Five books that I have owned forever but have never gotten around to reading. Those volumes that lurk upon my shelves, squinting down at me with their beady little words, shaming my guilty conscience with my procrastinating ways.
#1 – The complete set of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles
I bought this set ages ago because I fell in love with his great-granddaughter’s work, Joanna Trollope. I have absolutely no excuse for not having dived in to read these…
#2 – Diet & Self-Help Books
Well, I hate to cook or pay attention to food, so all those diet books that blather on and on about weighing this and tracking that just do not appeal. It’s too much work. I don’t want to be bothered…especially when I have all these luscious books to read and kittens to play with.
As for the self-help books… Such books are primarily about commonsense or they rattle along about some odd metaphysical, abstracted reasoning. And I’d rather be reading something fun. Self-help is just NOT fun.
#3 – The Bible
A religious friend thought that I should have my own bible. While I appreciate the thought and I do mean to get round to it one day, I mostly see the bible as one of the primary weapons of destruction used by idiots and fools.
Don’t get me wrong. One of my childhood books was a child’s Stories from the Bible. I read this over and over, and it’s those stories that I have retained as an adult. The history classes I took for my minor also discussed religion and its effect on the world. Then there’s Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. An absolutely fascinating read with a scholarly look at the truth behind the bible’s compilation.
#4 – Diana Gabaldon’s An Echo in the Bone
I absolutely adore Gabaldon’s Outlander series. The combination of history, science fiction, magic, and that can-do/make-do attitude that I adore makes this a buy for me.
And yet, you may well ask why I haven’t read this one yet…
The truth is…I read too fast. Once I’ve read it, it’s done. When this story came out, there was speculation that this story ended the Outlander series and I was terrified. If I actually started reading this, I would finish the series and…and…then what? What would I do? How could I cope??
Now, I know there are two more stories coming and I just haven’t had the time to sit back and wallow in it. Books are constantly coming and going. Books that I don’t own, books that need editing, and my guilty conscience simply insists that I read and edit these first.
Maybe this coming Christmas…?
#5 – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye
I have several novels actually by Larry Niven because I kept hearing what a great writer he is. My only excuse is, well, that I just haven’t got round to it yet. I adore science fiction and I know I have read some Niven and enjoyed it, so what my problem is…I have no idea.