Unread Books

Ein Steckerl from Languagehat. I'd be tempted to fork this into two lists, actually: books I've bought and not read, and books I have begun to read and (for various reasons) neglected to finish.

The former:

• AA Gill is away. A.A. Gill is one of my favourite craftsmen of the English language; I bought this after having seen it at work (in a bookshop) before, and sometime I shall actually feel like reading it.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I bought this over a year ago, and it's graced my shelves since then. Pulitzer Prize-winning and epic in scope, I really would like to get around to this someday.
• Howards End.

The latter:

• Collected Stories, Saul Bellow. I bought this solely on the strength of its introduction, written by his widow, as I recall. It is the kind of writing that is so precise and delicate that I was unable to stop reading. The actual stories seem mostly to be tales about poor Jews, so I was less compelled. I'll give it another try sometime.
• Gödel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter. I think I simply ran out of time to finish this one; read properly it is hard going. Next time I have it with me I'll get back to it.

A lot of my books are still in England, so I've doubtless forgotten many. It's nice to catalogue, though — I use LibraryThing for that very purpose.

Posted at 2006-09-13 21:16:08 by Richard • Link to Unread Books