TBR Pile Challenge 2018!

Every so often, I drift away from blogging -- sometimes it just ends up feeling like homework. And yet inevitably, something is so irresistible I'm drawn back in -- sometimes it's a book I'm just dying to share, or a challenge that sounds like too much fun to miss -- like Adam's TBR Pile Challenge, which has been on hiatus for two years. How can I possibly resist? It's nearly impossible -- especially since my owned-and-unread shelves are pretty much filled to bursting.

I moved overseas a year and a half ago and nearly all the books I brought I hadn't read, so in theory, the owned-and-unred list should be shrinking, right? Sadly, it is not. Curse the wonderfully efficient military library system and all the digital downloads! I'm getting close to my goal of 100 books completed for 2017, and yet less than ONE THIRD are from my own shelves!

So, I hope that this list of twelve books from my own TBR shelves (plus two alternates) will be completed during the 2018 calendar year. This time I want to read all women authors. Most of these books are from my Persephone and Virago shelves. 

Photo courtesy of my daughter, who has a fancy camera and knows how to use it.

In alphabetical order, by author:

1. Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim. Bought last year when I was on an EVA binge. Completed 1/10/18.

2. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. I've been meaning to read it since 2014, when it began showing up on WWI reading lists. Completed 7/6/18.

3. Lucy Gayheart by Willa Cather. I only have two unread works by Cather on the shelves. I chose this one over Alexander's Bridge, and I hope I made the right choice. Completed 3/24/18.

4. Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary by Ruby Ferguson. Probably the Persephone I've had unread the longest. Completed 2/6/18.

5. The Willow Cabin by Pamela Frankau. A discovery at Half-Price books in Austin, TX, which had quite a few green Viragos. Completed 4/15/18.

6. The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard. Bought on a trip to London last year. I loved her Cazalet Chronicles and I've heard this one isn't quite as good, but I'm optimistic. Completed 8/15/18.

7. Heat Lightning by Helen Hull. A Persephone book by an American author. I don't know much about it other than it's set in Michigan which is my home state. Completed 6/3/18.

8. The Lacquer Lady by F. Tennyson Jesse. Another Virago find from Half-Price Books. I think I bought it the same time as The Willow Cabin. Completed 5/21/18.

9. London War Notes, 1939-1945 by Mollie Panter-Downes. Another Persephone, I was excited to buy this since I loved her short stories. Simon from Stuck in a Book raved about this and it was out of print for years (and very expensive) before Persephone reprinted it a couple of years ago. It's a collection of essays written for the New Yorker during the war. Completed 7/28/18.

10. The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter. I'm a little intimidated by this one because it's very long -- also, I tried to read Porter's Ship of Fools last year and really disliked the characters. I think I paid $1 for it at the library sale so hopefully it won't end up on the to-be-donated pile.

11. Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas by Edith Wharton. I love Wharton and always keep an eye out for her books in the secondhand shops. I've owned this one for years and never gotten around to it. This one includes Bunner Sisters which I've heard is excellent. Completed 3/3/18.

12. Miss Mole by E. H. Young. One of the very first books published by the Virago imprint. I know many people love it and I've had a copy for years and I just keep putting it off. Completed 2/11/18.

Alternates:

Photo also taken by DaughterTM

Fenny by Lettice Cooper. Bought last year after reading and loving National Provincial for the 1938 Club.

Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby. I bought nearly all her novels after reading South Riding. I think this is the last one I haven't read yet. Completed 9/21/18.

So -- some great women authors that I love, and some that I haven't read yet. Some novellas, short stories, and two non-fiction books. After looking at the pile, I realize that many of these books are near (or surpassing) the 500 page mark. I measured and it's thirteen inches high. Well, I don't mind lengthy books, as long as I'm enjoying it. Bloggers, have you read read anything on my list? Good choices or bad? And are you participating in the TBR Pile Challenge?

Read My Own Damn Books Challenge

Like many bloggers, I'm constantly reminded that I have far, far too many unread books on my shelves which are perpetually ignored in favor of my newest discovery (usually found on someone else's blog). Working at the library made temptation even worse -- but last year, I scraped by and just made my goal of reading at least 50% of my own books. Of 101 books read last year, 53 were from my own shelves.

This year, I'm off to a bad start. I finished only six books, and only one was from my own shelves! In my defense, two were audiobooks; one was for my book group; one was an inter-library loan; and one was part of the 12-novel Poldark series, and I have no intention of buying all of them!

And somehow, no matter what, the number of unread books on my shelves always hovers around 170. Part of it is because I just keep finding books that I never added to my Goodreads list; part is that people give me books; but mostly (hanging my head in shame) I'm just a girl who can't say no, and I keep buying more. However, I'm really going to try and stop buying books this year.  I only received three books for Christmas, and one was a cookbook and the other about historical fashion, so, not so much novels. I also need to stop putting more books on my hold list at the library.

According to my Goodreads list, I currently have 165 books on my owned-and-unread shelf. I'd really like to cut this down to 100 or less by the end of the year. To achieve this goal, I'm doing the following:

• Signing up for the Read My Own Damn Books Challenge hosted by Estella's Revenge. 

• Challenging myself to stop buying books for at least three months -- new and used 

• Checking out books from the library, with the following exceptions:

1. Books for my book group;
2. Books from my Classics Club list (there are only four which I don't already own) 
3. Books for the Back to the Classics Challenge, and only if I don't own anything that fits the category;
4. Books already on hold for me, which includes inter-library loans;
5. Audiobooks, since most of my unread books aren't available on audio (I'm also hoping to most of my book group selections on audio if possible)

Does this sound too hard? Am I being too strict? And is anyone else struggling with the never-ending owned-and-unread mountain of books? I'll post an update at the end of February!

#15in31: Reading Challenge October 2015

Allie at A Literary Odyssey posted an interesting challenge for which she'd signed up: to read 15 books in 31 days! In September, I had a stellar reading month, completing 14 books (though to be fair, I'd actually started Wilkie Collins' No Name in August; However, it's a really long book, so I'm counting it anyway.) I'm pretty sure I could get close to 15 books in October if I try. I have some airplane travel coming up, plus a lot of books left on the TBR shelves I'd like to complete. Even if I don't finish the challenge, I'll have made some progress -- I'd love to knock at least 10 books off my owned-and-unread list!

I tried to choose as many as possible from my own shelves. There's no way I'll be able to blog about every single book I read in October, but here are my potential reads:

Must-reads:

Tea by the Nursery Fire by Noel Streatfeild. I'm on an online group and it's part of a bi-monthly book exchange -- I need to read it and send it off to the next person by November 1. It looks like a charming memoir, just my type of book.

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell -- I've already started this one, which was randomly selected as Classics Club Spin Pick #10. I'll hopefully be posting a review on October 23. Might be a slow read, because everyone speaks in dialect, but it's pretty good so far.

Letters From Hawaii by Mark Twain. One of the last books for my TBR Pile Challenge 2015.

The Black Moon by Winston Graham -- the fifth book in the Poldark series. My library only owns one copy and there are holds on it, so I have to read it in the next week or so.

The Four Swans by Winston Graham (not pictured, as it's waiting on the hold shelf for me at the library). Again, only one copy, and holds on it. I'm trying to stretch them out, but I don't want to miss my turn to read it.

Potential books, in no particular order (and a few extras, just in case):

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite by Anthony Trollope. I haven't read any Trollope in months, and I'm starting to miss him. This one is super short, and I've always found the title amusing.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. One of the shortest books on my Classics Club list. I've tried to read it twice but couldn't get into it. Again, time to read it, or give it away.

Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark -- another library sale find, a novella.

Tea with Mr. Rochester -- I have to include at least one Persephone from the TBR shelves! Short stories are always a good choice, and it's a tiny slim volume.

Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather. One of her early works, and it's been on my TBR shelf since I bought it at the Borders clearance. Plus it's really short.

The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge. Purchased about eight years ago after I saw it on a list of the best English-language books of all time. I need to read it, or get rid of it.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. I'm down to 14 more books on my Classics Club list, and this fits in nicely with RIP X.

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer. I have a weakness for NYRB Classics. Plus, it has "pumpkin" in the title, and it's October, so that's as good an excuse as any, right?

The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns. From my pile of Virago Modern Classics. I just read Our Spoons Came From Woolworth's and loved it, so I want to read more books by Comyns.

The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen by Lindsay Ashford. I don't read a lot of Jane Austen fan fiction, but the author was a speaker at the Jane Austen AGM a couple of years ago, and it sounded interesting. Also a good choice for RIP X.

An Academic Question by Barbara Pym. Pym's never disappointed me! I haven't read any of her books in over a year, so it's high time for another.

Ha'penny by Jo Walton. Sequel to Farthing which I read last week, and loved.

Still Glides the Stream by D. E. Stevenson. In case I need a quick, easy read. Stevenson's books are fun, light mid-century fiction. I picked this one up at the library sale a few years ago for $1.

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I finally got around to reading The Secret History and tore through it, so I should have no trouble finishing this one, if I don't decide to put it off for a few months -- it's the only one of her books I haven't read, and it'll probably be another eight years until she publishes another, so I might want to stretch it out a little.

So -- any recommendations?  Which books should I push to the top of the pile? I highly doubt I'll get all these finished, but it sounds like a fun challenge! Sign up at Estella's Revenge if you're interested. I'll be sure and post about how it turned out, and which books I actually finished.

Top Ten: I HAD to Have Them

(Okay, it's not Tuesday, but I just posted, so this will have to wait a day or so.)  First, I have to thank The Broke and The Bookish for this meme -- haven't done many memes lately but this one made me laugh. . . especially when I looked back on my postings and I did this list back in 2011!!  And I've only read three books from the first list, one of which I tried and abandoned.

Well, to keep things fresh, here are another ten books I absolutely had to own . . . and still haven't read:

1.  The Love Child by Edith Olivier.  Read about this after many rave reviews, especially by Simon at Stuck in a Book.  Ordered this and had it shipped from England -- from England, I tell you!!!  Still haven't read it, more than two years later.

2.  One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde.  I was terribly disappointed to miss Jasper Fforde at a book signing up in Austin, a mere 80 miles away -- I didn't hear about it until later the same night, and I'd never have made it in time.  I was consoled by one of the signed copies he left behind at BookPeople, the best independent bookstore in Texas -- maybe the whole world!  And yet it is still unread.

3.  The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer.  In December of 2011, my library's Jane Austen book group had a Georgette Heyer discussion -- we didn't have enough copies of any single book, so everyone chose a different book and gave a booktalk.  I read The Grand Sophy and absolutely loved it, and promptly read two more Heyer books in quick succession.  Then I went out and bought The Unknown Ajax, and haven't read any Heyer since.

4.  Millions Like Us:  Women's Lives During the Second World War by Virginia Nicholson.  Another book purchased from the UK after reading rave reviews on the blogosphere.  I love reading about the War at Home, but I still haven't picked this one up.  I'm currently obsessed with nonfiction so maybe I'll be inspired to read this one soon.

5.  To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace.  I didn't so much buy this one as hand it to my husband in a bookshop (not long after the first season of Downton Abbey) and strongly suggest he purchase it for my upcoming birthday.  (I'm not very subtle about birthday gifts.)  That was two years ago.

6.  A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor.  See #5.  Same trip to the bookstore, same birthday.   I haven't read this one either!!!

7.  Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham.  Not long after reading The Painted Veil (and loving the film adaptation) I drove over to Barnes & Noble one night and couldn't decide if I should buy Theatre or A Christmas Holiday.  So I bought both -- about four years ago!!  I did read A Christmas Holiday and was underwhelmed.  I have higher hopes for Theatre.

8.  The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West.  Bought last year after watching the second season of Downton Abbey.  (Do we see a pattern here?)  This is actually the second copy, the first copy was all warped and I sent it back to Amazon in a fit of pique.

9.  The New York Stories of Edith Wharton.  A lovely NYRB books edition, bought before the Borders liquidation, but I'm sure I bought it at a discount with one of the multitudes of coupons they were forever giving me.  I don't think I ever paid full price for anything at Borders, ever, and I'm sure their demise is partly my fault.  I've put this one on my TBR Pile Challenge list for 2013, as an alternate, so I'm determined to finish it this year.

10.  The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell.  Purchased back in 2006 after I read Love in a Cold Climate (ironically, I was living in Florida at the time.)  I read Don't Tell Alfred as one of the alternates on my 2012 TBR Pile Challenge, so I'd really like to read this one soon.

I still have almost 200 books unread on my shelves.  Still, half the books I read last year came from my own shelves, which is not bad considering I work in the library and am faced with literary temptation more than 40 hours a week.  At least I don't work in a bookstore!

And what about you, bloggers?  Any books on those shelves you couldn't resist. . . and still haven't read?

Perfume From Provence by Lady Winifred Fortescue

I am both proud and and embarrassed to have finally finished this book, which is actually quite ridiculous, since it is a both charming and delightful book, a lovely memoir written in the 1930s by an Englishwoman who moved to Provence.  It's not a long book, nor a difficult one.   I am proud because it is one of the books that has sat unread on my TBR shelves for the longest, and I am embarrassed because I purchased this book more than twelve years ago!  To the best of my recollection, I purchased it in 1998 during my first visit to Epcot in Disneyworld, at the French pavilion.  (Yes, they sell books at Disneyworld that are unrelated to cartoon characters -- I have bought quite a few.  Most of them are still unread also, le sigh.)

Before I digress any further with my rant about owned-and-unread books, I should probably actually write something about this book.  There isn't that much to say, really, except that it is a lovely memoir by Lady Winifred Fortescue.  Having lost lots of money in the late 1920s (who didn't?) she and her husband (known only as Monsieur in the book) have moved to Provence where they purchased a small cottage and renovated it.  It isn't really mentioned in the book, but her husband is Sir John Fortescue, who was the King's Librarian and Archivist (King George V), and historian for the British Army.

The book is short, only about 250 pages with illustrations, and contains nine themed chapters about different aspects of life in the country, i.e., building, gardening, harvesting, driving, etc., in which she tells little stories about how charming it is.  Sometimes she's a little condescending about peasants and working-class people, but she was an upper-class British lady in the 1930s, so I guess it's to be expected.

However, Lady Winifred really does seem to love all the people in Provence, and admire them.  It seems like most of the French people were extremely friendly and hardworking, and there are many incidents in the book where complete strangers would go out of their way to help her -- in one extreme case, three truck drivers stopped to help her get her car back on a winding mountain road in the middle of a downpour -- basically, these men built a wall of boulders under her car to prop it up so it wouldn't fall down the side of a mountain!!  And they didn't want to take money for it!  (Of course she does insist on paying them and later contacts their employer and says how wonderful they were, etc.)

It does sound like a very different way of life, just in the way people do business, the pace of life, and so on, but it sounds wonderful.  According to the introduction by Patricia Wells (written in 1993), things still hadn't changed much by the end of the century.  It makes me want to visit Provence more than ever. Apparently Lady Winifred lived in Provence until WWII, and returned after the end of the war.  She published several more books which appear to be out of print, though it seems there are plenty of used copies available.

It's just so silly that I took so long to read this book, and that I have probably packed it up and moved it FIVE times.  Does this happen to everyone?  Bloggers, what is the longest you have kept a book unread on your shelves?  And was it worth it?  I have other books I've kept for years that were disappointing when I finally read them -- at least I enjoyed this when I finally got around to it.  In this case, I'm a little angry that I waited so long to read it because I did like it.  I've had other books that just made me annoyed that I'd been schlepping them around for so long, allowing them to take up valuable space when they weren't even that good!

And I seriously think I've bought more books in the past few weeks than I would have bought if I hadn't signed up for the TBR Dare, during which I tried not to buy books for three whole months.  Maybe I should take a hint from Simon at Stuck in a Book, who challenged himself last year to buy no more than 24 books the entire year.  Does that count for birthdays and Christmas and Paperback Swap??  That's dangerous too, since I either get rid of books I know I'll never read (or books I've finished and didn't love enough to keep) and replace them with even more books I want to read!  It's a vicious cycle, isn't it?

Owned But Unread Project

One of my goals for 2011 is to significantly reduce the amount of owned-but-unread books that I have piled up.  I was sorting through the bookshelves the other day and I counted 168 175!  And of course, this does not include any of the books I'm hoping to receive for Christmas . . . or use any Christmas money or gift cards to acquire.  And of course this means I have to have every single one of my unread library books finished before January 1.  All of them. No exceptions!

What's really sad is that I've been schlepping a stack of these from house to house for years. Just for fun, I decided to sort them into piles based on how long ago I'd acquired them.  This wasn't as hard as you'd think -- since I've moved six times in the past 15 years, I just had to remember where I was living when I'd gotten each book.  It's pretty sad -- I have about 20 books I've owned for almost 10 years, some of them even longer.  If I haven't read them by the end of the year, I'm donating them to the Friends of the Library sale.  Period.

So I've decided to make this my project for 2011:  to read as many of these owned-but-unread books as possible.  I'm not signing up for any challenges, though I did sign up for the TBR Dare, which will help me achieve this goal.  With more than 150 books on my TBR shelves, I'd have plenty to read if I didn't acquire a single new book for the entire year, either through purchase or library loot.  But realisticallyI know there's no way this is going to happen -- between my three face-to-face book groups, plus volunteering at my library branch twice a week, I can't swear not to read anything that's not on the TBR pile.

Here are my rules:

• At least every other book I read MUST be from my own shelves;
• No new book purchases for three months, starting January 1;
• Christmas gifts and books purchased before January 1 with Christmas gift cards or money are OK;
• Books already ordered but not received by January 1 are also OK;
• I don't have to finish every single book; if I read at least 75 pages and I'm still not interested, I can give it away.

Now, if something miraculous happens, and I actually get a library job, I'm allowed to start reading additional books if they are work-related.  The library is theoretically hiring librarians next year, so I can only hope.

For those of you who are curious, I am compiling a list of all my owned-but-unread books and will post it as a page with a tab at the top of my blog when it's complete.  It'll take a while.  I'm going to try and tackle the oldest books first.  Here's the list of the books I've owned longest.  Any recommendations from the list would be greatly appreciated -- and that includes recommendations to give them away.

The oldest books -- owned since 2002 or earlier:

• Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles: Letters from Helen Evans Brown by James Beard
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Berniers
• My Misspent Youth: Essays by Meghan Dowd
• Perfume from Provence by Lady Winifred Fortescue
• Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen
• A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
• Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Collected Novellas by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover by Jancis Robinson
• Giants in the Earth by A. E. Rolvaag

Books from 2003-2005 (when we lived in Japan):

• Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
• Geography by Sophie Cunningham
• A Treasury of Royal Scandals by Michael Farquhar
• The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong by Edward A. Gargan
• Murder on the Menu edited by Peter Haining
• A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
• Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
• A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
• The Bromeliad Trilogy by Terry Pratchett
• Nectar by Lily Prior
• Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojurn in Kyoto by Victoria Abbott Riccardi
• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

So, book bloggers, which should be read first?  Which should be donated to the library sale?  And, confess, how long have some of your books been hanging around on the to-read shelves unread?  And which ones?