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 Orzel 
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!!!!!!