This time of year, I debate whether it’s ethical to use one of my daughter’s library cards, because in addition to the number of new arrivals on my shelves, I am regularly requesting library books.
I debated using ‘incessantly’ rather than ‘regularly’, but I decided it’s not exactly accurate and, yet, it feels more truthful nonetheless. It really does seem incessant, as do the trips back-and-forth, especially on brutally humid days like today.
(Fortunately, when there is a city-wide heat alert in effect, the libraries operate as cooling centres, literally and figuratively. What a luxury.)
One of the constant (regular? incessant?) sources of inspiration is the list of authors attending this year’s International Festival of Authors this year.
Studying their line-up is much like reading the “So Excited to Read ‘x’ This Season” and “Most-Anticipated Fall Release” lists dotting the bookish universe these days.
Half of the names listed there are immediately interesting, about another quarter become interesting simply by reading on, and the remaining authors often elicit a vaguely curious “Hmmmm” (they, too, often become interesting to me when the full schedule of events, with topics and outlines becomes available).
And, yet, there is the ever-present tug between the realization that something new is shiny and tempting – say, Aminatta Forna’s novel, The Hired Man – and another book is still lingering on the TBR list – for instance, her memoir, Danced on the Water.
Click to enlarge, if you wish (titles listed below)
And there is the nagging reality that although, for example, I own neither The Hired Man nor Danced on the Water, I have a copy of The Memory of Love which I was so desperate to have that I ordered it from overseas when it was first published and, yet, hundreds of other books have been read since, and not that one. (I know, I know: it’s wonderful. I must read it.)
But what to do? I already have a stack, hip-high, of the new 2013/autumn releases I’m aiming to read in the next few weeks, so what of this stack of library books? (If you are intuiting that it is not the only stack, you are correct, but it’s Wednesday, and I am concentrating on all-things-IFOA today.) How to choose just one?
Charles de Lint’s The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (Illus. Charles Vess)
Ann Ireland’s The Blue Guitar
Abdellah Taïh’s An Arab Melancholia (Trans. Frank Stock)
Olive Senior’s Dancing Lessons
Aminatta Forna’s Danced on the Water
Aleksandar Hemon’s The Book of My Lives
Kelly Braffet’s Save Yourself
D.W. Wilson’s Ballistics
Owen King’s Double Feature
What reading projects have been building into stacks for you these days?
Is there a title on this stack you’d recommend that I move to the top?
Even though I have so many of my books to read at home, I keep picking new ones from the library. Sounds like I need to turn my books over to the library before I will read them, haha!
There was a time when I actually borrowed copies of books from the library that I owned, just to have the incentive of a duedate (or a nicer edition that I preferred). Now I have far too many other library books on my stacks to even consider this, but I’m sure the idea is lingering in the recesses.
Having too many interesting books waiting in the wings is a good problem to have! I had the opposite problem over the summer–a reading slump. Nothing seemed interesting, so I had no library books on hold and no new arrivals on my Kindle. Thankfully, I’m over that period and the books are piling up again!
Ugh, I know exactly what you mean. I used to have that problem in July/August religiously. It got so that I began stockpiling books in anticipation of it, the kind of story that might penetrate the doldrums. So, yes, it’s a good problem to have indeed. I’m glad you hear you’re back to “coping” with the problem yourself, too. Enjoy your new stacks!
I’m constantly putting holds on books at the library that I end up not having time to read. It’s so hard to manage the desire to read versus the reality of what I can actually get accomplished! I haven’t read any of the books on your list, but my husband raves about Kelly Braffet’s Save Yourself.
I’ve tried using the “manage your holds” feature in the catalogue. It never works out for me. I either under-manage or over-manage them, I guess. That’s great to know about the Braffet though; I was thinking of setting it aside because I’ve read a couple other suspense novels recently (and am currently enjoying her father-in-law’s classic, The Shining), but I will keep it and give it a go now. Thanks!
I get over enthusiastic sometimes with book requests from the library and end up with books that I know I can never read within the three week loan period. Which is why I have three of the booker longlist novels sitting on my nightstand. One is more than 800 pages which I never realised at the time I requested it. Why do I do this when I have a hundred or so books still on my TBR list???
Oh, I *have* that book en route right now. LOL No kidding. And of course it won’t be renewable, so I’ll have to make an attempt almost immediately. But “over enthusiastic”: I like that way of putting it. It sounds so positive. Much nicer than ‘over ambitious’. Much, much nicer than ‘crazy’.
I totally sympathise. I have been on a self-in-posed library ban for about a year so that I can clean down my already large physical and electronic TBR piles!
Congrats on being reasonable about it all! Gawd, I should do that. But I’ve tried the ban. Never this time of year, always in the early months. And, at times, it’s even worked. But although I haven’t studied it scientifically, I think I’m sadder during those months. *grins*
I stumbled upon your post as I too started rereading Oryx and Crake. I’m so delighted to find someone else with my library-hold problem. And thanks (I think) for giving me some new titles to look into!
Thanks for leaving a comment, Betsy. Nice to “meet” you. Isn’t rereading O&C amazing, after so many years? I cannot believe how different it was, knowing how it was going to end, having Year of the Flood behind me, so to speak. It really felt like quite another book.
It is a great read — or reread, I should say. I don’t reread very often (so many new things to read!), but when I do, I’m always amazed at the new perspectives and insights I get about a book. In fact, I’ve decided that I’m going to reread a “best of” list from my beloved Ms. Atwood over the next few months. I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with her work! Thanks for your blog, very good stuff.
I’ve never been disappointed in rereading her fiction. Even earlier works that I though I’d be a little disappointed in, like Surfacing, seem to improve with rereading, even if only because I notice different details. The one that I really want to reread next is Alias Grace, but I’m quite tempted by The Blind Assassin too. I’ll be interested to hear which ones you opt for on your list…
I never finish any of my projects.:)
I want to read all the short stories in O. Henry Prize Best Stories of the Year 2013.
I want to read the new autumn books on my Nook. (I have perhaps five.)
I am waiting for Jhumpa Lahiri’s book.
Then I find a book at a I’ve never heard of that distracts me.
All of this sounds “doable,” but I won’t get throug everything. I rarely read short stories,but the O. Henry Prize collection seems like a good way to get to know new writers.
I hope you get through your projects!
As for your Atwood rereading and other projects, all sound wonderful. I will certainly have to reread Oryx if I want to go on.
Have you read the Women of Wonder short story collections? Not that that would likely bring (m)any new writers to your attention, as they’re not terribly recent, and you already read a lot in that genre, but I’ve been dabbling in them, enjoying the progression of stylistic changes therein. More recent, but perhaps difficult to find south of the border, might be the Tesseracts collections, still produced annually, begun by the inimitable Judith Merril. But I love the idea of reading the O.Henry collection(s) too.
It’s the distractions that I most enjoy. If I don’t happen upon those, I know I’m taking my projects much too seriously, forgetting about the fun of it and getting caught up in them like course syllabi. I hope you find lots of good ones along the way, in this reading season.
See, these things both thrill and excite me and depress me to no end. Why you might ask? Because I am SO slow when it comes to reading. Not a bad thing necessarily but it means I can’t accomplish as much as I set out to accomplish. I was just thinking today of the logistics in picking up the (large) stack of holds at my library–and what day is best to do so–tomorrow I need to stop at the store so a trip to the library after work (what I would normally do on a Thursday) when I have so many books on hold is crazy (how to carry my bookbag, grocery bag and ALL nine (who knows, by tomorrow there may be more) books… Friday they close early and I will unlikely get there in time. Saturday morning is errand day and I hate shlepping around SO many books when I know I have lots of walking to do, too. Oh the dilemmas associated. And the cruel thing is after looking them all over, dipping into them….how many will I actually get to read??? As for projects? Hmm. I want to read all of Jane Gardam now that I am nearly done with Crusoe’s Daughter. Am hankering to read more nature book and the latest (well, have been thinking of it off and on for ages) to read more American History–particularly from Colonial era America. And those are just from the top of my head. I still need to make that list…. It’s probably a good thing I only have access to one library card, though there is my library where I work and the public library….so maybe the same difference really. And now I need to look up the books on your list.
Jane Gardam is on my MRE list. Which of hers do you think you’ll read next? I was thinking of one of her story collections myself.
I know exactly what you mean about the crucial timing of the Library Pick-Up Escapade. (We are so lucky to have great libraries at our disposal.)
I picked up another six books yesterday, and there are, apparently, *whispers* eleven more en route. (I hope by spelling out the number that it might be less immediately obvious, adding a layer of utter shamefulness to the entire situation.) Because I knew if I waited until the next delivery arrived that I would have to make a completely separate journey Just For the Books. Which would be an undeniable bit of insanity, passing the other three or four stops along the way, suddenly made impossible by my insatiable bookish appetites. *hangs head*