What books are gathering dust on your bookshelves?

Stasiland is good. White Teeth is ok. Poisonwood Bible very good. The new translation of Anna Karenina is better than the old Constance Garnett rubbish, but it's stil. ... dunno ...

I have about a billion unread books kicking about, it's very sad. I think I gave up and got rid of some of them.

I have two left over from my Booker set, The Sea, and A Long Long Way. Oh, and the Dave Eggers, somewhere. Oh, and a lot of issues of McSweeneys, as I have a lifetime sub, but stopped reading for a bit ... whoops.

But more alarmingly, I have a bit of a newspaper obsession, must always read Guardian and Observer. Must read them in order published. I have 2 weeks' worth downstairs in a cupboard, and 3 weeks' worth coming from a friend this week. The 3 weeks are from before the 2 weeks. It takes me nearly a week to read the two papers, generally. And I am 5 weeks behind now. So I will never read another book. (There's also the New Yorker and Granta.)

(Anyone else reading Slightly Foxed? It's lovely, really cozy. Oh, and I just finished Suspect, which is an issue of a magazine I'd never heard of, Alphabet City, by MIT press.)

Hazellnut - Snow Falling in Cedars is fab.
I've started Far From the Madding Crowd about 3 times and not got very far.
Dr Zhivago
Midnights Children - Salman Rushdie

"2 or 3 books" ROFL. More like 2 or 3 hundred till recently. Have been really strict since ds was born and have cut it down to one shelf full. It is upstairs but from memory there is:

Dave Eggers / By Our Velocity wotsit
Gore Vidal / Myra Breckenridge
Rabelais / Pantagruel & thingy
Something by Marina Warner on mythology
and several more.

Moondog

read yours straight away! They are all wonderful, especially Perfume.

Anna Karenina. I have been meant to be reading it for 19 years at least. DH gave me a beautiful edition a year ago, and I did manage a chapter or two.

MrsSpoon, Lucia Lucia is not 'classic' enough to struggle with, but it's fairly different in setting etc from Big Stone Gap so might be worth a try. However, I liked Big Cherry Holler very
much and now want to read Big Stone Gap so maybe chuck it.

I've just read both a short History of Tractors and Never Let Me Go, loved both of them.

I've never got round to White Teeth either.

and I've had The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for ages

I've been charity shopping my dustgatherers recently

but still on shelves are:-
Forty words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt
Murder in the Marais by Cora Black
City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
A ommibus of 4 thrillers by George Pelecanos.

It goes a bit slowly just after the beginning, but picks up again later.

just checked, it's My Name Is Red
started it (three pages) and loved the beginning
what is wrong with me?? eh? that I can't go and pick it up again

Ah Zubb.but his stuff in Telegraph is brill.V thought provoking.I am no right wong type either,I pronise you!

moondog - that has just pushed it even further back in the queue!
Actually reading a book about Ken Saro Wiwa written by his son at the moment, so was going to go to something lighter next - but maybe not that light!

lol zubb, over-enthusiastic reviews from the Daily Mail or Telegraph, Jeremy Paxman or Boris Johnson tend to put me off any book

Andrew OH is shacked up with India Knight which was very hard to overcome as she is an arse.

the cover of the Andrew O'Hagan has been putting me off I think, and the review printed on the front saying 'a love story, morality tale, sly social commentary....The novel is magnificent' Harpers & Queen.
Will get to it one day maybe!

Well,whole Turkish thing very odd.
Kurds desperately want to join Europe of course for greater cultural and political autonomy.
Wherever we go,we are greeted with 'Tony Blair! Good man!'.
Turks treat Kurds very badly.Had a Kurdish friend to stay here in Wales last Autumn. The biggest impression on her was the (relative autonomy we Welsh have re language).
Others are too proud.Want a sort of Western model without Western inteference,but happy to take cash and expertise which is what dh offers with his project (his assistant is for Kars).
Turkey is fascinating at present-so many different forces at work.

oh, that hadnt occurred to me. The whole book was packed full of double meanings, and different themes, I found them all really interesting.

I thought that Ka was going to stand for Turks who lean towards Europe, and Blue was going to stand for those who lean towards Islam...but then the girl turned out to be not worth having...so not sure where that leaves Turkish nationalism, unless the author is v cynical.

Andrew O Hagan is odd.
Books seem light but he writes a fantastic column in Telegraph every week. Sort of latter day Theodore Dalrymple.

agree with NN - 'My name is red' was a brilliant read.
The ones that I have on the shelf gathering dust are Angela's Ashes and 'Tis - they were presents that I have never got round to.
Also have 'Personality' by Andrew O'Hagan and 'Stasiland' by Anna Funder that I have been meaning to get to for a while.

I enjoyed 'Snow' Nightynight.
Had extra resonance for me,as I live in this part of Turkey.
What were your thoughts?
Whole thing is an eleaborate word play as 'kar' is Turkish for snow,set in Kars,and protagonist is Ka of course.

Which Orhan Pamuk have you got Pruni?
They take a bit of getting into, but I was on the edge of my seat by the end of both Snow and My Name Is Red.

I hate Perfume - pseudo intellectual, pretentious, violates basic science in a totally unbelievable way, utterly devoid of significance or genius.

The Pigeon was even crappier.

Yet another vote for Perfume.

Star of the Sea has been sitting in my reading box for what seems like forever - just keep finding other things I would rather read. I also won The Count of Monte Cristo several years ago and still haven't read it (the small font really puts me off more than anything!)