Wednesday 15 July 2009

Belated booking through Thursday (part 2)


This is the current library TBR pile, which resides at the bottom of an empty bookcase. Shocking, cardigan girl doesn't do empty bookcases. It was offered to my boyfriend but he hasn't yet taken up the offer, and if he doesn't soon, then...
Anyway, the library pile is quite under control at the moment, as you can see, which is unusual, as I use both my boyfriend's library ticket and my own one (which enables us to have a whopping 40 books plus audio books out at once), and I have some books on loan from work (the upright titles). There's also a rogue book on loan from a former colleague on the far left - I can't remember why she lent it to me, it's not something I'm remotely interested in and can't even remember what it's called.

On the left:
The erosion of Oxford
Oxford 1914
Isolarion
These three are all books from work; we have quite a good collection of books on Oxford. These have been sitting here for quite a while as somehow I never get around to reading them, and there is no pressure as I have them out for a year! I do like reading books about Oxford so I must get around to it eventually.

Left-hand-pile:
The finest type of English womanhood. (picked this up the other day because it looked interesting)
Her three wise men (Middleton). Looking forward to this one, after I enjoyed his booker-winning Holiday. Not read any other Middleton's yet but really want to.
The immortals (Chaudhari) (have read his other books, so looking forward to his latest).
The flying troutmans (Toews) (have read other things by her, looking forward to this).
The wilderness (Harvey). (Lots of bloggers have enjoyed this, and it was shortlisted for the Orange prize, so I've wanted to read this)
Eva Trout (Bowen). (I loved The death of the heart, and hope this lives up to it!)
A separate peace (Knowles) (Nymeth noted that Meg Rosoff's What I was was based on this, so I thought it would be interesting to read)
The birds of the wood (Madden) (Am really enjoying her books having had her brought to my attention by her orange-shortlisted Molly Fox's birthday)
Drama comes to Pryor's Ford (Fox) (This has got into the wrong pile! I enjoyed the first book in the series; it comes into the category of lighter in bed reading)
Tales from our Cornish Island (Atkins) (Read the first part of her autobiography last week and am looking forward to reading about life on the island!)

Right-hand-pile:
Butterbabe
The Spell Book of Listen Taylor (really looking forward to this young adult title as I've loved the rest of Moriarty's books, will blog about it in due course)
The Village Green Affair (Rebecca Shaw) (discovered this very light author who probably appeals to elderly ladies earlier in the year, but love her books as they are soooooo relaxing. This is the last one of hers I've got left to read which is very sad :()
Familiar Rooms in darkness (Caro Fraser) (am enjoying reading my way through her books set in a legal practice, not too challenging).

On the right:
London transport posters - a century of art and design. Another book from work, one which I covet very very much and will have great difficulty returning. We saw this exhibition in February, in fact a trip to the London Transport Museum was my very unromantic Valentine's Day treat! I have only ever visited London as a tourist but I am always fascinated by the posters in the tube and it was fantastic to see a collection of these over the ages and see them develop.

As you can see, my two main library piles are divided into the more literary, and the lighter. The latter is what I read in bed before I go to sleep. This literary pile contains a surprising number of modern books, often I have older titles. Most of these have been sitting here for a while which reflects the fact that I haven't really felt like reading modern books much at the moment (although having enjoyed Glue maybe I'm more in that frame of mind now). What I love so much about the library is the ability to try things out - if you don't like a book, you can take it back, and you can sample a far more diverse range of books than if you were spending the money. I've read books about running B and B's, making ice cream, and lots of obscure and otherwise novels that I wouldn't have tried if I'd had to buy them.

3 comments:

  1. I'd like to see another photo of that book shelf in a couple of months time! I'm off to Amazon to have a peek at The Finest Type of English Womanhood, the title sounds intriguing.

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  2. I'll be interested to read your thoughts on Isolarion. It's very impressionistic, more so than Jan Morris's "Oxford"; not necessarily a bad thing, but there's still room for the definitive book on the far side of Magdalen Bridge!

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  3. I'll try to read it soon Owen - it's been sitting there for months, which doesn't help me towards my plan of getting my books under control.

    Darlene - the pile changes almost weekly even if there are some that have been sitting there for weeks!

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