We’ve been sheltering in place since March 16, which means I have not been to a book store since…March 16. Typically, my son Connor and I hit Indigo about once a week. Occasionally, we simply browse – neither of us need to add anything to our TBR shelves, to be honest. More often than not, though, we simply can’t resist buying something. Since Covid 19 has made it impossible to hit the book store, I have been shopping my own shelves.
My TBR shelf is ridiculous. Some people buy shoes; I buy books. Marie Kondo would not approve. I love them. They are objects of beauty, which is why eReaders do not appeal to me. They are, as Stephen King says, “uniquely portable magic.” I love knowing that when I finish a book, I have dozens (okay, hundreds) more to choose from.
Recently, Connor volunteered to colour block my TBR shelf. Although my read shelves are alphabetized so I can find books easily, and another shelf is organized by genre, colour blocking my TBR shelf kept both of us busy for a handful of hours. Browsing my TBR shelf isn’t anymore difficult this way, because I don’t really know what’s on it anyway. (That’s the problem of having a book-buying addiction, although it’s a good problem to have.)
I enjoy shopping my shelves. It’s kinda cool, when I stumble upon a book I’d forgotten that I owned, or something that’s been on my shelf forever. Or, when I come across a book that I don’t remember buying, read it and it turns out to be spectacularly good, which is the case with a book I recently read called The Roanoke Girls.
Today, I thought I would take you on a tour of some of the books on my TBR shelf.
First of all – let’s take a look at some of the books with buzz. I don’t automatically buy every single book that wins a prize or garners lots of praise or makes the NY Times best seller list. But I do buy some. These books are on my TBR shelf.
Of the books pictured, Olive Kitteridge has been on my shelf the longest. I don’t know why I haven’t read it because I have heard nothing about good things about it.
My TBR shelf also consists of books that I’ve started and, for some reason, stopped reading. I don’t want to call them DNFs just yet, so I stick them back on the shelf in the hopes that I will pick them up and enjoy them in the future. At one point in my reading life, I finished every book I started. That served me well in university, when I was often called upon to read something I didn’t necessarily want to read. Nowadays, I am easier on myself; if a book doesn’t float my boat, I give it 50-75 pages and then move on. These books, for whatever reason, I just can’t break up with.
So, a little about some of the books pictured above:
The JJ Abrams book S (middle right) was a birthday gift from Connor a few years ago. It’s a book that requires real focus because it’s a book filled with documents (see picture top right) and footnotes etc. I want to read it, but I know I need to read it straight through without distractions.
Hollywood Savage (top left) is by the author of one of my all-time, most-read novels Velocity I read another of her novels, Some Girls, and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think anything McCloy ever writes will usurp Velocity‘s place in my heart. I gave Hollywood Savage a go a while back, and I don’t think it’s going to be my cup of tea…but since I love McCloy, I am not going to give up on this one.
Shelter (bottom right) has the distinction of being on my TBR shelf since 1994. I have tried to read this book on more than one occasion. I am not sure why I keep trying other than I seem to recall there was some controversy surrounding the book, and I can’t resist a good book scandal. I can’t seem to give up on it.
The other books will remain on my TBR shelf because they are by local authors (Finding Woods), are by authors I have enjoyed before (The Secret Keeper), or have been approved by readers I respect (Foxlowe, Cruel Beautiful World).
Occasionally, a book that I have read before ends up on my TBR shelf. Usually, it’s a book that I read a long time ago, and that I remember really fondly and want to revisit. That happened with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which I reread last summer. Carolyn Slaughter’s novel Magdalene is another one of those novels I hope to reread one day. Actually, I wouldn’t mind re-reading several of Slaughter’s books as I LOVE her. This is my second copy of this book; I lent my original and never got it back. 😦 It’s very difficult to get any of Slaughter’s novels, but I have had pretty good luck with Abe Books or The Book Depository. I highly recommend The Banquet and The Story of the Weasel (also known as Relations).
Another book I would love to re-read is Peter Straub’s novel Shadowlands. I have been a
long-time fan of Straub, although I don’t read him much anymore (even though I have several books on this shelf: see below.) I think the last book I read by him was Lost Boy, Lost Girl, which I recall not liking very much. His earlier stuff, though, is fantastic. Check out Ghost Story or If You Could See Me Now, both of which probably deserve a re-read.
I also tend to hoard books by authors I like, y’know, so I always have something dependable to grab. Some of those authors include Helen Dunmore (who sadly died in 2017), Andrew Pyper, Lisa Jewell, Thomas H. Cook, Stephen King to name but a few.
Finally, there are some books on my TBR shelf that are kind of embarrassing. These are books that I probably should have read way before now, for a variety of reasons: everyone and their dog has already read (and loved it), it’s been on my shelf a stupidly long time and I have no excuse or I was really excited to read it, but then didn’t and now it languishes with all the others. Le sigh. Here are but a handful in this category.
And just in case you think the books on my colour blocked TBR shelf are the only TBR books I own, you’d be wrong. In my world, you can never have too many books.
The Ludic Reader 