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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Hidden Shelves

Oops.
  
I found your book.

You know. The one I borrowed that time. I was gonna give it back. Honest. I put it on this shelf so I wouldn’t lose it, and it wouldn’t get chomped on by dogs or drooled on by kids and ducks and other noxious items. I kept forgetting to give it back because it was hidden behind this other book.

Well. THESE other bookS, I should say. Because you see, I keep my *ahem* borrowed books on the same bookshelf/case as I do the books that I’ve not gotten around to reading yet.

You know the ones. The books that you see in the store all bright and shiny and everyone is RAVING about. You bring it home, all bright eyed and bushy tailed and set it on your nightstand (or what have you)...but then LO, you are already in the middle of another tome! So this one gets shoved to the bottom of the pile. Again...and again...and again.

OR Worse. You’ve gotten your college syllabus. And it has about 83 ‘classics’ on the list. You’ve already read 7 of them in High School. That’s close enough. You buy the rest of them at a used book store for about 1/23 the price they were going for at the Campus Store. Then proceed to read the first, middle 4, and last chapters of them whilst working 39+ hours a week at your “Part Time” work study job. You then write papers on them, getting A+’s on all said papers...  Not that this would ever really happen... *cough*

Someday I really will read The Three Musketeers. Honest.

And Maybe I’ll be able to get to anything by Weis and Hickman. Which will hopefully erase the bad taste left in my brain from reading Eat, Pray, Love. (Some things cannot be unread...*Shudder*...I wish I could remember who I borrowed that from. I’d send them a can of tuna...)

What books have you not gotten around to reading ‘yet’? Or better yet...what have become part of your permanently borrowed?

15 comments:

Angela Brown said...

LOL! If I named just some of the books that have disappeared on that infamous Hidden Shelf, well, I wouldn't have much room for much else.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Check out anyone's goodreads page "To be read" pile and you'll find trillions of books that people haven't read but intend to.

Huntress said...

Until four months ago, I hadn't read Ender's Game.

So many books. So little time.

blankenship.louise said...

Of all the (non-SF/F) classics, Three Musketeers is in my top five. It will show you how to swashbuckle -- NO movie has EVER done the book right.

Books I haven't gotten to yet... (big sigh.) But at least I don't borrow and then forget to return books.

Liz A. said...

I can't answer that question. If I tell you what books I haven't read, I'll get drummed out of the readers' club.

Susan Gourley/Kelley said...

I actually never permanently borrow books but I've learned a lesson about lending books to my oldest son's girlfriend. Girlfriends come and go, with MY books. He breaks up and I never see them again.
I have a stack of books I haven't gotten to yet, ebooks and the take up space kind.

Unknown said...

I have 5 half-finished books beside my bed including The Help and a bestsellers by Michael Crichton and Ann Rice. I can't enjoy them when I read -- my brain refuses to stop critiquing the writing, plot, tension, characterization, pacing, etc. I don't mean to ... I just can't help myself. *sigh* I may never be able to read anything again. :(

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

SO!? What did ya think??

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

I know...it's very sad. I'll make you a deal. You read Name of the Wind. I'll read Three Musketeers. :) GO!

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

Readers Anonymous...

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

Gah! That is a problem! I always kinda wonder what it must be like for agents and editors... :(

blankenship.louise said...

LOL -- actually, I finished it not long ago. So the ball's back in your court. :)

Huntress said...

It held my interest but wasn't an overpowering experience like Name of the Wind.

After I read the last page, I shut the book and that was that. No angst (Mockingjay) no wish-it-could-go-on (BreakingDawn).

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

Damn it... :P

Brooke R. Busse said...

I've never borrowed a book I haven't returned (if you don't count that (those?) books from my school library I couldn't find until I moved in like first grade). I do currently have out three books, two to one best friend, one to the other. That one to the other I've been waiting to get back for about five months now because she forgot she had it and I forgot who I loaned it to until recently when she found it. And I will get it!