Friday, August 21, 2009

Quot libros, quam breve tempus!

("So many books, so little time!")

Just reorganized my books. In spite of the book purge I conducted two years ago this double case doesn't fit all my books, but it has most of them.

See the two middle shelves there, the ones with the pictures? Those shelves contain nothing but books I have not read yet. There are some unread books on the other shelves as well. So if you ever recommend a book to me, and I tell you that I'll add it to the end of my long to-read list and might get to it in ten years, don't be offended. The picture explains why.

5 comments:

Heather said...

Pffft, underachiever. I have 144 unread books at the moment. Your unread book shelf is made of weaksauce. ;-)

Mary N. said...

I joke and call my house a messy library. I have so many books that we had to put some of them in storage. My parents owned a bookstore when I was young, so this probably explains it.

Rachel said...

It sounds like the two of you will just have to live to a hundred and fifty, then. :)

Warren said...

I see some Ignatius Press spines there. Excellent.

Robert Jordan. Have that series. Tried to read him. Couldn't get into it, stopped after first book of that series. Glad to see JRR on there. Should I give Robert Jordan another shot?

My book collection is up to 4 floor to ceiling book-cases. I am going to purge it of "CRAP". It is unreasonable and unruly how many books I have. About 30% catholic non-fiction, 60% fiction, 10% miscellaneous (humor, cookbooks, how-to, etc).

One book that no book collection is complete without: The complete book of bunny suicides. I'm just sayin'.

W

Rachel said...

And note that the Ignatius books are mostly on the already-read shelves. :)

For me the first six books of Jordan's series were very absorbing (like, stay-up-all-night-to-read-as-much-as-possible absorbing. I was a student on summer break at the time.) Book 1 rips off a lot from Tolkien; it's worth trying Book 2 to get a better idea of what the rest of the series is like. Anyway, Book 2 opens with a rather stunning revelation about Rand.

The books get longer and longer, and stuff in more and more characters and detail, and the plot moves slower and slower, but I didn't mind that and tore right through to the end of Book 6 (which has a great climax). Then suddenly in Book 7 I realized I was BORED. I slogged through to finish the book but gave up on the series. Subsequent books were no better, I'm told, and of course Jordan died with the series unfinished. But I thought Books 1-6 were well worth reading. Others may have a different tipping point.

Re Bunny Suicides, I see that Hugh Grant is quoted as calling it "One of the most important books of the year." That ought be good enough for anybody.