Now, I know you often ask yourself, while reading my little column here, how much tragedy can one person experience in a few years’ time? 

I mean, I would hardly characterize the events of the last few years as tragedies. As such, I’m sure the universe is now planning a calamity to befall me, as an “Oh, you think you’ve suffered?” kind of thing. 

And confidentially to my husband — yes, that’s exactly how I think the universe works. 

So I almost didn’t write that line. 

Universe, I need you to know I’m being hyperbolic in a low-hanging-fruit attempt at comedy. 

OK. Having reversed all goochers, I say again I know you often ask yourself, while reading my little column here, how much tragedy can one person experience in a few years’ time? 

And now I’ve had something so catastrophic happen to me, I’m not sure I’ll ever recover. 

I accidentally deleted my TBR. 

If you don’t know, a TBR is a list of books one anticipates reading. As in, to be read. 

What’s that you say? Big deal?  

Oh, my friend. 

Let’s discuss my TBR. 

I have curated my TBR for at least a decade.  

Don’t misunderstand me; I haven’t had the same books on my TBR for a decade.  

I mean, please.  

We all know I’m too obsessive to have a book malingering on my TBR list for years on end.  

Which we’ll come back to, because that refusal to permit malingering is what landed me here. 

As I read books on my list, I delete them. The TBR must be kept current. At all costs. 

 I am highly selective about whose book recommendations even get put on my TBR in the first place. 

For example, The New York Times is always a reliable resource for the TBR. Waterstones is also a trusted recommender. 

But a monthly magazine I read — and who shall remain nameless — really needs to reconsider what it calls an “edge-of-your-seat thriller.” 

My best friend is a star of my TBR. Actually, she’s the star. She is a trusted advisor. The Kissinger to my Nixon, the Stephanopoulos to my Clinton, the Leo to my Bartlet. 

Take Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. For years, my friend was after me to read that book. It sat on my TBR out of loyalty to her, but with little intent to be, well, read. 

Eleanor has no killers unmasked in a stunning climax, no evil Fae plotting to destroy the world. There isn’t even a ghost. 

I’m ashamed to say I didn’t trust my friend enough to read Eleanor until it was required by my book club. 

That capitulation to the book club enlightened me. I could not have been more wrong about Eleanor. There is a killer. There is a ghost. 

Of sorts. 

I have never doubted my friend again. 

Sometimes, my friend’s recommendations come with this text: 

“Read this. I’m not sure if I liked it. I need your thoughts.” 

This is the equivalent of calling emergency services.  

Anything I’m reading is set aside. Dinner is not made. And sleep? Pah.  

Book thoughts are dire. 

Now, I have another friend — no. I’ll smile, nod at their recommendations. But those recommendations never make it to my TBR. 

You can be wrong once. But twice? No.  

My TBR is too busy for that. 

So how did my TBR vanish? 

I was deleting books I’d read from my TBR. 

At the end of my TBR was a book on the history of domesticated horses. 

Yeah. That was nerdy even for me. 

I highlighted the book’s title in my Notes app. I hit delete. 

What I did not know was that my entire TBR was highlighted. When I deleted that horse book, I deleted everything. 

I tried to paste as soon as I realized what happened. Of course I did. 

Nothing. 

My friend — she of Eleanor Oliphant — was my first call. She frantically texted me links to recovering a deleted Notes app note. 

But I hadn’t deleted the note. I’d deleted the text of the note. 

Desperate, I opened my MacBook, hoping whatever alchemy linking it to my iPhone didn’t reach my Notes app. 

When that failed, I ran to my iPad.  

And there, on my rose gold iPad, was my TBR. 

For one glorious moment. 

Then it disappeared. 

It was like The Snap in the Marvel Universe. My TBR list disintegrated. I could only reconstitute it with Tony Stark’s time travel smarts. 

“It can’t be gone!” my Eleanor Oliphant friend texted, because denial is the first stage of grief. 

With great despair, I informed the book lovers in my life. My daughter. My husband. My mother-in-law. 

The last time I felt that much solidarity in my grief was when Indy went to Marion’s bar in Nepal. 

So now I must rebuild. Start over. A TBR version of Chapter 11. 

A decade or more of, let’s face it, learning who to trust. Of accidental discoveries at used book fairs bringing new authors to my TBR. Of the book club I joined to so I could inspire a love of reading in others in turn inspiring me. 

This will be, as Benson Boone once said of my life, another cold December. 

Yes, Universe. That’s hyperbole again. Please don’t punish me with real tragedy. 

I mean, I just rebuilt my TBR. 

Don’t take it again.