1050 books and nothing to read ...
Nov. 26th, 2004 05:12 pmOkay, it's not quite that bad.
The thing is, from 1996 to 2001, I was buying books faster than I was reading them, resulting in what must, at its height, have been a backlog of well over 200. (By the time I had everything entered in the database, it was down to 170, but the trend had been down for a while before that.) I decided this couldn't go on, and started cutting back on my purchases, with goals of 6 books a month in 2002 and 2003 and 3 in 2004. It worked out at more like 7, 7 and 4, but with a fairly steady consumption of 10 books a month, the backlog is now down to 55.
Next year, I hope to implement a different system: buy three or four books a month, read them while they're fresh (now there's a concept), read another three or four from the backlog, and re-read some of my favourites.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out what 10 books to line up for December, and rather disconcerted by the lack of choice. Of the 55, 25 were bought in the last two years; the other 30 are older than that -- in some cases, a lot older -- and thus both higher priority, if I want to beat this backlog once and for all, and less inviting, because they're old and stale and have been sitting on the shelves for years without ever quite catching my fancy.
( List )
Some of these are 1000+ page tomes, which has tended to hold them back in the 10 books/month regime;
the Melanie Rawn is awaiting (with fading hope) its long-promised sequel. The writing-related books are on the cusp of being reclassified as reference; the Wilbur Smith is only around because the used bookstore wouldn't take it off my hands. Albion, Latro in the Mist and Lays of Beleriand are actually still in the November queue, which discourages me from taking on anything overlong for December.
So:
Booker & Haltom, T.& G. The Lamentations of Jeremiah 1983
Loewen, James W. Lies my Teacher Told Me 1999
Krauss, Lawrence M. The Physics of Star Trek
Gribbin, John Blinded by the Light 1997
Olmstead, Robert Elements of the Writing Craft 1998
Stewart, Mary The Wicked Day 2000
Pargetter, Edith The Heaven Tree Trilogy 2001
Vinge, Vernor True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier 2002
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Shaping of Middle-Earth 2002
Morgan, Ted Wilderness at Dawn 2002
which is much heavier on non-fiction than usual, but should be manageable.
The thing is, from 1996 to 2001, I was buying books faster than I was reading them, resulting in what must, at its height, have been a backlog of well over 200. (By the time I had everything entered in the database, it was down to 170, but the trend had been down for a while before that.) I decided this couldn't go on, and started cutting back on my purchases, with goals of 6 books a month in 2002 and 2003 and 3 in 2004. It worked out at more like 7, 7 and 4, but with a fairly steady consumption of 10 books a month, the backlog is now down to 55.
Next year, I hope to implement a different system: buy three or four books a month, read them while they're fresh (now there's a concept), read another three or four from the backlog, and re-read some of my favourites.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out what 10 books to line up for December, and rather disconcerted by the lack of choice. Of the 55, 25 were bought in the last two years; the other 30 are older than that -- in some cases, a lot older -- and thus both higher priority, if I want to beat this backlog once and for all, and less inviting, because they're old and stale and have been sitting on the shelves for years without ever quite catching my fancy.
( List )
Some of these are 1000+ page tomes, which has tended to hold them back in the 10 books/month regime;
the Melanie Rawn is awaiting (with fading hope) its long-promised sequel. The writing-related books are on the cusp of being reclassified as reference; the Wilbur Smith is only around because the used bookstore wouldn't take it off my hands. Albion, Latro in the Mist and Lays of Beleriand are actually still in the November queue, which discourages me from taking on anything overlong for December.
So:
Booker & Haltom, T.& G. The Lamentations of Jeremiah 1983
Loewen, James W. Lies my Teacher Told Me 1999
Krauss, Lawrence M. The Physics of Star Trek
Gribbin, John Blinded by the Light 1997
Olmstead, Robert Elements of the Writing Craft 1998
Stewart, Mary The Wicked Day 2000
Pargetter, Edith The Heaven Tree Trilogy 2001
Vinge, Vernor True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier 2002
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Shaping of Middle-Earth 2002
Morgan, Ted Wilderness at Dawn 2002
which is much heavier on non-fiction than usual, but should be manageable.
