As a rule I don’t participate in memes but this one, which I first saw on Simon T’s Stuck-in-A-Book, is so brilliant that I began reasoning that every rule requires an exception. However, my books are scattered all over the house, although a couple of rooms have been declared non-book zones by the non-reader. (He needs some space of his own, apparently.) The question was how on earth to make this a random selection. Then gaskella had another brilliant idea of using random.org to generate numbers relating to her librarything bookshelves. Perfect. The deal was clinched and I then started worrying about the secrets that were about to emerge from the closet (because I decided not to cheat with the selection of 10 books) or that with over 700 unread books on my library shelves, random.org would pick 10 of the great unread. Nil desperandum as Willy Wonka would have said, it’s only a meme – and I am among friends, right? Deep breathe. Here we go.
1. Book 23 – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Good start. I can’t stand Sherlock Holmes. He’s an arrogant, know-it-all. I don’t like that there are no clues in the stories prior to Holmes explaining his deductions. And that breaks a cardinal rule of modern crime writing – that the detective should know no more than the reader. And while I’m at it, I can’t stand sycophantic Watson either! So why, you may ask is this book (and for that matter another 3 volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories) in my collection at all.
They’re part of a collection. From 1982 – 2008 , the Reader’s Digest published a 123-volume series of the World’s Best Reading - sturdy hardbacks with specially commissioned illustrations, which for the past 3 or 4 years I have been collecting, primarily from car boot sales and charity shops. They cost buttons. I now have 35 or so. Only another 90 to go – although some titles don’t appear to have been released on this side of the Atlantic.
2. Book 158 – Blacklist – Sara Paretsky
We stay with crime for book 2. It’s no secret that I really enjoy a good crime novel and I’m sure this is one of those. It won the CWA Gold Dagger in 2004. I will read it because I’m working my way slowly through the dagger winners. I’m pretty sure that Sara Paretsky came recommended via the now defunct BBC Bigreaders discussion forum – my first online forum. Can you / can I believe that that was 7 years ago? I wasn’t Lizzy then – I was lifelong bookworm. I then mutated into Lancastrian Nomad before transforming into the preraphaelite supermodel, LizzySiddal. Why I ask myself, for it is entirely subconscious, do all my online IDs begin with L?
3. Book 307 – Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
The book that launched a new, now done-to-death, genre, so maybe it has much to apologise for. As do I. If you were in Los Christianos, Tenerife, Xmas 1996, and witnessed a great white whale on the beach, rolling around and roaring with laughter, I apologise for ruining your holiday. But I was having a great time reading this!
4. Book 390 – A Darkling Plain – Philip Reeve
Why, since I loved the first three books in Reeve’s Hungry City Chronicles , have I not yet read this? Probably because I can’t bear the idea of such a good thing coming to an end. Yet since Reeve published a prequel last year, which landed on my doorstep on the day of publication, I no longer have that excuse. OK, the book has been promoted to my immediate TBR. I also hear rumours that Peter Jackson is going to direct a 3D-film. Please let that be true, then I can get really excited!
5. Book 473 – Dorling Kindersley – Geography of the World
I’ve written before about my admiration for Dorling Kindersley. This volume is one of a set I bought when my son began secondary school and, now that he has flown the nest, still retains its place in my reference box – because it you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you’ll know that I also love to travel!
6. Book 547 – Esio Trot – Roald Dahl
Oh, the irony. Lifelong bookworm that I am, it was a blow to discover that my only child is dyslexic. The novels of fellow dyslexic Roald Dahl were a source of great entertainment and encouragement through some very troubled school years. He certainly kept us laughing! Some of my warmest memories are of reading his stories to my boy. We built up quite a collection.
7. Book 1000 – The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – Brian Moore
John Self of Asylum was instrumental in my first discovering Brian Moore. Then I got hooked and started a second blog, TheMooreTheMerrier, to chart my progress, and those joining me, on the journey through Brian Moore’s novels. I’m horrified to realise that it’s almost a year since I last one. Doesn’t time fly when you’re blogging?
8. Book 1020 – The Loudest Sound of Nothing – Clare Wigfall
This book of award winning short stories was a gift and I’ve heard great things about it. It was only last year that I hooked into short stories so its chances of being read have increased hundredfold. Onto the immediate TBR it goes. By the way, I love the simplicity and class of the cover design.
9. Book 1435 – The Road – Cormac McCarthy
A book I avoided for long and weary and then picked up as a result of a conversation at the Edinburgh Book Festival – my home from home during the month of August. I was there when Cormac McCarthy was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction (even if he wasn’t). For all its bleakness, it is an uplifting read and one of my books of the Noughties. I hope the film does it justice.
10) Book 1780 – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
How delighted am I that random.org chose this number! For it gives me another opportunity to eulogise about the best novel ever written! And a chance to show you my many editions. I own a) a black Penguin, b) a three-volume Collector’s Library edition and c) a beautiful illustrated Folio Society edition (which is shelved along with its Folio Society brothers and sisters – well, they are the crown in my collection)
So why am I craving a copy of this recently published new translation?
Effi Briest - Theodor Fontane (Readalong 
The Beauty Room - Regi Claire
My Mother's Lover - Urs Widmer
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
Noir - Robert Coover
The Taint of Midas - Anne Zouroudi
Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson
The Duel - Anton Chekhov
The Duel - Heinrich von Kleist
Gillespie and I - Jane Harris
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
CIty of Dreadful Night - Peter Guttridge
Shadow Sister - Simone van der Vlugt
A Far Cry From Kensington - Muriel Spark
The Assault - Harry Mulisch
Next World Novella - Matthias Politycki
The Water Theatre - Lindsay Clark
Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
The Liberation of Celia Kahn - J David Simons
Nocturnes - Kazuo Ishiguro
Hotel Du Lac - Anita Brookner
What a relief, it’s not just me. I’m reading early Holmes for the whole Scottish writers foofaraw, and, although I enjoy aspects of the books, I can’t quite believe how bad other parts are.
Now, three nice editions of War and Peace – that’s the stuff!
The Loudest Sound and Nothing was the first book I was ever sent to review for my blog, I think, and I really enjoyed it. One or two of the stories less successful than others, but mostly quite perceptive and quirky.
I absolutely adored The Loudest Sound and Nothing, and I honestly don’t think there was a turkey in the collection. What started as me reading the first couple of stories ended up being me reading the whole lot in one sitting. I do hope you enjoy it too.
Kirsty, it was your review I was thinking of when I said “I’ve heard great things about this”!
Another great set of books. Aren’t DK wonderful – their house style is superb and you know you’ll get detail and diagrams and dioramas (trying to keep the alliteration going!). I’ve recently got the first in Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines series and am looking forward to reading it when it resurfaces from the TBR piles.
Amazingly, Sara Paretsky is doing a literary event in Abingdon to promote her new book ‘Hardball’ (she’s only doing a couple of events in the whole country so I’m told – so we’re delighted to get her). I’ve only read one of hers (Toxic Waste?) and enjoyed it, and will go if I can – I’m sure she’s very interesting to listen to.
I’ve just ordered a set of Sherlock Holmes from The Book People – I wonder if I’ll have the same feelings as you! If so the entire set was under a tenner.
Yes, DK are marvellous. I really have to hold myself back when their books go on sale ….
And the Book People are even more marvellous. I enjoyed myself immensely at this year’s January sale!
I believe the Loudest Sound and Nothing will soon be on my TBR pile which is exciting! I have loved seeing people do this, isnt Simon T brill, and your Bridget Jones comment made me laugh in a Bridget Jones way!
I actually enjoyed doing this meme – I might do a few more in future.
Hmm, I wonder what my enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes says about me…. I’m a Yank who lived in England for 4 years and loves most things British; my two worn old volumes of the complete stories belonged to my grandfather; the PBS series; the orderliness of the stories, in fact, their very primness–a rare opportunity to read without thinking!
I love the wackiness of Roald Dahl’s children’s stories, and my kids did too when they were growing up. All the grandchildren got books for Christmas, the youngest blessed with 2 by Dahl. Have a collection of his adult stories but don’t remember whether I’ve read them; I’ll have to ferret it out.
War and Peace! After years of urging by my husband, I finally read it last summer–and it really is the greatest novel ever written. I expect to read it again in about a year.
What it says about me? I sliced my paperback into three volumes and bound the spines with sticky tape, and then it didn’t look daunting at all. I was hooked from the second page, which is not usual. I got out the Atlas for a map of Russia to fix the locations of battles and armies. The major characters were absolutely real and still feel like people I’ve known….
Happy reading!
“I was hooked from the second page …” That doesn’t surprise me – the first chapter is a superb set piece designed to bring you right into the heart of the society of the time. And that description of the Battle of Borodino places you right on the battlefield. You can see it, feel it, smell it.
I think most readers are surprised by the accessibility of Tolstoy’s prose – there’s nothing dry and fusty about it -2nd epilogue excepted.
I love your editions of War and Peace. I have heaps of various editions of Jane Eyre lying around, and despite the content never changing, I still tend to collect them.
Great book selections! I’ll have to try this too!
Another vote for The Loudest Sound and Nothing. I asked for it for Christmas in 2008 and devoured it in pretty near a single sitting. I agree with Simon that a couple of the stories don’t quite come off – she’s not so good at writing motherhood convincingly – but what’s really astonishing is the range of voices. Incredible variety for a short story collection. I feel cross every time I read that Susan Hill cover quote that hails Wigfall as “the new Helen Simpson”; I love Helen Simpson’s stories, but she essentially writes about broadly similar women from the same sorts of social background, and it seems to me extremely unfair to bracket Loudest Sound with her collections.
Incidentally, the cover design has been “updated” in subsequent reprints – the same type, but more crazy sunbursty things going on behind it.
I’ve got that Pevear and Volokhonksy translation. It is SUCH a beautiful book. I’d get it down from the shelf all the time to stroke its lovely cloth cover if it didn’t weigh 1.2kg.
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