To-read Tyranny

Sam Jordison wrote about the tyranny of the to-read pile on his Guardian blog earlier this week, reminding me that I have been neglecting mine. (Although, there is a lot of blog-neglect about - even Sam has been neglecting his, so that makes me feel better. And no-one reads blogs anyway.)

Sam's lament is a familiar one to us all, I suspect. "Already," he says, in a sentence which bears the whiff of a man who has read more Jane Austen than is wise, "I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime."

He had been by roused another blogger (bookninja) who, echoing an article by Cynthia Crossen, the Wall Street Journal's resident booklover, suggested that "instead of going out and buying more books you fully-intend-to but are-not-going-to read, why not examine your shelves for ones that slipped through the cracks and feel lonely and neglected."

Coincidentally, I have recently been thoroughly examining my own shelves, in order to enter all mybooks into the database at goodreads.com (Although I do feel a tad guilty at not paying the pittance asked by the wonderful librarything to enter them all there.)

I have managed to select from the hundreds of books on the to-read shelf, a few dozen must-reads - those that I really, really want to read, but haven't...yet.

So I'm in no position to give advice on tackling the tyranny of to-read pile, but I can confirm that the one thing you Must. Not. Do. is go to the library - all those free books! - not least in case you find yourself face-to-face with a shiny new book-about-books - which is the mistake I made today. Thus, not only do I have another book to read, but it's a book full of other books to-read - 229 of them in total, courtesy:
The Rough Guide to Classic Novels
from Don Quixote to American Pastoral

Thank you very much Simon Mason.
Although, since you are also the author of a book called Lives of the Dog-Stranglers, I will forgive you.

Richard & Judy Book Club 2007

The eight titles chosen for this year's Richard & Judy Book Club have been announced, they are:

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Restless - William Boyd
This Book Will Save Your Life - AM Homes
Love in the Present Tense - Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Girls - Lori Lansens
Semi-Detached - Griff Rhys Jones
The Testament of Gideon Mack - James Robertson
The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfeld

So that's eight more books I haven't read yet.

Predictably, the bookies have made the most famous author (William Boyd) the favourite to win, but my instincts lean towards AM Homes - mainly because of the irresistible title: This Book Will Save Your Life. It's not the first time I've been drawn towards AM Homes work - Jack, one of her earlier novels, has been on my must-read-that-sometime list for several years.

Orange Beauty

It was third time lucky for Zadie Smith yesterday, when she was announced as the winner of The Orange Prize for her third novel On Beauty, which had missed out on the Booker and Whitbread Prizes. No luck about it of course, just talent.

Further update:

I still haven't read it.

(Or last year's winner.)

(Or the year before's...)