TBR Games

      As a book lover, admit it, you have accumulated A LOT of books. Half the fun of a reading hobby is the book shopping (aka hoarding like a dragon). But when it comes time to pick a book to read, it can be daunting. “Which one should I read next?”, “I really should read…”. Guilt sets in as you look at piles of books you purchased so long ago and haven’t gotten to yet. Enter the TBR Game. (TBR means To Be Read) This is a great way to tackle the accumulation of books you want to read and have fun picking out your next read. TBR games provide the perfect flexible structure. This post guides you through the variety of TBR game choices out there and why and how you should play. 

What is a TBR Game?

A TBR Game is designed to help you choose what to read next. The idea is that you will generate a selection of specific book prompts and choose books from your own shelves to fulfill the prompts.

As you play the game you will be creating a curated, smaller grouping of books. Think of it as a pile of possibilities for the month. Most games will allow you to choose the number of books and the time frame for reading them. Often you play monthly, but the choice is yours! Added bonus – a lot of games include rewards that go towards buying new books.

Why Play a TBR Game?

It can be overwhelming to choose your next read when you are staring at shelves filled with books you know you bought because, at some point, you had wanted to read them. How do you pick just one? A TBR game lets you narrow down your choices while also allowing you to still mood read.

By creating a smaller list of books to read, you are creating a goal for the month to work towards. You don’t have to read all the books you selected, but it’s a target that keeps you motivated.

If you are doing any reading challenges a TBR game will keep you on track. The game can consist of prompts from the challenge, or you can pick books that will fill certain reading challenges. Not participating in any reading challenges? Check out this Complete Guide to Reading Challenges to find one to join.

Diversify your reading. As you play a TBR game you can pick books from a wide variety of genres. This gives you the opportunity to mood read or push yourself to read outside your comfort zone. Some of the games even include genre-specific prompts. 

Of course the most important reason to play a TBR game is it’s fun! It’s a way to play a game solo. There is something really enjoyable about “shopping your shelves” and hemming and hawing over which book to pick for your prompt. And let’s not forget the satisfaction of checking off those completed boxes.

Types of TBR Games

There is a wide assortment of TBR games out there. I encourage you to explore YouTube for some ideas. Fair warning, you will become addicted to watching TBR game ideas. I don’t know what it is about them, I just love watching people play the games they made. Some are so creative! I also enjoy seeing what books they pick for the prompts. I have expanded my Want to Read list based on the choices some of the content creators made. The list below is just a brief highlight of a few of the games out there, grouped by category, with links to the YouTube videos.

TBR Games Based on Classic Games

Bookopoly

This is the OG of TBR games. Perhaps the first created that started this massive trend? You will see most YouTubers reference this game as the inspiration for creating their own game.

Becca from Becca and the Books turned the game of Monopoly into a TBR Bookopoly game. She wanted to combine her two favorite things – making TBRs and the game Monopoly. She designed a board that mirrors the Monopoly board with each of the property colors corresponding to a genre. And there is a reading prompt written into each space. I love how she did the Chance cards. Half of the cards are books she wants to read most from her shelf and the other half are books she wants to read least. 

TBR Pursuit

One of my favorite games is Trivial Pursuit. I love how Jadeyraereads turned it into a reading game. She changed the color categories to genres and the questions on the cards are book prompts. She rolls and fills her pie with wedges for the spaces she lands on.

Candyland

This is a simple, quick game from Meagreads. Everyone has played Candyland before. The book one is the same premise. You draw a color card and advance to that space. The colors correspond to genres or a general book prompt. Ideal for those who want a little bit of direction but a lot of freedom when making their TBR. 

Game of Life

This one was very creative to me. A couple of different YouTubers have done a version of this but I enjoy watching Amy over at AStar Reads play her version. We have similar tastes, and I have gotten several new book ideas from her. She is also doing HRCYED and tries to incorporate some of her TBR choices with that reading challenge. She uses the actual physical board game of Life but has stickers with reading prompts over all the spaces. There is still the car with people and all the extras – the Taxes Due and Stock cards are penalty cards that add additional books to your TBR for the month and the colors of the wheel are genre selections. She has been playing the game for a long time so she has made some changes over the years her January 2025 is the most recent.

Original TBR Board Games

TBR Star Hop

This is a board game-style TBR game created by StephaniesBookverse that involves moving game pieces along a path and selecting cards related to the symbol you land on. Certain spaces force you to move back, and one space even makes you go back to the beginning, which makes for a large TBR list for the month! 

Shrink the Shelf

An original board game that you will actually soon be able to purchase in physical form! It was designed by Sarah Beth of All Rad Reads. It is really cute with book tiles and prompt cards. There are even holiday expansion packs that will create themed TBRs. Over the course of the game you can earn points for certain challenge cards and the physical game will include a cute point tracker pad. I am totally on the waiting list for this game. 

Unique TBR Games

M&M’s 

Another simple, quick (and tasty!) way to choose your TBR. Dani from Current Chapter made a chart with M&M colors across the top and along one side. You blindly pick two M&M’s from a bag of the candy and find the corresponding colors on the chart. Where the two colors meet is the reading prompt. 

Dart Attack

Maddy over on Mads created a TBR dartboard. She has a set of prompts she shuffles and randomly picks and fastens face down to the perimeter of her dartboard. She throws her dart and wherever it hits is the prompt she has to fulfill. The twist is that the double and triple spaces on the dartboard add throws.

Wheel of TBR

Codies Book Corner has a game similar to Dart Attack. She made a physical spinnning wheel (you could make a digital version). The wheel has 12 colors, each color corresponds to a prompt such as “Short Read”, “Most Recent Purchase”, or “TBR Vet” (a book that has been on your shelf for an incredibly long time).

How to Play a TBR Game

Once you have binge watched all these videos it is time to choose one to play. There are several ways to do this.

Copy the physical game and play on your own. A lot of content creators have generously shared their boards and prompts for free as downloadable PDFs or documents in Google Drive. Typically, you will find the links for these in the video description.

Watch the video and use their prompts. If you don’t want to or can’t print out the materials, you can watch the video; whatever prompts they land on you would use to make your own TBR. 

Create your own. You can borrow the idea of a game and modify it to whatever you want. Pick up your favorite board game from a second-hand store and alter the cards/spaces to make your own prompts. 

You can make digital versions of wheels at https://spinthewheel.app/ and list out all the prompts or genres you want. This is also a great way to make a TBR game based on a reading challenge you are doing. Just have all the wheel spaces correspond with a prompt from the reading challenge.

Rules for TBR Games

• Guess what – there aren’t any rules! You create your own guidelines when you set out to play. 
• Choose how often you want to play. Is it weekly, monthly, quarterly?
• Choose how many roles/rounds before you start playing. Will you play the whole board or just a certain number of rolls/spins? This is a great way to adjust the game based on your schedule for the month. If it is a jam-packed month you could do less turns. 

Rewards/Penalties

Creating a mini TBR pile from gameplay allows you to create a goal for the month. I prefer to have mine just be essentially a mini bookshelf that I mood pick from. At the end of the month if there are any left I put them back for another time. I treat it as a goal to work towards but no big deal if I don’t finish them. No pressure. 

Some folks like to play with a reward/penalty system. If you get through all your books in that time period you earn a reward – like buying a new book, or a special coffee/dessert treat, or even a perk for the next round of game play, such as use a book towards two prompts. For penalties they do things like add a turn to next month’s TBR gameplay. 

What Am I Playing?

By far one of the most fun and creative games I found on YouTube is Tale of Two Libraries by Library Unbounded. Silvia has created her own, and might I say beautiful, board game based on the Lord of the Rings books. The artwork is outstanding and the prompts are great. It is amazing how she is able to relate all of them to places and characters in the Lord of the Rings. She has provided the board game and prompt cards as not only a downloadable and printable version but also as a fun digital version you can play each month. 

One of the features of this game that I like is that if you read the book for the prompt card selected you collect that card. Once you collect a full set you can buy a new book. It helps me control my overspending! If you don’t read the book for a prompt card that month you just put it back into the deck.