Catching up on my reading?

While I'm restoring my life balance after three months under the gun, I'm glancing through my TBR pile.

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm on ARC reader lists for my favorite authors, and I look forward to those books. I also feel obligated to get them read and reviews written in a timely manner, so those books tend to move up the stack. Then there are the authors I want to try out, or the new author friends I meet who I want to check out. What happens when you find a new author that you like?

I recently met a new author who writes fun romantic comedies. I so much enjoyed her first book that I want to read the rest of them, but I have a long TBR list of books I WANT to read. What to do, what to do! I suppose I could buy the books in question and make my TBR pile even larger, but I'm an organized person. I have a process. I try not to give myself more things to do than I can accomplish. As it is, I have many books from writer's conferences over the past ten years that I've never cracked open (and I'd like to - at least some of them).

I have books from old favorites who aren't writing any more, from authors I've discovered in recent years, and from new authors who are looking for an audience. A lot of my purchases happen when I get notice of a reduced price (yes, I'm a bargain hunter) and some of my purchases are because its a book I really want to read, an author I really enjoy.

Stockpiling it is. Some day I'm going to be retired, and I'm going to want more books to read and maybe my discretionary funds will limit the number of books I can buy. So why not add them now?

Guilt kicks in. These authors need feedback. If the books are new NOW, a review years from now, while appreciated, might have made the difference between whether or not they kept writing in that series or whether they dropped it and started something new.

Did I mention work/life balance? Did I mention I'm working on restoring said balance? Taking a deep breath. The summer months are around the corner. More time to read. More time to relax. By the end of the summer I'm going to be LOOKING for those books that I haven't had time to read over the past couple of months, and likely I'll even pick up one or two of those freebies that were given to me that I keep forgetting about.

What are you reading?