It will come as no surprise to those who know me well but
for anyone who is reading this blog and has never had the privilege (yes,
privilege I say) of making my acquaintance there is something you should know
about me—I am a complete and total nerd when it comes to books. I love to read
and always have. Ever since I can remember I have always had shelves full of
books surrounding me. In fact, while most young children sleep with stuffed
animals, I would actually sleep with my books when I was little (which, from
the stories I am told about my childhood was probably one of my lesser oddities—thank
goodness I am completely normal now--heh).
So before I could afford spending large amounts of money on
books I used to love going to the library where my mom worked for a short time—browsing
the shelves and always coming home with a stack full of books. I was so excited
about the books I read that I wanted to share them with everyone and I even
created a small library in room where my family and friends could “check out”
books from my own personal collection. I was always getting free pizzas from
the school BookIt program and one of my favorite shows was Reading Rainbow ("Take a look it's in a book of Reading Rainboooow...").
Perhaps one of the best childhood stories about my
book-loving obsession that my mom likes to tell is how I totally (at least I
think unknowingly) gave the figurative finger to some haters at the new school
I started when we moved from Georgia to Pennsylvania in the first grade. See,
the Pennsylvania educators didn’t believe my test scores were as good as they
were since all southerners must be
dumb hicks (which, okay, Honey Boo Boo Chile is not doing us any favors in dispelling
that myth) so they gave me several of their own IQ tests. When they were
finally satisfied that I wasn’t completely ignorant , I drove the I-told-you-so
needle in even further by politely asking “now can you please show me to your
library”?
Why tell these stories? Well I’m hoping that they will help
you understand the confession I am about to make in that while (I admit) this
problem I have is completely ridiculous it does have some historical bearing.
It’s not pretty and I am not proud of it but I feel as if it is an omission I
must make to control the madness.
Here goes.
I have a book buying problem. As of today I have about 80
books in my house that I have not read (but bought with the good intention of
reading) and for whatever reason I keep buying more. I know what you’re
thinking—I must be broke from buying books. Well no, not really. I buy most of
my books when I am out thrifting at Goodwill so most of the time I get them for
about a $1-$1.50 each which, you know, isn’t too bad in my opinion. A lot of
the books I buy are classics that I feel I should be reading but there are also
a lot of fiction books, some nonfiction books, and a few beach type reads that
I think would be good guilty pleasures (in my crazy mind my unread books should
have variety to accommodate whatever mood I might be feeling when I am never
reading them).
I realize that there is a simple solution to this book
obsession I have—stop buying books until I have read the ones I have--easy,
right? Okay so I have tried that in the past and it lasted for maybe a couple
months. The problem is that I am a slow reader and combined with work and
everything else going on in my life I wasn’t making much progress. Then I would
see a book at the thrift that I had remembered wanting to read and I would be
like “it’s just one book, it’s no big
deal.” Or “but it’s a classic—classics are different than just buying some
trashy literature.” Thus the vicious cycle would begin again.
The whole problem really sucks –I like physical books and I
like having them around me. There are worse things to be addicted to right? But
in the sense of practicality and the fact that my current house does not have
any extra room for a library (oh someday) I realize I have got to do something.
I don’t really know what that something is but I am open to suggestions. One
possible solution I have thought of is to publish my list of unread books on
this blog so that you readers can give me the thumbs up/thumbs down on any that
I either must read or ones where I shouldn’t waste
my time. I purchased all the books on my list thinking they might be good so if
there are any that you all out there have read that totally suck I would love to know. On the other hand, I would also love to get excited
about any on the list so if there are some that are truly amazing
must-read-right-away books, please do tell!
So, in all it’s glory I give you Ashley’s Unread Booklist (try
not to be too judgey ok?):
| Book Title | Author |
| The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie | Alan Bradley |
| The River King | Alice Hoffman |
| Made in America | Bill Bryson |
| Rocket Men | Craig Nelson |
| A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius | Dave Eggers |
| Naked | David Sedaris |
| The Story of Edgar Sawtelle | David Wroblewski |
| The Age of Innocence | Edith Wharton |
| The House of Mirth | Edith Wharton |
| The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard | Erin McGraw |
| A Good Man Is Hard to Find | Flannery O’Connor |
| Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
| Middlesex | Geoffrey Eugenides |
| Waiting | Ha Jin |
| Atonement | Ian McEwan |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck |
| Freedom | Jonathan Franzen |
| The Postmistress | Sarah Blake |
| Pride and Prejudice and Zombies | Seth Grahame-Smith |
| Vanity Fair | William Thackeray |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston |
| Innocent Traitor | Allison Weir |
| Saving Fish From Drowning | Amy Tan |
| The Pilot’s Wife | Anita Shrieve |
| Run | Ann Patchett |
| The Magician’s Assistant | Ann Patchett |
| The Shipping News | Annie Proulx |
| Nickel and Dimed | Barbara Ehrenreich |
| Animal Dreams | Barbara Kingsolver |
| The Stone Diaries | Carol Shields |
| The Heart is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers |
| Lady Chatterly’s Lover | D.H. Lawrence |
| Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress | Dai Sijie |
| Snow Falling on Cedars | David Guterson |
| Outlander | Diana Gabaldon |
| The Fiery Cross | Diana Gabaldon |
| The Little Friend | Donna Tartt |
| Angela’s Ashes | Frank McCourt |
| When Everything Changed | Gail Collins |
| Madame Bovary | Gustave Flaubert |
| Collapse | Jared Diamond |
| The Eyre Affair | Jasper Fforde |
| The Namesake | Jhumpa Lahiri |
| Strange But True | John Searles |
| A Civil Action | Jonathan Harr |
| The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini |
| The Inheritance of Loss | Kirin Desai |
| War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy |
| The Master Butcher’s Singing Club | Louise Erdrich |
| Tara Road | Maeve Binchy |
| The Blind Assassin | Margaret Atwood |
| Gone With the Wind | Margaret Mitchell |
| Stiff | Mary Roach |
| The Omnivore’s Dilemma | Michael Pollan |
| American Gods | Neil Gaiman |
| Ender’s Game | Orson Scott Card |
| The Cotton Queen | Pamela Morsi |
| The Good Earth | Pearl Buck |
| The Constant Princess | Phillipa Gregory |
| The Boleyn Inheritance | Phillipa Gregory |
| Watership Down | Richard Adams |
| A Reliable Wife | Robert Goolrick |
| The Satanic Verses | Salman Rushdie |
| Shalimar the Clown | Salman Rushdie |
| The Birth of Venus | Sarah Dunant |
| In the Company of the Courtesan | Sarah Dunant |
| Affinity | Sarah Waters |
| The Little Stranger | Sarah Waters |
| Fingersmith | Sarah Waters |
| Adam and Eve | Sena Jeter Naslund |
| Jane Slayre | Sherri Browning Erwin |
| Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell | Susanna Clarke |
| The Bell Jar | Sylvia Plath |
| The Once and Future King | T.H. White |
| Sarah’s Key | Tatiana de Rosnay |
| The Things They Carried | Tim O’Brien |
| The Girl with the Pearl Earring | Tracy Chevalier |
| In Cold Blood | Truman Capote |
| Life of Pi | Yann Martel |
| White Teeth | Zadie Smith |
