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Original poster

What books are gathering dust on your bookshelves?

62 replies

MrsSpoon · 10/04/2006 17:56

I'm presuming we all have them, two or three books that have taken up residence on the shelf and never been read. I thought perhaps we could mention them here and someone could encourage us to read them or charity shop them. Grin

Mine are:-

The Poisonwood Bible - recommended here loads of times but I just never manage to pick it up.

Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani - Didn't like Big Stone Gap so have presumed I won't like this either.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith - I have owned this book a couple of times but never actually read it.

Cold Mountain

Captain Correli's Mandolin

I'm sure there must be more but these ones concern me most. Grin

OP posts:
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Nightynight · 01/04/2007 13:18

thank you for your insight, cotedazur. It is frustrating to read a book in translation, even though the translation is very good - I felt that a lot of it was going over my head as I didnt know a great deal about recent Turkish history.
(We did know that Blue was a code name btw, because it was translated into English, whereas Ipek and Kadife kept their Turkish names.)

CoteDAzur · 01/04/2007 12:36

Gosh, I just realized how long that post is. Sorry about that. I'm not a literary critic or anything, just an avid reader.

CoteDAzur · 01/04/2007 12:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bundle · 02/05/2006 17:50

(meant to say Piers Morgan autobiography)

bundle · 02/05/2006 17:50

the Piers Morgan is similar type bathroom reading, but less well-written (entertaining nontheless)

NotQuiteCockney · 02/05/2006 17:47

Eh, that doesn't sound like my sort of thing.

Yeah, I got Slightly Foxed + all back issues as a gift.

I am currently really enjoying "Everything is Shit", which is very fluffy bathroom reading really, but very enjoyable all the same. Very very well-written, too.

clerkKent · 02/05/2006 16:26

NQC, I hope to get Slightly Foxed as a surprise present one day in the future...

clerkKent · 02/05/2006 16:25

It's by Patrick Suskind. I remember enjoying it years ago, as a page-turner, not 'literature'.

"An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion - his sense of smell - leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century Paris, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"-the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity."

bundle · 02/05/2006 16:24

ncq it's a novel by Patrick Suskind, from what I can remember it's about smells in Paris Blush

AllieBongo · 02/05/2006 16:23

Gina Ford Contented Little Baby Book....

NotQuiteCockney · 02/05/2006 16:21

I don't own a copy of Perfume. I don't know anything about it. What is it?

expatinscotland · 02/05/2006 15:37

i haven't read 'perfume'. at all.

buffythenappyslayer · 02/05/2006 15:31

amara by richard layman.its my friends and she keeps telling me i MUST read it,but havent got round to it yet,8 months after she gave me it!

suzywong · 02/05/2006 15:30

UMMMMMMM!
that's two of you
anyone else????

bundle · 02/05/2006 15:29

never finished Perfume either

suzywong · 02/05/2006 15:28

who is going to start a thread entitled

"Moondog has not read Perfume Shock"

expatinscotland · 02/05/2006 15:26

Oh, spidermamama! I LOVE recipe books. Got any good ones? Willing to put them on sale here?

I get rid of all books I cannot get into, no longer have a need for, etc.

Best to pass them on to someone who might find what I missed about them.

spidermama · 02/05/2006 15:16

I have about three million recipe books gathering dust. Well meaning friends and relatives, when stuck for a present idea for me, always come to the conclusion that I need more recipe books.

bundle · 02/05/2006 15:12

purple hibiscus is good though

tamum · 02/05/2006 15:11

I couldn't get on with the Poisonwood Bible either even though I like her other books, and PB is probably the most well-reviewed. I also bought The People's Act of Love recently and had to give up after 30 or so pages. I had no idea at all who anyone was, or what they were doing, or why, and I didn't actually care, either.

bundle · 02/05/2006 15:07

gave up with The Sea (after dh said it never improved). I'm in the middle of Harbor (lorraine adams) and Never Let Me Go. also gave up on Quincunx, Poisonwood Bible, hated White Teeth.

Original poster
MrsSpoon · 02/05/2006 15:05

LOL Frannyandzooey, I do have more than these few books on my to be read pile, I must have at least 40 titles but these are my long term residents, those that I don't look at wistfully wishing I was able to find the time to read them. Grin

NQC, I enjoyed The Sea but perhaps not as much as some others on MN did. I found it a beautifully written book that lulled me off to sleep every night. I wish I hadn't read it first out of my Booker set, I may have appreciated it better if it had been left until last.

OP posts:
NotQuiteCockney · 02/05/2006 13:45

Oh, and do try Slightly Foxed, it's lovely. All about books, obviously, but not so much about what's come out this month. A slim quarterly.

I enjoy Granta, but don't always read it right when it comes. I think I like the New Yorker better.

NotQuiteCockney · 02/05/2006 13:44

So far, I've liked Arthur and George, and loved Never Let Me Go, although was quite upset by it. What else was in the set? Oh, the Zadie Smith, hmm, enjoyed it at the time, can't remember it that well now. Oh, and Ali Smith, which I absolutely adored. Just finished Hotel World recently, it wasn't as good.

clerkKent · 02/05/2006 12:43

NQC,I have just finished the last of the Booker set - A Long Long Way. I still think The Sea is the best of them, but A Long Long Way was the only one I read at every opportunity. You can guess the ending early on, but that is not the point - it has an inevitability about it.

I alwast read Granta cover to cover soon after it arrives - I am sure I would never catch up if I got behind. I had a subscription to the London Review of Books for a while, but I could not keep up. It took ages to read, and there were usually 4/5 unopened. I am not quite so obsessive about the newspaper, but last Saturday I finished the previous week's Saturday Guardian.

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