pick what to read next? And, while we’re on the topic of books, how do you decide what to keep and what to not-keep in the book department?