Read the books I have before buying new ones

I’ve just finished Alan Warner’s The Man Who Walks. It was another 10p pick up from the library book sale, which I chose because I had loved Morvern Callar. I found The Man Who Walks funny, at times captivating, often disturbing.

Still haven’t finished Young Stalin or made any progress on my TBR list. I hope I haven’t aimed too high with my choices for TBR, I thought it would be a good way to motivate me to read more, but when I looked at the list before my holiday nothing took my fancy.

I haven’t bought any new books for some time – so there is some progress. I’ve been making the effort to get books from the library for the poetry and book groups I am in.

Part of the reason behind this goal is to reduce the clutter I feel I’m surrounded by. I want to read the books I have – keep the ones I love and pass on the ones I am not attached to. The other reason is that I feel like a bit of a fraud – I buy books and say I like reading but never get round to doing it.

. . . and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not sure what to tackle next from my TBR list. I think I’ll finish Young Stalin first.

I started with an easy read from my TBR list Taichi Yamada’s Strangers. The blurb describes it as a, “thinking man’s ghost story”. Well, it didn’t engage this thinking woman. Perhaps I’m just not suited to ghost stories though – it’s not a genre I go for, I tend to find them silly. I was probably only attracted to the book because it was Japanese and was being sold off for 20p at the library. Mostly I enjoyed the style, though in places I found the Americanisms, particularly the dialogue, jarring and unconvincing – I think the translation may be to blame for that.
My next read is going to be Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip – not on the TBR list. And I still have the Stalin book to finish . . .

• War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
• War and Peace: Contemporary Russian Prose (Glas)
• Snow Orhan Pamuk
• The Man Who Walks Alan Warner
• The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
• Ronja Raubertochter Astrid Lindgren
• Strangers Taichi Yamada
• Radetzkymarsch Joseph Roth
• Das Parfum Patrick Süskind
• Bordeland Anna Reid
• The Black Sea Neal Ascherson
• Notes from the Underground F.M. Dostoevsky

I can also make a list of twelve ‘alternates” – I haven’t decided on them yet. I think War & Peace is a bit ambitious with the way my reading is right now, but I bought it in a new translation a year or two ago and do want to read it, so I am aiming high.
I’ve made a start on Strangers, which I picked up in a book sale at the library last year.

I’m about two thirds of the way through Young Stalin, but haven’t actually read anything for a couple of weeks. This is always my problem. It’s not that I had stopped enjoying the book, it’s just that for some reason don’t read for a few days and then the momentum has gone.
In an attempt to focus on this goal I’m thinking of doing the TBR Challenge 2008. The idea is that you list 12 books that are “to be read”, that is they are books you have been intending to read but have not got round to. Obviously, it’s already July and the challenge started on 1 January, but I think I will still aim to read 12 books by 31 December. Now I just need to come up with the list and start reading.

. . . I still can’t stop myself buying books. I’ve been trying to use the library for the poetry reading group I go to – but they don’t always have the books.
I ended up buying Young Stalin in the supermarket the other day. At least I am reading it – it’s fascinating.

. . .one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. (Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena)

I came across this quotation the other day, and it struck me as fitting.

Anyhow, after a slow start to the year there has finally been some progress. I read Budapest by Chico Buarque last month, which I enjoyed, but it didn’t quite live up to it’s promise for me. And I’ve just finished The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Pelevin, which I loved.
The problem is they were both new books, not books off my shelf!

I went on a train journey this weekend and thought that would be a good opportunity to get through most of “Snow”, but I felt too tired to read. I’m not going to get it finished by the end of January – feel a little down about that.

I bought yet another book on Friday, even though it was a New Year’s resolution not to. I’ve got so many at home that I haven’t read, and I wonder when I’m ever going to find the time and energy to read them. I think this issue represents the gap between the person I am and the person I want to be.
I’m reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow at the moment. I started it well before Christmas but am still only on page 81. Which is silly, as I’m enjoying it. I’m giving myself a target of the end of January to finish it.