People recommend books to me all the time.
All.
The.
Time.
You think you get a lot of books recommended to you? More books recommended to you than you can read? Try working in one of the busiest public libraries in London.
I do. And, of course, it's (among) the best job(s) ever. But I don't plough through books any more like I used to, and more and more often, I've found myself saying, "Wow... that sounds great. Yeah, I'm probably not going to read it though. I've got 101 books queued up to read already..."
When I'd said this for around the 101st time, I thought, 'I bet I really do have 101 books stacked up waiting', and, 'I should probably actually read them'.
It doesn't help that I've become a slower and slower reader. I get distracted constantly by social media, the news and games; or just by the never-ending internal nag that I should be getting on with my own writing. It takes me months to get through an average-sized paperback novel these days. This blog will document my attempt to read through the huge list of things I've been telling myself for months, years or - possibly, in a few cases - decades, that 'I must get around to reading'.
Only once I've completed them, and shed the shame I feel for letting them sit unopened on my shelves, may I embark on new books.
I'm going to share the list here in this post, in no particular order. It's going to look random as anything.
1.Chuck Palahniuk - Doomed ⭐⭐
2-9. JH Brennan - GrailQuest series
10. Jenny Mitchell - Her Lost Language
11-14. Steve Jackson - Sorcery! series
10. Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
11. Stephen Krensky - The Dragon Circle
12. Christopher Booker - The Seven Basic Plots
13-16 JH Brennan - Demonspawn series
17. Ursula LeGuin - A Wizard of Earthsea
18. Johanna van Fessem - Walking in the Light
19. Hafez - The Nightingales Are Drunk
20. Charles Jane Anders - All The Birds in the Sky
21. WG Galbraith - journeys of i
22. Ian Duncan Smith - Baking Cakes for Winston Churchill
23. Ben Okri - Starbook
24. The Bizarro Starter Kit
25. Ben Marcus - The Age of Wire and String
26. Kelly Link - Magic for Beginners
27. Shaun Tan - The Arrival
28. Tom McCarthy - C
29. Matthew Francis - The Mabinogi
30. Catwoman - A Celebration of 75 Years
31. Iain M Banks - The Algebraist
32. Eleanor Morgan - Anxiety for Beginners
33. Tor Freeman - Welcome to Oddleigh
34. Joff Winterhart - Days of the Bagnold Summer
35. Joff Winterhart - Driving Short Distances
36. Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
37. Ernest Cline - Ready Player One
38. Benjamin Hale - The Education of Bruno Littlemore
39. Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary
40. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds
41. Sarah Wilson - First We Make the Beast Beautiful
42. Charlie Jane Anders - All the Birds in the Sky
43. WG Galbraith - The Boy Who Fell Into Earth's Mouth
44. Frank Herbert - Dune
45. Natasha Lennard - Being Numerous
46. [book about Bastet - title etc tbc]
47-50. JH Brennan - Demonspawn series
51. Thomas Hardy - Under the Greenwood Tree
52. Christopher Moore - Fool
53. Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
54. Wislawa Szymborska - Poems New and Collected
55. Rebecca Tamas - Witch
56. J.F. Armand - Covenbrooke
57. Iain M Banks - Against a Dark Background
58. Tom Cox - Help the Witch
59. Tom Cox - Ring the Hill
60. Michael Rosen - Alphabetical
61. Lauren Paine - The Hierarchy of Hell
62. Samuel Fisher - The Chamaeleon
63. Alice Oswald - Dart
64. Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Women Who Run With the Wolves
65. Christopher McCabe - Cenotaph South
66. James Shapiro - 1606
67. Paul Huson - The Devil's Dictionary
68. John Logie Baird - Television and Me
69. Mark Frost - Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier
70. Primo Levi - If This is a Man
71. Ovid - Metamorphoses
72. Clive Barker - The Thief of Always
73. Clive Barker - Sacrament
74. Thomas Lynch - Bodies in Motion and at Rest
75. Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions
76. Jeff Noon - A Man of Shadows
77. Jeff Noon - The Body Library
78-82. Alexander Lloyd - The Chronicles of Prydain
83. Alasdair Gray - Every Short Story 1951-2012
84. The Tibetan Book of the Dead
85. The Egyptian Book of the Dead
86. Egon Viola - Beings From the World Beyond
87. Paul Weston - Glastonbury Psychogeography
88. Francesca Lisette - Sub Rosa
89. Tales from the Rooftop - Sandra Tena
90. John Wadsworth - Your Zodiac Soul
91. Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
92. Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None
93. Kurkov - The President's Last Love
94. Steven Price - By Gaslight
95. John Fowles - The Magus
96. Michael Ende - The Neverending Story
97. Iain M Banks - Excession
98. Francis Young - Peterborough Folklore
99. Neil Gaiman - American Gods
100. Richard Hell - Go Now
101. Alasdair Gray - Poor Things
It's a very idiosyncratic list, consisting of some books gifted, loaned or recommended by friends; some borrowed impulsively from the library and then renewed a grotesque number of times without actually opening them, a few that came to me through a kind of 'send a book' pyramid scheme, some I've never gotten around to reading properly since childhood, books by friends... and quite a lot of adventure gamebooks. There will undoubtedly be more of those if I ever get to a second list. Some of the books are big, some are small. Some are stone-cold canonic classics, some are obscure commercial word-candy. A very small proportion of them are re-reads.
I'm now going to blog my attempt to read them - not necessarily in the above order - and I'm going to try my damnedest not to read anything else until I get through them all. Join me if you will.
All.
The.
Time.
You think you get a lot of books recommended to you? More books recommended to you than you can read? Try working in one of the busiest public libraries in London.
I do. And, of course, it's (among) the best job(s) ever. But I don't plough through books any more like I used to, and more and more often, I've found myself saying, "Wow... that sounds great. Yeah, I'm probably not going to read it though. I've got 101 books queued up to read already..."
When I'd said this for around the 101st time, I thought, 'I bet I really do have 101 books stacked up waiting', and, 'I should probably actually read them'.
It doesn't help that I've become a slower and slower reader. I get distracted constantly by social media, the news and games; or just by the never-ending internal nag that I should be getting on with my own writing. It takes me months to get through an average-sized paperback novel these days. This blog will document my attempt to read through the huge list of things I've been telling myself for months, years or - possibly, in a few cases - decades, that 'I must get around to reading'.
Only once I've completed them, and shed the shame I feel for letting them sit unopened on my shelves, may I embark on new books.
I'm going to share the list here in this post, in no particular order. It's going to look random as anything.
1.
2-9. JH Brennan - GrailQuest series
10. Jenny Mitchell - Her Lost Language
11-14. Steve Jackson - Sorcery! series
10. Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
11. Stephen Krensky - The Dragon Circle
12. Christopher Booker - The Seven Basic Plots
13-16 JH Brennan - Demonspawn series
17. Ursula LeGuin - A Wizard of Earthsea
18. Johanna van Fessem - Walking in the Light
19. Hafez - The Nightingales Are Drunk
20. Charles Jane Anders - All The Birds in the Sky
21. WG Galbraith - journeys of i
22. Ian Duncan Smith - Baking Cakes for Winston Churchill
23. Ben Okri - Starbook
24. The Bizarro Starter Kit
25. Ben Marcus - The Age of Wire and String
26. Kelly Link - Magic for Beginners
27. Shaun Tan - The Arrival
28. Tom McCarthy - C
29. Matthew Francis - The Mabinogi
30. Catwoman - A Celebration of 75 Years
31. Iain M Banks - The Algebraist
32. Eleanor Morgan - Anxiety for Beginners
33. Tor Freeman - Welcome to Oddleigh
34. Joff Winterhart - Days of the Bagnold Summer
35. Joff Winterhart - Driving Short Distances
36. Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
37. Ernest Cline - Ready Player One
38. Benjamin Hale - The Education of Bruno Littlemore
39. Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary
40. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds
41. Sarah Wilson - First We Make the Beast Beautiful
42. Charlie Jane Anders - All the Birds in the Sky
43. WG Galbraith - The Boy Who Fell Into Earth's Mouth
44. Frank Herbert - Dune
45. Natasha Lennard - Being Numerous
46. [book about Bastet - title etc tbc]
47-50. JH Brennan - Demonspawn series
51. Thomas Hardy - Under the Greenwood Tree
52. Christopher Moore - Fool
54. Wislawa Szymborska - Poems New and Collected
55. Rebecca Tamas - Witch
56. J.F. Armand - Covenbrooke
57. Iain M Banks - Against a Dark Background
58. Tom Cox - Help the Witch
59. Tom Cox - Ring the Hill
60. Michael Rosen - Alphabetical
61. Lauren Paine - The Hierarchy of Hell
62. Samuel Fisher - The Chamaeleon
63. Alice Oswald - Dart
64. Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Women Who Run With the Wolves
65. Christopher McCabe - Cenotaph South
66. James Shapiro - 1606
67. Paul Huson - The Devil's Dictionary
68. John Logie Baird - Television and Me
69. Mark Frost - Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier
70. Primo Levi - If This is a Man
71. Ovid - Metamorphoses
72. Clive Barker - The Thief of Always
73. Clive Barker - Sacrament
74. Thomas Lynch - Bodies in Motion and at Rest
75. Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions
76. Jeff Noon - A Man of Shadows
77. Jeff Noon - The Body Library
78-82. Alexander Lloyd - The Chronicles of Prydain
83. Alasdair Gray - Every Short Story 1951-2012
84. The Tibetan Book of the Dead
85. The Egyptian Book of the Dead
86. Egon Viola - Beings From the World Beyond
87. Paul Weston - Glastonbury Psychogeography
88. Francesca Lisette - Sub Rosa
89. Tales from the Rooftop - Sandra Tena
90. John Wadsworth - Your Zodiac Soul
91. Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
92. Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None
93. Kurkov - The President's Last Love
94. Steven Price - By Gaslight
95. John Fowles - The Magus
96. Michael Ende - The Neverending Story
97. Iain M Banks - Excession
98. Francis Young - Peterborough Folklore
99. Neil Gaiman - American Gods
100. Richard Hell - Go Now
101. Alasdair Gray - Poor Things
It's a very idiosyncratic list, consisting of some books gifted, loaned or recommended by friends; some borrowed impulsively from the library and then renewed a grotesque number of times without actually opening them, a few that came to me through a kind of 'send a book' pyramid scheme, some I've never gotten around to reading properly since childhood, books by friends... and quite a lot of adventure gamebooks. There will undoubtedly be more of those if I ever get to a second list. Some of the books are big, some are small. Some are stone-cold canonic classics, some are obscure commercial word-candy. A very small proportion of them are re-reads.
I'm now going to blog my attempt to read them - not necessarily in the above order - and I'm going to try my damnedest not to read anything else until I get through them all. Join me if you will.
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