It was back to work for me today after a nice, long holiday break. I’ve been saving Kate’s brilliant Calvino meme based on If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller just for this occasion. The is wonderful fun. If you haven’t read it, add it to your TBR list. You’ll be glad you did.
Books you’ve been planning to read for ages
Have you seen my TBR shelf lately? Some of the books on my classics reading list for 2007, Tristram Shandy, Anna Karenina, Lolita. I’ve also been meaning to get to Pinkerton’s Sister for some time, and–I’ll stop there.
Books you’ve been hunting for years without success
Simone Weil’s First and Last Notebooks. It is out of print and I haven’t found it for less than $100.
Books dealing with something you’re working on at the moment
Emerson’s Conduct of Life and Society and Solitude. My selected Emerson only has excerpts, I need the complete texts in book form (they can be read online but Emerson requires I have a pencil in my hand to underline and comment in the margins)
Books you want to own so they’ll be handy just in case
The complete OED
Books you could put aside maybe to read this summer
I’m thinking I might save Special Topics in Calamity Physics for the summer, and after Hobgoblin’s review of it, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
Books you need to go with other books on your shelves
The rest of the new translation of Proust: The Captive and The Fugitive (conveniently in one volume) and Time Regained. Virginia Woolf’s Essays volumes 4, 5, and 6
Books that fill you with a sudden, inexplicable curiosity, not easily justified
Home decorating books with glossy color photos draw me like a fly to honey. But since my main decorating theme is books, I never buy them. Still, I can’t help myself. It’s kinda like visiting a foreign country.
Books read long ago that it’s now time to re-read
To the Lighthouse and all of Jane Austen
Books that if you had more than one life you’d certainly read but unfortunately your days are numbered
I am currently living in denial on this one. Please don’t burst my bubble.
I love your last answer! Simone Weil sounds very interesting — I hope you find that one.
I saved this meme for my first day back at work, too! I love the home decorating book answer (I love those types of books, too, and maybe could afford lovely things if I didn’t buy so many books). I have The Road checked out from the library–I will have to go read Hobgoblin’s review! And I feel the same way about Austen!
Thanks Dorothy! I’m sure someday when I give up on finding the Weil book it will suddenly appear in sale bin. At least that’s what I’m hoping!
You are right Danielle, decorating with books or non-books is really a matter of priority. If i didn’t spend so much on books I’m sure I’d have lovely drapes, beautifu original artworks and furniture to die for. But I’d rather have the books!
What a fun meme. I especially loved your last answer. I think that’s one we can all relate to.
“Slow Man” by J.M. Coetzee.
I am enjoying this meme…so impressed with your tackling of Emerson.
Go for Anna Karenina as soon as you can!
Thanks Iliana. I am convinced that as long as there is something I want to read I can’t die, not yet!
I will read Anna K as soon as I can LK! My husband read it last summer and is pestering me to get to it so he we can talk about.
you read jane austen voluntarily? Okay, you have officially put The Fear into Dok Holocaust. I fear you’re going to start baking popovers out of the remains of people you kill with a hot glue gun.
stealing this!
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