Membrestringcat3

About My Library

The books that stay on my shelves tend to be those that I will read again, that have personal associations, are old or rather hard to find - although I have nothing terribly obscure or very valuable. Many years ago I had to abandon the practice of keeping every book I read (I mean, that I legally acquired - I wasn't ransacking public libraries). My mother, landlords and several cross-country moves underscored the wisdom of that decision, and the availability of online books put a nail in the whole topic. Where once it could take years to find a copy of something out-of-print, now it takes some minor clicking and a credit card. I tend to be a binge reader - if I find an author I like, I usually hunt down all his or her books.

FAVORITE DESCRIPTION OF BOOK LUST:

"She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dopetaker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines - not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality."

From TEMPEST-TOST by Robertson Davies

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TOP BOOKS FOR 2014

o The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
o Death Comes For The Archbishop - Willa Cather
o A Study in Sherlock - Laurie R. King & Leslie Klinger, eds.
o Julia Childs Rules: Lessons On Savoring Life - Karen Karbo
o Jane and the 12 Days of Christmas - Stephanie Barron
o The Frangipani Hotel - Violet Coopersmith
o Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore
o Horns - Joe Hill
o Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
o Annabel Scheme - Robin Sloan
o The Magician's Land - Lev Grossman

TOP BOOKS FOR 2013:
o Jeeves and the Wedding Bells - Sebastian Faulks
o The Great Silence - Juliet Nicolson
o Washington: A Life - Ron Chernow
o Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
o Pomfret Towers - Angela Thirkell
o Last Friends - Jane Gardam
o Bring Up The Bodies - Hilary Mantel
o The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
o Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon
o The People on Privilege Hill - Jane Gardam

TOP BOOKS FOR 2012:
o Old Filth - Jane Gardam
o The Greater Journey - David McCullough
o This Republic of Suffering - Drew Gilpin Faust
o The Man In The Wooden Hat - Jane Gardam
o Bertie Wooster Sees It Through - P.G. Wodehouse
o I Thought My Father Was God - Paul Auster
o Samuel Johnson: A Biography - Peter Martin
o The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
o Fludd - Hilary Mantel
o The Memory of Blood - Chrostopher Fowler

TOP. BOOKS FOR 2011:
o The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
o Love In a Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford
o Uncle Fred In the Springtime - P.G. Wodehouse
o Lords of the North - Bernard Cornwell
o The Pale Horseman - Bernard Cornwell
o A Game of Thrones - G.R.R. Martin
o Chatsworth - The House - Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire
o Girl In Translation - Jean Kwok
o The Turquoise Ring - Grace Tiffany
o One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde

TOP BOOKS FOR 2010:
o Fool - Christopher Moore
o My Life In France - Julia Child
o March - Geraldine Brooks
o How's Your Drink? - Eric Felten
o The Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Jennifer 8 Lee
o The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff
o Three Men In a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
o A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
o Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
o The Island at the Center of the World - Russell Shorto

TOP BOOKS FOR 2009:

o Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her - Melanie Rehak
o The Code of the Woosters - P.G. Wodehouse
o Joy in the Morning - P.G. Wodehouse
o The Widow's War - Sally Gunning
o Seventy Years of Irish life - W.R. LeFanu
o Our Own Snug Fireside - Jane C. Nylander

TOP BOOKS FOR 2008:

o Inside the Victorian Home - Judith Flanders
o Leaven of Malice - Robertson Davies
o Mr. Scarborough's Family - Anthony Trollope
o Collected Ghost Stories - M.R. James
o Phineas Redux - Anthony Trollope
o Blood & Thunder: Kit Carson and the Epic Conquest of
the American West - Hampton Sides
o Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Stories - J.S. LeFanu
o The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
o Eventide - Kent Haruf
o Tempest-Tost - Robertson Davies

Ubicació

Phoenix AZ

Ara mateix l'estic llegint

The Prince of Pleasure & His Regency, 1811 20 de J B Priestley

At Home: A Short History of Private Life de Bill Bryson

Autors preferits

Terry Pratchett, Anthony Trollope

Preferits locals

Llibreries: Spare Time / 2nd Hand

Member Connections

Amics

annamorphic, MsLynne