From Kate's Flickr set.
I don't know whether you'll be able to read this without a subscription, so from Cynthia Crossley's Book Lover column in the WSJ:
My self-imposed challenge this week was to save money by reading a book that I own but have never read. There were a shocking number of candidates for this challenge -- books I had bought impulsively, gifts from well-meaning (or not) friends and relatives and books whose provenance has long been lost to history.
As I scanned my shelves, I found I had convincing arguments why I shouldn't read each one of the orphans -- or convincing to me anyway. I rejected a book called "English, August," by Upamanyu Chatterjee because it is, after all, November. No to "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell because the book jacket says it's about "the desperate lives of working people." No to "The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro because I heard it wasn't nearly as good as "Remains of the Day" or "Never Let Me Go."
Try it yourself and see how many pitiful excuses you can find for not reading a book you own.
She finally settled upon one, and found it a rewarding- if mixed- experience. For me, the excuse is most often my mercurial mood, but lately, I've found myself polishing off scraps of book endings that I'd left bookmarked and unread. Some books just lost me part-way through or led to a slow fizzle rather than a satisfying finish. However, satisfaction reigns as I close these covers and lay them gently in the DONATE pile. One man's ceiling is another man's floor, and I expect they'll find more appreciation from a better class of reader.
So, in the spirit of economizing, not to mention end-of-year housecleaning that liberates shelf space for nifty new gifties, I'm going to sink up to the elbows in one that I barely cracked over a year ago. The winner is...
...a tremendously well-regarded book (I know, I know, Pulitzer) around a topic I do love (comic books), but of such density (600+ pages) and such well-considered prose (inciting jealousy and occasional fatigue for a hack such as I) that I just haven't adhered. I now devote myself to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, considered by many to be an epic delight among their favorites of all time, and hardly a chore. I have no excuse for myself.
Care to (need to) take up the challenge yourself?
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9 comments:
I have X no. of books unread here. I had to stop going on rescue missions at garage sales because of it. I once set a book down for 10 years (ages 17-27)because I was annoyed at something in it.
I really do want to get these read.
I actually have relatively few fiction books unread around. Some of them I *won't* read and I just need to give them away. (I am waiting for our new library to open and hoping they'll ask for book donations.) I often take the "books I bought but haven't read" when I travel for work or fun and that cuts down on the pile.
I'm guilty. Stacks and stacks of unread books. I was on a feverish buying spree a couple of years ago, and have lived to regret it.
I took a look (at Amazon) at the first page of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and found it daunting.
Leah- I, too, get annoyed and that's it for a book until I forget why it irked me.
Laura- So are you just that incredible or is it your claim that's incredible? : ) *sour grapes*
Lois- I appreciate the sympathy, and I'm prone to those fevered sprees myself. If I didn't know from people whose taste I revere that TAAOKAC was going to be uber-awesome in there somewhere, I'd give up. And it isn't fair at all, because I can tell how well-done it is already.
No, not incredible. But my husband built the built-in bookshelves in our house and he's not as much of a reader, so there aren't that many! And I do have a huge number of non-fiction books I haven't read, but they require a very different mindset.
I've been surrounded by books all my life. Many of them unread, but they're more like family than guests.
Can I throw a family member away? No. Donate one to another human being? - Sounds reasonable, but I'd want to know it ended up in a good home where books are safe and read with delight. OOPS! What did I just say?
I have almost a whole bookcase full of books I have yet to read in a variety of genres. Books I picked up for a "rainy" day or research for the stories I'm presently working on. I am beginning to go through them now. Some lucky friend or nearby library will end up with one or more of them once my reading is over.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the perception, whenever I rid myself of books there are several in the bookstore I must buy. Because they're speaking to me, going so far as to fall off the shelf or the table as I pass or come near; as if they are alive.
Nan-If I understand you, your family members are red with delight?
I hear them ,too, Barbara. Oh, I hear them.
I don't think I have a book in the house that I haven't read (in the fiction genre, that is.)
I gallop through every book I bring into the house, store it in the bookshelf, and gallop through it again and again because I simply cannot exist without a book.
And when you live in the country, have a limited budget and cannot abide the trash on TV, you re-read.
I have books in every room in the house, except the bathroom. When I'm really desperate, I read cookbooks.
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