Not-the-meme!

[mrissa]

In a locked post, one of my friends suggested that instead of or in addition to the meme about the books most purchased and left unread on Library Thing, she would like to know what we have purchased and left unread. I'm not going to do an exhaustive (and exhausting!) list, but here's a sampling:

Scott Westerfeld, Specials
Robin McKinley, Dragonhaven
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Edward Teller, Memoirs
Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849
Peter Hoeg, The Quiet Girl
Parke Godwin, Waiting for the Galactic Bus
Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn

And here's what I haven't bought but hope to read soon anyway, courtesy of friends or the public library:
Barbara Goldsmith, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull
Melvyn Dubofsky and Foster Rhea Dulles, Labor in America: A History
Everett Webber, Escape to Utopia: The Communal Movement in America
Carl Ross, The Finn Factor (In American Labor, Culture, and Society)
James D. Horan, The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History

How about you? What have you bought or borrowed but not read yet?

ETA: timprov points out that some of these were gifts or other people's purchases. True enough, but they're still on my to-read piles.

Comments

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Collapse Jared Diamond
A Scholar of Magics Stevermer
On Killing Grossman
DNA Watson
Penfallow Heyer

Many others....scattered all over the house, plus magazines....Too little time. Too much guilt.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am so far behind on periodicals, it's not even funny.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

These days, I don't read nearly as many books as in times of yore. I've been on Tales of Neveryona for months. I don't read Delany so much as savor his use of language. If there's one book that's been sitting on my shelf for a while, not even cracked open to start, it's Frankenstein.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Fall of the Kings, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman.
The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman.
A Princess of Roumania, Paul Park.

I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones sitting there glaring at me.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I bought the Deak. (And have read it.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, no, you're alive and well!

Oh. Buying the Deak is not like buying the farm. So never mind then.

[ellarien]

I just started Dragonhaven last night! On the other hand, my 'unread' database query brings up 67 books, of which 43 belong to the New Backlog (2005 or later acquisitions) and 24 to the Old Backlog that includes a few books going back to 1983; that doesn't include the Chinese history, which for some reason I never put in the database. The ones on the shelf -- and theoretically at the head of the queue for reading) are:

Mary Lovell, Bess of Hardwick
Jared Diamond, Collapse
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Emma Bull, Territory
Martha Wells, The Element of Fire
Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
Charles Stross, Halting State
Stuart Clark, The Sun Kings
Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things
Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

I'll take this challenge! Except I can't post it until after work when I have access to my library.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I've read about 2/3 of my 17,000+ books. I'm not about to list the others.

You're welcome.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As I said, my list isn't exhaustive, either.

It is not, however, quite that far from exhaustive.

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

How fast do you read? I don't think I could read that much if I quit my job to read full-time. That's roughly a book a day for 35 years.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Over a book a day, sometimes. There were periods when I did little other than read (I think my maximum was 3 million words in a week).

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

The only things I've ever bought and not read are cookbooks.

I'm a library fiend with an astonishingly good library nearby, so I tend to just read from there. I actually often don't buy books unless I've already read them (that way I know they're good!). The only exception is for a couple of ongoing series that I love -- when the next book comes out I buy it since I know I'll like it.

My book budget is still quite low, which is moderately appropriate since we still have no walls on which to build bookshelves. Once my hypothetical giant wall of built-ins exists, I will probably spend more on books. But I still heart the library.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Charles de Lint, Spirits in the Wires. I just can't stick with it.
Vernor Vinge, Rainbow's End. I know it won the Hugo, but it looks to be full of sad.
Susan Palwick, The Necessary Beggar. See above.
Ian McDonald, Brasyl. I mean to, but it's too heavy to carry on my commute.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

I'll be keen to hear what you think of the Teller. (Haven't gotten to it myself, but earlier this year I was reading parts of Jenette Conant's 109 East Palace and Tuxedo Park...) And the Chabon's on my list as well.

I still plan to read the Conant books all the way through when the mood returns. Other books in the queue include several volumes of X: 1999, Louise Beebe Wilder's The Fragrant Path, and Lionel Barrymore's We Barrymores.

Victoria Woodhull

[venusmuse2.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've read OTHER POWERS, but saw a great documentary about Victoria Woodhull starring Kate Capshaw and Gloria Steinem. Victoria Woodhull's life is truly an inspiration! I recommend it - check it out on Amazon, AMERICA'S VICTORIA, REMEMBERING VICTORIA WOODHULL. If it's a bit pricey, ask your public library to purchase it. VenusMuse

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Guns, Germs, and Steel; the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud; Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood; Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell; The Associates by John Jay Osborne (he wrote The Paper Chase); Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune; On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency, by Emily Transue; and I'm finishing the new Terry Pratchett book on money whose title escapes me.

The list isn't exhaustive, since it doesn't cover books I am rereading or plan to, like the Odyssey and the Inferno, but it's pretty much what's on the menu at the moment. I also read half of the graphic novel, Cancer Vixen, about a women's bout with breast cancer, but gave up halfway through. It didn't have enough "pull." I don't seem to be able to have more than three or four going at any moment and still make significant headway, though.

Mack

[vahepeatus.livejournal.com]

Fitting in as I am as yet sniffing around the book, anticipating the pleasure (as it is translated by my favorite translator!), but technically it IS unread book.

And one I am pretty sure you would like to check up, as not only is "A Delicate Shade of Pink" ( a portrait about his leftist grandmother, Estonian-born Hella Wuolijoki and her sister Salme Pekkala-Dutt)written by Finland's Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, it also was awarded Tieto-Finlandia prize for non-fiction ("Helsingin Sanomat" informs that the award is worth EUR 26,000).

Tuomioja wrote the book first in English, but it was published in Finnish and then in Estonian ...

Well, you can always ask the Finnish foreign minister to send you copy of the original English language version !

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Next time I call the foreign service offices, I will certainly ask! :)