too many...?

I was just going through my Google Reader and I was immediately thrown off by the amount of posts that I had waiting for me.

And I know that if I shared the number, some readers would be like, "Pft, I wish I could get my Google Reader down to that many. Stop complaining."

And I'm definitely not complaining. It is awesome that everyone loves books, and that I've found so many great book blogs to follow. However, I'm just wondering how many posts is too many?

Life is busy. I used to have all the time in the world to read and review and that was awesome. However, school and work take up a lot of time, and so I have less time to focus on blogging and reading other's blogs. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a hard time balancing life and blogging.

That being said: I feel like bloggers post a lot. And I'm not sure if this a bad thing, because if a blogger has a review to post... they post it. And if they are completely devoted to their reading and blogging, there will be something new to post and it will be consistent.

The blogger part of me says: "Rock on! That's great that you're posting so much, I wish I had time to read and review a book a day! Plus have awesome interviews and contests and guest posts and just post general awesomeness!"

And the busy reader part of me says: "That is sooo cool that you have 3 posts a day, but unfortunately I have to skim past all those posts to go find this other post that is more interesting, oh wait that looks... oh nevermind it's too long... oh this is cool *insert quick lame comment here*... onto the next one... zooooooom phew done!"

And how do I judge which posts I read? By the pictures, duh. And is that the best way to pick? Nope. But when I'm busy, I have nothing better to go by, except maybe by a post's title. And there are some posts that I'm sure are fantabulous that I zooooom right by because they aren't visually appealing, or because I just simply miss it.

So I'm posing a question to other blog readers: am I alone in the world? Because to be quite honest, I'd rather read less posts and actually get the chance to read and comment on them thoughtfully, than skim-read through the constantly growing line of posts.

Does anybody else have the same problem? Or possibly a solution? I know the real solution would be to take time out of my day to read the posts, but that's easier said than done. And another solution would be to take some blogs out of my Google Reader, which is unfair to those bloggers I decide to cut out. They work hard to get followers, and they deserve my readership just as much as any other blog that I chose to follow. And so here is my sticky situation.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts or comments, because I'd love to hear them.

Jane

PS. I have a couple of things to say from a blogger's viewpoint:

Bloggers post as much as they are comfortable with. It's entirely up to them how often to post. And they do it for themselves as much as their readers- if not more.

However... a lot of bloggers post for readers and they do care what their audience thinks about their blog and posting habits.

But... a lot of readers have time to read multiple posts a day, while other readers may not have the time to be as on top of things. Which is unfortunate.

PPS. I apologize for how long this post is!