Taking Stock: Reading Pile Issues

[Tjol]

unread books happen....

because the mind often wants to be tickled one way, and then another; at the same time one's attitude can change towards what they want to get from the time spent reading.

My unread stack is under ten though, I caught myself early in the process, and for the most part don't buy any new fiction if I have more than two fiction left to read, no classics if I have more than two classics left to read, and no non-fiction, if I have two or more left to read. The exception being, if I've just finished a book, and I will read the new one upon purchase. ^^
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"Humanity indisputably progresses, but neither uniformly nor everywhere"--Regine Pernoud

You work while you can, because who knows how long you can. Even if it's exhausting work for less pay. All it takes is the 'benevolence' of an incompetant politician or bureaucrat to leave you without work to do and no paycheck to collect. --Tjol

[Avatar]

Love Enders Game and the Illuminatus! trilogy. Good reads. Of course, I love Dune too...

--A
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Don't believe everything you think.

[gyrehead]

Boy do I feel decadent. At the risk of enraging the bookless masses and having them storm the gates of my castle -- right now my piles of unread books that I have been anal enough to track and list has passed 327 as of today. About thirty are ARCs for this year and the rest are a mix of fantasy, sci fi and contemporary fiction with some "classics" thrown in on the side. I couldn't say what the non-fiction piles count up to. Particularly the teetering stack I managed to find at great prices on Republican Rome a few weeks ago at an estate sale.

Yeah I have a problem. Whatchaya gonna do about it?

[Encryptic]

Don't have much, actually. The pile would be bigger, but I've plowed through a massive pile of books I was sent to review over the last few months.

Hal Duncan - Vellum. Actually got about 100 pages into this and put it down to come back to later. Tough to follow - but Duncan's a good writer with some interesting ideas, so I'll give Vellum a fair shot.

Mary Gentle - The White Crow omnibus and A Sundial In A Grave: 1610. I've read two of the White Crow books and enjoyed them, but the local libraries don't have all of Gentle's work, so Amazon has been my friend in that regard.

Paul Park - The White Tyger. I was actually sent this to review, but I'm waiting on this till I can get a hold of the first two books in the series, which I haven't read...

Edit: I should also add M. John Harrison's Things That Never Happen. Started reading this but damn if it isn't dense, even in comparison to the Viriconium stories. I'll probably tackle this one again after I finish the book I'm currently reading.

[Avatar]

Hey Encryptic. Where have you been?

--A
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Don't believe everything you think.

[balon!]

Crap, I know just what your talking about Murrin.

I have a book shelf in my room devoted to books "waiting to be read." God only knows when I'll actually get around to all of them, makes me feel sad sometimes. Almost like a shelf of the classic shivering orphans looking through a window.
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[Encryptic]

[Avatar]

Bah, two / three little hacks in two years? Nothing to it.

Nice to see you back.

--A
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Don't believe everything you think.

[variol son]

My reading pile contains only three books at present; Wicked, The Man Who Fought Alone, and The science of Discworld. All three are started and all three sit unfinished on my dresser.

Hmmm.
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You do not hear, and so you cannot be redeemed.

In the name of their ancient pride and humiliation, they had made commitments with no possible outcome except bereavement.

He knew only that they had never striven to reject the boundaries of themselves.

[Wyldewode]

Umm.. . I have literally dozens of unread books in my pile. I have to restrain myself from buying too many books since I no longer have the kind of time I'd like to read. For me, it's work, sleep, and either interact with human beings or read. I usually choose the interaction. Sometimes I wonder about my choice, since my reading stack grows and grows.
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[Brinn]

My unread pile is also manageable. I am currently reading "DragonWing", book 1 from Weis and Hickman's Deathgate Cycle. It hasn't gripped me but I'm sure I'll read the other five books at some point. I also have VanderMeer's "Veniss Underground", Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others", and Pressfield's newest "The Afghan Campaign". I think I'm going to move on to one of those before getting into the second Deathgate book. Any recommendations as to what I should read next?
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill

[Encryptic]

[I'm Murrin]

Six months since I posted this topic, time for an update. My current to-read pile looks like this:

# Elric of Melniboné (The Eternal Champion Vol ~ Michael Moorcock
# Orlando ~ Virginia Woolf
# Fictions ~ Jorge Luis Borges
# Never Let Me Go ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
# Wind-Up Bird Chronicle ~ Haruki Murakami
# The Night Watch ~ Sergei Lukyanenko
# The Elephant Vanishes ~ Haruki Murakami
# Birthday Stories ~ Ed. Haruki Murakami
# The Epic of Gilgamesh
# Stranger Things Happen ~ Kelly Link
# The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque ~ Jeffrey Ford
# Temeraire ~ Naomi Novik
# Only Revolutions ~ Mark Z. Danielewski
# Fury ~ Salman Rushdie
# The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ~ Michael Chabon
# Old Man’s War ~ John Scalzi
# The Jewels of Aptor ~ Samuel R Delany
# The Chains That You Refuse ~ Elizabeth Bear
# The Bloody Chamber ~ Angela Carter
# The Ladies of Grace Adieu ~ Susanna Clarke
# The Iliad ~ Homer, trans. Robert Fagles
# The Odyssey ~ Homer, trans. Robert Fagles
# The Divine Comedy ~ Dante Alighieri
# Kafka on the Shore ~ Haruki Murakami
# Air ~ Geoff Ryman
# Trial of Flowers ~ Jay Lake
# Nova Swing ~ M John Harrison
# The Troika ~ Stepan Chapman
# Pale Fire ~ Vladimir Nabokov
# Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West ~ Cormac McCarthy
# Little, Big ~ John Crowley
# Learning the World ~ Ken MacLeod
# The Empire of Ice Cream ~ Jefrey Ford
# Secret Life: the Select Fire Remix ~ Jeff VanderMeer
# The Android’s Dream ~ John Scalzi
# Hammered ~ Elizabeth Bear
# Scardown ~ Elizabeth Bear
# Worldwired ~ Elizabeth Bear
# The Master and Margarita ~ Mikhail Bulgakov
# River of Gods ~ Ian McDonald
# Volapük ~ Andrew Drummond
# Lanark - A Life in Four Books ~Alasdair Gray
# The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
# The Modern World ~ Steph Swainston
# Dune ~ Frank Herbert
# The Time Machine ~ H G Wells
# The Lies of Locke Lamora ~ Scott Lynch
# Carnival ~ Elizabeth Bear

That makes 48 books. Back in February the list was 43, so it's getting worse, not better. Looking at the specifics, 13 books on this list were not on the list in February, and there are others that have been bought and read within these months. That means there are still 35 books that I had not read in February and still haven't read; and only 8 books that have left the list in this time. Two of those I'm still currently reading.
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Mod of the General Fantasy/Sci-Fi Forum, home of the Kevin's Watch Book Club.

Heart of God

[duke]

Hi Murrin, just a little suggestion, read Gatsby next! Its as close to flawless as a novel can get.

# The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

My to be read pile is now over 200. I'm going to have to do some serious work to get it down from that great height.

[aliantha]

Wow, you guys. My pile right now consists of two new books and two books I've already read. The already-read pile is the most recent two books in the Malazan series. I'm re-reading the whole thing since I missed so much the first time through. I'm currently on Midnight Tides.

The new books, which I found at a used bookstore about a week ago:

Finn MacCool by Morgan Llewellyn
The White Goddess by Robert Graves

Clearly I'm on a myth-and-folklore kick right now. I'm debating whether to take a hiatus from Erikson and tackle one or another of the books I've just got...but I'm afraid I'll forget a bunch of stuff again.

Murrin, I can heartily recommend "Never Let Me Go". Ishiguro is one of a handful of writers who's considered a literary author, even when he writes speculative fiction. (Italo Calvino is another. Never mind the magic realists like Garcia Marquez...) That's what I want to be when I grow up: a writer of speculative fiction who's taken seriously.

Oh! I meant to explain how I keep my pile so small: I mostly check books out of the library. After three weeks, they have to go back, whether I've read 'em or not.
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EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com/

[Avatar]

I've never read Finn MacCool, but Morgan Llewellyn is a brilliant writer. I thoroughly recommend Bard, Druids, and The Horse Goddess by her.

--A
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Don't believe everything you think.

[aliantha]

Yup, I've read Bard and Druids. I'll have to look for The Horse Goddess. Thanks, Av!
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EZ Board Survivor

"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)

http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com/

[I'm Murrin]

Another six months gone, time for another evaluation. I seem to be reading less and less lately.

Here's how things stand:

# Elric of Melniboné (The Eternal Champion Vol ~ Michael Moorcock
# Orlando ~ Virginia Woolf
# Fictions ~ Jorge Luis Borges
# Wind-Up Bird Chronicle ~ Haruki Murakami
# The Night Watch ~ Sergei Lukyanenko
# The Elephant Vanishes ~ Haruki Murakami
# Birthday Stories ~ Ed. Haruki Murakami
# The Epic of Gilgamesh
# Stranger Things Happen ~ Kelly Link
# The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque ~ Jeffrey Ford
# Temeraire ~ Naomi Novik
# Only Revolutions ~ Mark Z. Danielewski
# Fury ~ Salman Rushdie
# The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ~ Michael Chabon
# Old Man’s War ~ John Scalzi
# The Jewels of Aptor ~ Samuel R Delany
# The Chains That You Refuse ~ Elizabeth Bear
# The Ladies of Grace Adieu ~ Susanna Clarke
# The Iliad ~ Homer, trans. Robert Fagles
# The Odyssey ~ Homer, trans. Robert Fagles
# The Divine Comedy ~ Dante Alighieri
# Kafka on the Shore ~ Haruki Murakami
# Air ~ Geoff Ryman
# Trial of Flowers ~ Jay Lake
# Nova Swing ~ M John Harrison
# The Troika ~ Stepan Chapman
# Pale Fire ~ Vladimir Nabokov
# Blood Meridian; or The Evening Redness in the West ~ Cormac McCarthy
# Little, Big ~ John Crowley
# Learning the World ~ Ken MacLeod
# The Empire of Ice Cream ~ Jefrey Ford
# Secret Life: the Select Fire Remix ~ Jeff VanderMeer
# The Android’s Dream ~ John Scalzi
# Worldwired ~ Elizabeth Bear
# The Master and Margarita ~ Mikhail Bulgakov
# Volapük ~ Andrew Drummond
# Lanark - A Life in Four Books ~Alasdair Gray
# Dune ~ Frank Herbert
# The Time Machine ~ H G Wells
# The Lies of Locke Lamora ~ Scott Lynch
# Carnival ~ Elizabeth Bear
# Heart-Shaped Box ~ Joe Hill
# The Court of the Air ~ Stephen Hunt
# Evil for Evil ~ K J Parker
# Black Juice ~ Margo Lanagan
# Brasyl ~ Ian McDonald
# The Long Price volume 1 ~ Daniel Abraham
# The Somnambulist ~ Jonathan Barnes
# Splinter ~ Adam Roberts
# Accelerando ~ Charles Stross
# Count Zero ~ William Gibson
# The Player of Games ~ Iain M Banks
# Pirate Freedom ~ Gene Wolfe
# Black Sheep ~ Ben Peek
# The New Weird ~ Ed. by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
# A Cruel Wind: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire ~ Glen Cook
# Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse: Birds, Bees, Blood & Beer ~ Ben Templesmith

I make that 57 books, up 9 from six months ago, and up 14 from a year back. Things are definately getting worse.
33 of these books have been on my pile for longer than 1 year, and remain unread.
24 books are new to the pile since one year ago; 16 of those were added within the last six months.
I have read 7 books in the last year that did not appear on the lists in this thread (as they were bought and read within the six month period).

I have, if I've got these calculations right (I lost this entire post, had to start again, and didn't want to go to the effort of working it all out a second time, so the above numbers are from memory) bought 36 books in the last year, and read only 22.
Oh dear.
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Inspiration Struck. - I review books weekly!

Mod of the General Fantasy/Sci-Fi Forum, home of the Kevin's Watch Book Club.

Heart of God

[Carson Napier]

I do this, I currently have these waiting to be read...

6x Malazan books (and 2 more on pre order)
5x Song of Ice & Fire books
2x SM Stirling books ("the sky people" & "the peshawar lancers")
4x Eternal Champion" books (Von Bek, dancers at the end of time, the new nature of catastrophe & sailing to utopia)

I also have another dozen or so books that I am eyeing up as well (The "first law" series, the "Briar King", Tad Williams "Shadowmarch" & "Otherland" series and the "colonal Pyat" series

And the guy (murrin) who has the "eternal champion" volume of Elric of Melnibone is going to be needing the second Elric volume in that series, "Stormbringer"
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"The Bloodguard do not forgive"

[Wyldewode]

I stumbled on a site that allows me to view what books are on what list easily. Now, you have to enter the books in the first place, but I am moving soon so I just enter a stack and then pack them. Anyhow, according to the site I have 9 books I am currently reading, and 9 books on my to-read list. I figure that my to-read list will grow as I add books. If anyone is interested in checking out the site it is www.goodreads.com, and my bookshelf is at http://www.goodreads.com/profile/Lyr.
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