Top Ten Tuesday #8: Books I Just Had to Buy that are Still Sitting on My Bookshelf

The Broke and the Bookish hosts a weekly meme called Top Ten Tuesday, where bloggers are asked to make their own top ten lists on a particular topic. This week, it's Top Ten Books I Just HAD to Buy...But Are Still Sitting on My Bookshelf. 



I've gotten better about this as I've spent more and more time working in libraries, but I do have a pile of books that I just kind of hang onto, and tiptoe around, and half of them, I'm not sure I'll ever read. Here's some of them:

1. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. I bought the first two books in the series, because I was desperate for fantasy. I'm not sure why, because I tend not to like fantasy very much, and I think it's my natural disinclination toward the genre that keeps the books sitting in the corner, unread. But I don't want to give them away, as I do plan to read them... eventually. 


2. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I blame The Vlogbrothers YouTube channel for this. John Green has mentioned many times that Infinite Jest is a favorite book of his, and even though it is absolutely epic in length, I decided that I need to read it. Ten pages in, I was so confused, I put the book away and never went back to it. I still have a very clear memory of the images that popped into my head during those first few pages, though, and I do think I'd like to revisit it sometime. Thus, I keep it.


3. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. This book was on my birthday list one year when I was in college. But it turns out listening to a Broadway soundtrack is a lot easier than reading a huge, long book. I am not sure I will ever conquer this one, but it was a gift, so I hesitate to part with it. 


4. Zelda: A Biography by Nancy Milford. I bought this back in 2003 when I was reading Nancy Milford's Savage Beauty, which is a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I expected to finish the Millay bio and immediately crave another. Sadly, I never finished reading either one. 


5. The Chicago Manual of Style. Obviously, I never intended to read this book cover to cover, but I did ask for it for Christmas with the idea in mind that I would go into proofreading. That fascination faded quickly, but I've still got the book. It's a nice copy, I almost feel guilty.


6. Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better by Lauren Barnholdt. I was  on a tween fiction kick when I ordered this book. By the time it arrived, I was on a new kick. I'm hoping to catch it the next time the tween urge hits.


7. Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I bought the entire series in one volume back when the first movie was released. And then I lost interest. But it would be a good idea to read them, and I plan to. Someday.


8. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. I've been looking forward to reading this one, but it's just so long. Kids' books are so much quicker, so I tend to gravitate toward those and avoid big, long grown-up novels.
    
9. Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg. I love Fannie Flagg, and I've read the first chapter of this book at least three times, only to get distracted and forget to read the rest. 


10. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. Another title from my brief fantasy fascination, this one is from The Dresden Files series. I'm hoping I have another wave of interest in fantasy sometime soon, since I am more than halfway through this at this point. Oy.

Well, that made me feel sort of guilty. I read so much, I swear, just not the books I own!  Oh well. Maybe at least a few of these will be finished by the end of this year, now that I've been reminded. Time will tell.