Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Top Ten Tuesday - Books Collecting Dust On My Shelf

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature / weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week we make a top ten list from a given topic.

This week's topic is

Top Ten Books That are Collecting Dust On My Shelf 
(aka Top Ten Guilty Conscience Books)

I buy a lot of books. Unfortunately my incoming rate is not proportional to my read rate. Not even close. The result is shelves groaning under the weight of an ever-growing number of unread books. (One of the reasons I love Pickwick - my Kindle - he can keep a lot of books without getting fat.) Most of the books on this list are still unread because although I really wanted to read them when I put them on my wishlist, by the time I got my hands on them there were about a million other books I wanted to read first. Going through my shelves I realised that there are books I've had for almost ten years(!). Poor little things, they'll probably never get read.

1) Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
Some nice BookCrosser sent me this four years ago and I'm ashamed to say it's still unread. The whole point of BookCrossing is to keep books moving, and I have a pile of BC books that haven't moved from my shelf in years. I feel really bad about not reading them yet.

2) 5 Freunde auf der Felseninsel by Enid Blyton
I got this because I wanted to brush up on my German. I never did.

3) Dead Famous by Ben Elton
I bought this at a flea market four years ago, mostly because it was cheap and one of the few books they had in English. The whole controversy of reality shows seems to have blown over by now, so the book is not as current anymore. I've heard good things about Ben Elton though, so I'll read it one of these days.

4) A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
It's Shakespeare. I need to read it. I just have to find a study guide to have on hand when I do first.

5) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
This has been collecting dust on my shelf for six years and I'm beginning to realise I might never read it. It's one of those classics I feel I should read, but it just sounds so depressing I'm never in the mood to pick it up.

6) Sharpe's Eagle and Sharpe's Revenge by Bernard Cornwell
These were two of the first BookCrossing books I received over six years ago. I always have to read series in order, so I put these aside until I could get caught up. I still haven't started the series.

7) Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
I bought this while I was an English student, thinking "finally a classic that sounds fun!". Pirates, adventure and buried treasure - sounds great, right? Why I've never read it remains a mystery.

8) Executive Orders by Tom Clancy
I bought this a long, long time ago when I had just discovered the thriller/spy genre but the daunting size (it's a brick!) put me off ever reading it. I think I'll just watch the movie (I assume it's been made into a movie?).

9) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams
I got this omnibus containing all five books in the trilogy at a bargain price about eight years ago. I've read the first two or three books (can't even remember that...) but never finished the whole thing. It's high on my TBR list though, so hopefully next year.

10) The Land Down Under
I was given this book by my host family for my birthday while I was in Australia in July 2001. It has travelled across half the globe. I love Australia and its culture and history. I should have read this book ages ago.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that keeps buying books and never reads them?

4 comments:

MJ Thomas said...

Oh my goodness. I loved ALL The Clancy books.

Here's My Post

Trish said...

I've been curious about Ben Elton. There's a book of his at the thrift store that just lingers and lingers. Maybe I should take a closer look . . .

Anonymous said...

Dead Famous is marvellous -very witty and clever! Midsummer Night's Dream is just magical. i found Treasure Island a bore, but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a total classic! :)
Here’s my Top Ten Tuesday post. :)

StephTheBookworm said...

My books come in faster than I can read them too!

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