what is in the book pile on your bedside table?

Martina Cole - Faces
Gina Ford - Contented little baby book (only so I could review it for my antenatal ladies thoguh!)

My pile is:

Two under the Indian Sun - Rumer Godden - old and much loved, reading when in need of relaxation

Acqua Alta - Donna Leon - second hand from a friend - halfway through - it's a bit toshy but quite good for unwinding

Berlin Poplars - Anne B Ragde - Norwegian translated novel - half way through.

Dress your family in corduroy and denim - David Sedaris - finished but have failed to move off bedside. V v good!

Dear Zoo - Rod Campbell - not my choice, obviously. DS's morning reading material...

I normally have more but instituted a bit of a cull last week.

oooh, just seen this.

Bottom of pile is Don Quixote. Got it for my birthday 2 years ago, and am 2/3 through, although haven't picked it up for about a year . It may well be Great and Important literature, but it is also Rather Repetitive.

History of Spanish Civil War by Anthony Beevor. Read a book on subject by Giles Tremlett, and found it fascinating so bought this one. It is very, very heavy. Far too deep for bedtime reading but I am hoping to persevere at some point.

Time Travel won't kill you, can't remember author. Have read this one . Love quantum physics etc but my grasp on the subject tends to dissipate as soon as I finish the book, sadly.

1001 books you must read before you die. I like books about books and this is very interesting. Although very long. I hope I don't die before I finish it, as that would be rather frustrating.

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (sp?) been wanting to read it for ages, so my sis bought it christmas '06 for me - DS was born in Feb '07, so I've still not managed to get into it yet and don't have loads of time in one go to get stuck into it (well, excpet when I'm on MN )
If you could see me now - Cecilia Aherne (read PS I love you before the film was made)

oh, and No Cry Sleep Solution - Elizabeth Pantley - but am guessing it's not that sort of book you're asking about ...DS still doesn't sleep well, what can I say, maybe I should give Rebecca to him???

As for on the shelf waiting to be read:

Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Beryl Bainbridge - Master Georgie (may stay there for a while, DH bought it me for Christmas and doesn't always get my taste right...)
Margaret Atwood - Moral Disorder
Jenny Turner - The Brainstorm
Anne Fadiman - At Large and At Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist
Rachel Cusk - Arlington Park (despite the collective MN verdict!)
Benjamin Black - Christine Falls
Christopher Walkling - On Cape Three Points
Jonathan Coe - The Rain Before It Falls
Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes

phew.

Can I just say how much I love this area of MN? It is such a joy to be able to talk about books.

Liza Picard - Restoration England
A clutch of those Steve Biddulph books about happy children
Something about fussy eaters
Nick Davies - Flat Earth News
The Slightly True Story of Cedar B Hartley
This Is How We Do It (supposedly a celebration of the achievements of WOHMs)
How to Live on 24 Hours A Day (1930s book about "living in the moment")
Horrid Henry's Nits
Avocado Baby
The Slippery Slope

(OK, technically the last three aren't mine but are by my bed by virtue of being what my three kids like to read at bedtime at the moment)

Non-fiction books hang about my bedside much longer.

Of the top of my head

Chaos - James Gleike
Sushi for beginners
the restraint of beasts
The man who mistook his wife for a hat
The Highly Sensitive Child

I need a refresh

I seem to have one of those huge book piles as well but my immediate reading list is:
Doris Lessing - Love, Again
Harlan Coban - The Woods
Dorothy Koomson - Running for Chocolate
Stephen King - Lisey's Story

I'm seriously concerned about the size of some of these book piles. Doncha know you you're now living in an earthquake zone?? Imagine it, Death by Book Pile!!

I have finally put down Electric Michelangleo and taken up 'India' again. It's a hefty tome so I'm also reading Zoe Heller's 'Everything You Know' to read in traffic jams.

I read the Underground boook as well and found it fascinating. I also liked Norweegian Wood.

Also just finished A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon which was entertaining.

Oh I do too. I love TTW. I think you either love it or hate it and I loved it! I also went through a phase of reading Murakami after reading his Tube Tales where he interviews the people, relatives of victims and the perpetrators of the Sarin gas attacks on the Toyko subway.

mmn history of tractors is really making me smirk more than laugh. but i do love it.not as trivial as i thought it might be.
looking forward to the book thief- i think it is up next if i can stop sneaking a peak at agent zigzag.I have been obsessed by the war of late.
on green dolphin street was good and i read a book called restless about a female MI6 agent during ww2 which was good. also finshed Stasiland by Anna Funder which is fanastic particularly after watching the lives of others.
Tend to read one authors books in a row.
joanne Harris
Kate Atkinson
Seb faulkes
Barbara trapido
Rose Tremain
Harlen Coben

I do wish Audrey Niffeneggar would write a sequel to time Travellers wife.

Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives- Deepak Chopra (not fininshed and a bit too late now as having CS tomorrow morning!)

The Book Thief -Markus Susak (fabulous, wonderful, engrossing and the reason why I've not finished Deepak Chopra)

The Island-Victora Hislop (not bad, ok for lazy maternity leave afternoons)

How to be a Baby by Me, The Big Sister- Sally Lloyd Jones and Sue Heap (bought for DD, a little young for her but the sentiments and illustrations are perfect)

Might as well kiss goodbye to the book pile for now as I think I might have my hands full for the next few weeks. Hopefully someone will bring me a few glossy magazines to read while LO sleeps during my stay in the hospital.

Cremola I loved the Book Thief! I enjoyed the Short History of tractors in the Ukrainia but not as much as some did on here. I think we have the same taste in books.

oh ledodgey- i really want to read that mitford one

The Kiterunner( Keeps slipping to the bottom)
The Book Thief( dd has already read it)
Berlin( God it looks dull)
Short history of tractors in Ukraina( nearly finished)
The Balkan Trilogy( reread)
Agent Zigzag Ben MacIntyre( part read)
Journey Into Darkenss(Anthony Faramus)

A thousand Splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini
Hello? Is anybody there? By Jostein Gaarder
The Mitfords, Letters Between Six Sisters By Charlotte Mosely

Raising Happy Children
For one more day
Money
Memory keepers daughter
1000 splendid suns
half of a yellow sun
gem squash tokoloshe
the electric michaelangelo
the rain before it falls
anansi boys
small island
the amateur marriage
the daydreamer
quicksilver
the promise of happiness
one big damn puzzler
the gum thief
white oleander

eek- haven't read enough this month

my 'to be read' pile has turned into a couple of shelves - I do read all the time but I buy faster than I can read.

Just finishing Eliza Graham's (she of MN fame !) Book 'PLaying with the Moon' which is fantastic

then am going to read the latest Lady detective book

then not sure - it may then be time for my next book club read or I might get another one in before the meeting.

Califrau - I recently reread Ballet Shoes. It was a great trip down memory lane (and interesting to see how they'd 'disneyfied' the film !)

Notsuperwoman - Interpretation of Murder is quite good. 7/10.

Currently reading "Cobweb" by Neal Stephenson.

Next is "Miracles of life", J. G. Ballard's autobiography.

I don't have a pile but i do have Keith Allen Autobiography which i am slowly working my way through

Have ...

Austerity Britain
London: A Life in Maps

Lost World, Conan Doyle
King Solomon's Mines, Rider Haggard
Jekyll & Hyde

• those three from a Book People batch of thrilling adventures, of which I have already read the oddity that is The Man Who Was Thursday -

and
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career

• from a Book People batch of Viragoes, of which I have just done The Weather in the Streets, and another oddity by Elaine Dundy [Ken Tynan's first wife] and something else, oh yes a Willa Cather

Gemma Bovery (Bovary? no I think it's deliberately Bovery) is lurking too down among the Baker Ross catalogues & semi-read LRBs

Nicholas coleridge, A much married man. He is my current favourite author - much needed escapism from the unbelievable shock/life change of having a baby (she's 4 months now). Polecat I love Jaspar Fford, all the Thursday Next books are well worth reading if you haven't already. I read the Rise of Fall of a Yummy Mummy about 6 weeks after becoming a not so yummy mummy myself, chick lit crap but pertinent enough in its observations of life with leeky boobs etc...

Oh god i don't have any books on my bedside table

I am co-sleeping with dd2 and she wakes when i read by torchlight.

I can't wait till i have a reading pile again!