Thursday 27 December 2012

The 2013 Challenge - Climb A Book Mountain

I'm a bibliophile - I love books, I buy books constantly, I borrow books constantly, I acquire books relentlessly. It has got to the point where I no longer have much room for any more. I counted the books in my possession that I have unread and came to a total of more than 130!!!! A total of which I am deeply ashamed.

 I am obsessed with books, OBSESSED. This has led to a growing mountain of books which I own but have either not read or not completed. The time has come to face the awesome task that is climbing Mount ToBeRead (TBR) - either reading an unread book or donating it to charity unread. I will declare the ultimate destination of the book at the end of each post. I must be brave I must be ruthless I must be frugal. Because I am a book addict and it is an illness I can’t control which must be recognised I give myself permission to buy one book a month, I can also receive any amount of books which are free. A belt tightening common sense 2013 for this years challenge.

Unread books I currently own or have in my possession (borrowed) ARE :

  1. Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
  2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
  3. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
  4. Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
  5. The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory
  6. The White Princess by Phillippa Gregory
  7. Lady Of The Rivers by Philippa Gregory
  8. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
  9. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  10. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
  11.  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 
  12. Notes On A Scandal by Zoe Heller
  13. Shadows Of The Workhouse by Jennifer Worth
  14. Farewell to The East End by Jennifer Worth 
  15. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K Dick
  16. The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark 
  17. All Fall Down by Mark Edwards and Louise Voss
  18. The Mill On The Floss by George Eliot
  19. The Outcast by Sadie Jones
  20.  The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 
  21. Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas
  22. No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
  23. The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
  24. The Magpies by Mark Edwards
  25. The Trade Secret by Robert Newman 
  26. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman
  27.  Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozhi Adichie 
  28. Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
  29. A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale
  30. A Room Of Ones Own by Virginia Woolf
  31. The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Rian Malan
  32. A History Of God by Karen Armstrong 
  33. Dune by Frank Herbert
  34. Last Night In Twisted River by John Irving 
  35. The Red House Mysteries by AA Milne
  36. Memories Of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  37. Man Eaters Of Kumaon by Jim Corbett
  38. Tanamera by Noel Barber
  39. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Marukami
  40. The Other Half Lives by Sophie Hannah
  41. Little Face by Sophie Hannah
  42. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
  43. Weight by Jeanette Winterson
  44. The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  45.  The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey 
  46. The Back Road by Rachel Abbott
  47. The City and The City by China Mieville 
  48. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
  49. The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  50. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo 
  51. A Factory Of Cunning by Philippa Stockley 
  52. Perfume by Patrick Suskind 
  53. Return Of The Native by Thomas Hardy 
  54. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  55.  Crime And Punishment by Fyodyr Dostoevsky
  56.  A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking 
  57. 1984 by George Orwell
  58. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
  59.  Restless by William Boyd
  60.  House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
  61.  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens 
  62. Go, Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin
  63. Shattered Blue by Jane Starwood
  64. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters 
  65. The Enchantment Of Lily Dahl by Siri Hustvedt 
  66. Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman
  67.  The Mayor Of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy 
  68. Dark Eden by Chris Beckett 
  69. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
  70. The Whole Day Through by Patrick Gale 
  71. The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
  72.  The Mouse And His Child by Russell Hoban
  73.  Stuart : A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
  74.  The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss
  75.  Papillon by Henri Charriere
  76.  The Ipcress File by Len Deighton 
  77. Quantum : Why Everything That Can Happen Does Happen by Brian Cox 
  78. A Razors Edge by W. Somerset Maughn
  79.  Homicide : A Year On The Streets by David Simon 
  80. Pictures Of Perfection by Reginald Hill
  81.  The Chapel At The End Of The World by Kirsten Kenzie 
  82. The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  83. The Ancient Garden by Hwang Sok-yong
  84. The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins 
  85. Blow To The Heart by Marcel Theroux
  86.  Under The Net by Iris Murdoch
  87.  I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
  88.  Dublin’s Lives by Bernard Malamud 
  89. Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens
  90. HHhH by  Laurent Peters
  91. The Book Of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric 
  92. The Nose And Other Stories by Gogol
  93.  The Cloud Of Unknowing - Anonymous 
  94. The Twelve by Justin Cronin
  95.  The Prelude by William Wordsworth
  96.  A Place Of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel 
  97. The Player Of Games by Iain Banks
  98.  Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 
  99. The Trial by Franz Kafka 
  100. The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene
  101. Anatomy Of An Epidemic by Robert Whitaker
  102.  Breakfast At Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
  103.  Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
  104.  Dante : A Life by RWS Lewis 
  105. The Rise And Fall Of The House Of Medici by Christopher Hibbens
  106.  Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  107.  Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin 
  108. How To Teach Quantum Physics To Your Dog by Chad Orze
  109. The Marriages Of Zones Three Four And Five by Doris Lessing 
  110. The Sirian Experiments by Doris Lessing
  111.  The Making Of The Representative For Planet 8 by Doris Lessing 
  112. The Secrets Of The Volyan Empire by Doris Lessing
  113.  Small Island by Andrea Levy 
  114. The Magus by John Fowles 
  115. Magician by Raymond Feist
  116.  Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig 
  117. A Spot Of Bother by Mark Haddon 
  118. We, The Drowned by Carsten Jensen 
  119. The Master And The Margarita by Mikhail Bulgarov
  120. Fatherland by Robert Harris
  121. Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas
  122.  The Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett 
  123. The Song Of The Lark by Willa Cather 
  124. Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri 
  125. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 
  126. The Sonambulist by Essie Fox
  127.  The Personal History Of Rachel Dupree by Ann Weisgarber 
  128. Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway 
  129. The Private Life Of The Brain by Susan Greenfeld 
  130. Absolution by Patrick Flanery 
  131. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry 
  132. The Angel’s Cut by Elizabeth Knox
  133.  Under The Dome by Stephen King 
  134. Tender Is The Night by F.Scott Fitzgerald 
  135. We Bought A Zoo by Benjamin Mee 
  136. The Stand by Stephen King 
  137. On The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin
  138. C by Tom McCarthy 
  139. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
  140. The True History Of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey 
  141. Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy 
  142. Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir 
  143. Trespass by Rose Tremain 
  144. The Memory Of Love by Aminatta Forma
  145. The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham 
  146. The Rapture by Liz Jensen 
  147. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseni 
  148. A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle 
  149. The Life Of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell 
  150. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte 
  151. Villette by Charlotte Bronte 
  152. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
  153.  The Professor by Charlotte Bronte 
  154. Sister by Rosamund Lipton
  155. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 
  156. The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window & Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
  157. Derby Day by DJ Taylor 
  158. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray 
  159. Hawthorn and Child by Keith Ridgway 
  160. The Given Day by Dennis Lehane 
  161. I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith
  162. The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth
  163.  The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
  164.  Physics Of The Future by Michio Kaku 
  165. The Brief And Wonderful Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz 
  166. To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis
  167. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie  
  168. The Quality Of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
  169. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  170. Bellman &Black by Diane Setterfield
  171. Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson 
  172. And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison 
  173. The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks 
  174. Exodus by Leon Uris
  175.  The 100 Most Pointless Things In The World by Richard Osman 
  176. One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  177. Roots by Alex Haley
  178. The Clan Of The Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel  
  179. Thackeray by Lewis Melville
 As I get rid of each I will strike each one on the list through. If any of you have read these books feel free to pop up and say what I ought to get to first!

As I finished 2012's Challenge early, I am already making a start on 2013!

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. Ooh, interesting & makes me feel slightly better about my (smaller) unread pile.. Mansfield Park is my least fav Austen so I'd leave that one for a while. Can highly recommend Day of the Triffids & Pillars of the Earth but one that really moved me was A Thousand Splendid Suns, read it on holiday & cried!

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  2. Hey Cathy,

    Read Day Of The Triffids yesterday really enjoyed it so thanks for that - review coming soon. I appreciated The Kite Runner literary speaking but was enormously upset and depressed by it - I guess thats why I've been avoiding reading Splendid Suns xx

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