Tag: books

books, The pile

The status quo

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I’ve girded my loins.  I’ve taken a deep breath. I’ve done some dusting.  Here is a photo of the to-read pile and the library book bag.

To-read pile

It looks bad doesn’t it? I know.  It’s out of control.  And the eagle eyed amongst you may notice that there’s two Jasper Fforde books from the same series on there too (breaking a rule of the to-read pile) and that’s because I spotted The Fourth Bear in a charity shop this morning for a pound and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.  I haven’t worked out an excuse for the Mrs Bradley mystery and the Frances Osborne which I bought in a different charity shop five minutes later.  I’ll get back to you on that.

 

 

 

books, stats, week in books

The Week In Books: April 28 – May 4

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Not the busiest week reading wise – six things finished, a couple more started and still on the go.

Read:

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

I Am Shakespeare (a play) by Mark Rylance

Vivian’s Heavenly Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements

Significant Others by Armistead Maupin

The Three of Us (short story) by Cathy Woodman

Manna from Hades by Carola Dunn

Started:

The Viceroy’s Daughters by Anne de Courcey

Sure of You by Armistead Maupin

Lavender Lady by Carola Dunn

Still reading:

Tales of the Jazz Age by F Scott Fitzgerald

Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

What have I learnt making this list? I have too many books on the go at the moment.  And I’m feeling guilty about the fact that I’m still no further on with Titus Groan, which I started in January… The fact that it’s still lingering is another illustration of the problem with the massive to-read pile actually – if I don’t get into something quickly, there’s always something else I want to read, but because the book has been sitting on my shelf for so long, I think that I can’t give up and say it’s not for me.  Although with Titus I’m only 75 pages in and I usually read at least 100 pages or a quarter of the book before I’m prepared to admit defeat. On the bright side, Vivian’s… and I Am Shakespeare were long standing residents of The Shelf, and Dead Reckoning was from the pile too.

As you’ll see I’m working my way through Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series (expect a post on that at some point) and am nearing the end of the True Blood series – in fact Dead Reckoning was the last I could get for a penny plus postage from Amazon, so I was expecting to have to wait to finish the series and then I found the last two in the library on Thursday!

As for the others, Cathy Woodman is one of the authors on the list of people I automatically buy new stuff from so I picked up her short story soon after it came out, Manna from Hades has been on the Kindle a while but I’d forgotten about it (oops) until I picked up the next two in the series in The Works this week so I bumped it to the top of the pile.

My aim for this week?  To reduce the number of things on the go…

books

The Rules of the To-Read Pile

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I know, I know.  Considering that the pile is so outlandishly large, the idea that it has rules seems ludicrous.  But it does – although they are few and somewhat flexible.

The principle rule is No more than one book per author on the pile: I’ll admit this does get broken frequently (although I’m getting better at keeping to it) and for two main reasons – firstly when The Works have lots of books by the same author in one of their offers and secondly when an author writes more than one series – for example Charlaine Harris currently has three books on the pile – two Aurora Teagardens (from The Works) and one Harper Connelly (the last two Sookie Stackhouses are in the library book bag – different rules apply to library books).

The second is Don’t buy hardbacks.  I’ll admit that this rule does mean I end up behind the curve on some authors. But its born from experience – I just don’t get around to reading hardbacks – they’re big, they’re heavy and they won’t fit in my handbag. They end up sitting on the shelf for months and months even when they’re something I’m really keen to read.  I am sometimes given hardbacks, but I don’t usually put books that are only out in hardback on my gift lists. Most books come out in paperback in the end – and the few that don’t are usually books that I can buy for borrow from my mum.

The third is Don’t buy series out of sequence. This is because they end up sitting on the pile for ages waiting for me to buy/borrow the books leading up to it because I hate reading series in the wrong order in case I spoil a major plot point (it’s happened before I don’t want it to happen again).

Most of the sins of my to-read pile can be put under one of those headings.  As I’ve said before, I’m terrible for discovering a series and then reading it through from start to finish (as I’m doing at the moment with the Tales of the City series) but the rules mean I usually only buy one book in the series at a time – although there are exceptions – like when I’m trying to get over a free delivery threshold – or those Works multi-buys again.

books, stats

April Stats

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On Good Reads to-reads shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 387

New books* read in April: 20

Books from the Library Book pile: 3

Books from the to-read pile: 9

E-books: 3

Books read as soon as they arrived: 6

Most read author in April: Armistead Maupin (Three books in the Tales of the City series)

Books* read this year: 72

Books bought: 14

Net progress: 1 less book on the to-read pile…

April saw the end of the Lent Book Buying ban, so I can’t take too much credit for the progress down the pending pile, but I’ll try not to buy more than I read in May as well!

 

* Total includes some short stories (1 in fact in April – Trisha Ashley’s Finding Mr Rochester)