Let’s see if we can get rid of more books, shall we? Most of these have been, for a while, from August 2013, which seems like an exceptionally long time ago now. That was not a good month for me, so maybe I sought comfort by scrolling through Goodreads and pretending I actually had time to read all these? Whatever reason, hopefully by the end of this exercise I’ll have reduced my TBR by a little bit more.
Part 27
Rules
Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
Order on ascending date added.
Take the first 5/10/however many books. If done again, start from where you left off.
Read the synopses of the books
Decide: should it stay or should it go?
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
If you hand me a book about, say, World War Two, I’ll like put it to one side and not really ever pick it up. But something about this book about soldiers in Vietnam makes me really want to read it. Maybe because it’s always stuck with me, after having an extract of it to read during my Creative Writing uni course. I think it’s still one I want to give a go.
Status: Keep
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Hm. Okay. This doesn’t sound like a book I’d really enjoy, and it sounds like a group of people who think they’re really intelligent basically going beyond a line. Maybe I’m wrong, but something about the author is nagging at the back of my brain, in a Not Good way. I feel like I’ve seen something before about issues surrounded Tartt and/or her writing? Either way, the blurb doesn’t interest and I’d rather stay away from this.
Status: Gone
Hm. This is a tough one. Must have been another of those ‘literary’ books I heard about and figured sounded just about interesting enough for me to read. This does seem pretty intriguing though, and I’m drawn in even by the list of contents. I think I still want to give this a go.
Status: Keep
The Shipping News – Annie Proulx
Being totally honest…this just sounds a bit on the boring side for me. It completely might not be, but it doesn’t sound right for my tastes at the moment. It seems to very firmly be in that “American Literary” (or perhaps Canadian?) genre that I don’t typically get along with too well. I’ll give this a miss to avoid slogging through it.
Status: Gone
Doesn’t interest me. Again, it could be a great novel, but the blurb makes it sound like it’s Horror, but without actually being Horror, because it’s ‘literary’. Even the blurb feels like it’s lifting a lot of Horror elements, and reading the whole thing is likely to annoy me? Yeah, it’s another of the American Literary type books I just don’t think grabs my interest anymore.
Status: Gone
Okay, three out of five gone. Not too bad. Next time maybe I’ll be looking over a few books that aren’t one of the ‘American Literary’ types. Nothing wrong with them, they’re just not to my taste at all. I’m still hoping I’ll come across some hidden gems I had completely forgotten about, but we’ll see.
Unwrapping Words 