Since moving back to paper books I've been buying books slightly faster than I can read them. Every now and then I clear the backlog, but it's caused me to develop an odd habit - a particular shelf is set aside as my 'in-tray' for unread books.

Here's my list. What's sitting unread on your shelf?

01) Malazan books 1 & 2
02) A Secret Atlas by Michael A. Stackpole
03) The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (@Halt told me this was shit so I'm scared to open it.)
04) From Unseen Fire by Cass Morris
05) The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson
06) Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
07) The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
08) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
09) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (@Trig 's rec thread got me to buy this, but still unread as yet)
10) Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes (picked up after seeing the film on @Taure 's rec)
11) The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
12) Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell
13) Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton (Another classy @Zombie sci-fi suggestion)
14) Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins
15) The Expanse books 4-7 - this is what I'm reading at the moment, currently on book 3.

 

01) Clariel by Garth Nix
02) Goldenhand by Garth Nix
03) Bound by Benedict Jacka
04) La Belle Sauvage by Phillip Pullman
05) Melissa by Jonathan Taylor (which I bought because I know the author who also signed it)

Man, I forgot I even own these books.

Reading e-books is easy since I just read on the way to work, during work and breaks, and on my way home whereas I'd only read paperbacks at home. And since 4/5 of them are part of a greater series, I'd feel the need to read everything that precedes them before getting into these ones.

 

Too many to list as I'm awful at finishing books these days. Fanfiction has spoilt me for reading... I encounter one thing I don't like and quit the story.

But my greatest shame is that I got Oathbringer for Christmas and still haven't finished it.

 

I renewed my library card recently for like the first time in years and the first thing I did was borrow a bunch of ebooks and then I read like 5 books in 2 weeks and stopped. Worse thing is I placed a bunch of holds too but I keep on getting sequels before the first book. My list is around 20 books long, I'll put it up in a mo.

Huh, Taure my sig is a quote from oathbringer. I thought it wouldnt be that big a deal since it came out a while ago but I'll put it in spoilers since it's an important one.

 

Oh boy. Spoilered for length.

Physical:

Spoiler

Iain M Banks: Look to Windward, Excession
Angela Carter - The Magic Toyshop
Chaucer - Canturbury Tales
Conrad - Heart of Darkness
De Quincey - Confessions of an English Opium Eater
Philip K Dick - Maze of Death
Kate Atkinson - A God in Ruins
Steven Erikson - Fall of Light
Ian Esslemont - Orb Sceptre Throne, Stonewielder, Dancers Lament, Assail, Blood and Bone (all of these and Fall of Light are entries in the Malazan spin-off series)
Peter Conrad - Mythomania
Esi Edgyen - Washington Black
Nick Harkaway - Gnoman
Neil Gaiman - Norse Mythology, View from the Cheap Seats, Trigger Warning
Anais Nin - Delta of Venus
Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads
Ali Shaw - The Trees
Naomi Novik - Uprooted
Katarina Bivaldi - The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom
Sarah Perry - The Essex Serpent
Mark Haddon - The Pier Falls
David Mitchell - Slade House
James Corey - Leviathan Wakes
Hawking - Brief History of Time
Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings
Richard Flanagan - Narrow Road to the Deep North
Paul Beatty - The Sellout
Sebastian Barry - Days Without End
Andy Miller - The Year of Living Dangerously
Cixin Lin - The Three Body Problem
Alice Walker - The Colour Purple
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
Maji Laude - History of Bees
Hope Mirrlees - Lud-in-the-Mist
Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Madeline Miller - Circe
Natasha Pulley - Bedlam Stacks
Ursula le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
Jonathan Wood - No Nero
James Joyce - Ulysses
China Mieville - Three Moments of an Explosion
Gregg Taylor - Blackjack Justice
Lander - End as an Assassin
W Somerset Maughan - Writers Notebook
JJ Abrams - S
Brandon Sanderson - Oathbringer, Arcanum Unbound
Lindsay Davis - Master and God
Gregory Roberts - Shantaram
Gene Wolfe - The Wizard Knight
Claire North - 84k
Dan Simmons - Hyperion
Kim Newman - Anno Dracula
The Silmarillion
Gravitys Rainbow
Don DeLilo - Underworld
Leah on the Offbeat - Becky Albertalli

Physical comics:

Spoiler

Walt Simonson - The Mighty Thor 1
Wicked and Divine 3
Monstress 1
100 Bullets 1

Kindle:

Spoiler

Mary Roach - Stiff
Nicola Yoon - The Sun is Also a Star (this and the above are book club books, so will get read in the next month or two)
Jamie Fewery - Our Life in a Day
Nnedi Okarafor - The Book of Phoenix
Bulgakov - Master and Margarita
William Boyd - Any Human Heart
Syliva Hunter - The Midnight Queen
EM Forster - Passage to India
Sarah Millican - Champion
HR Haggard - King Solomon's Mines
David Copperfield
Les Miserables

Comixology:

Spoiler

New 52 Supergirl 3-6
The Multiversity
Batman Rebirth: omnibus 1+2, Night of the Monster Men
Rebirth Aquaman vol 5
Rebirth Wonder Woman omnibus 2
Jonathan Hickman's Avengers 1-5
New Avengers 1-3
Cassandra Cain: Batgirl 1
Stephanie Brown: Batgirl 1
Court of the Owls
Booster Gold 1
Civil War 2
Convergence
Daredevil Born Again
DC: The New Frontier
Flash: Geoff Johns 1, Mark Waid 1, Starting Line
Green Arrow by Jeff Lemire, Rebirth omnibus 1
Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner
Green Lantern/New Gods
Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn
Green Lanterns 1
Hellboy 1-4
Infinity
Mister Miracle
Power Girl: Power Trip
Secret Wars
Spider-Verse
Supergirl 1996-2003 vol 1-4
Superman/Shazam: First Thunder
Teen Titans by Geoff Johns 1
Titans: Together Forever
Ultimates 1+2 (not the Ultimate Marvel version, the main one...)
X-Men: Days of Future Past, Dark Phoenix
Wonder Woman by George Perez 1, by Greg Rucka 1
Wonder Woman: The Circle

 

My unfinished list at the moment, in no particular order:

A Game of Thrones

I read the Dany chapters once, but last time I just stopped somewhere around Bobby B's crypt stalking in Winterfell. I'm certain it's because early seasons of the show reportedly followed the books quite closely, so I feel no burning desire to read what I've already seen a bunch, even though I know the book expands the world considerably. Then again, I'm not wild about worldbuilding tangents for the sake of worldbuilding alone, which is also one of the reasons why I took months at a time to slog through Stormlight 1 & 2, and speaking of Stormlight

I have Oathbringer and Kindle tracker tells me I'm about 20% in. I stopped because, in this gigantic book, absolutely nothing interesting has happened a fifth of the way through.

Spoiler

Well, except for Kal teaming up with Parshendi, but he's teaching them about basic shit.

Sanderson has this tendency to muddle his stories with mundane shit, I can't tell if he wants his stories to be "grounded" or whatever, but it's boring as fuck and drowns good stories in mundane shit. Oh, I've mentioned that already? Well, so has Brandon.

Senlin Ascends
I enjoy the prose and the world is honestly fascinating, I just don't care about the MC or his quest. I'll probably finish it just for the prose, which is fantastic.

The Selfish Gene
Don't ask because I don't even really know myself. I'm not that interested in evolutionary biology, or biology in general, beyond bits of cool trivia I can pick up from memes. I think I was feeling inadequate in comparison to my sister the week I bought this one.

 

My shame shelf:

Fantasy/SF:

• Underlord by Will Wight - read the earlier parts before this came out, haven't caught up yet
• The Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes
• Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd
• All Systems Red by Martha Wells
• Ascension by Brian K. Fuller
• To Reign In Hell by Steven Brust
• Luck In The Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
• Imager by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
• Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruoccio, as recommended by Otters
• Rivers of London: Body Work by Ben Aaronovitch. Same as Underlord, read what was available and haven't kept up since.
• Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft.
• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
• Son of the Morning by Mark Alder.

Historical:

• An Empire of Ice by Edward J. Larson
• God's Chinese Son by Jonathan Spence
• Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. I really liked Macintyre's books about Kim Philby and Oleg Gordievsky, so I figured I might as well work through his entire oeuvre. Was less of a fan of his book about Adam Worth, but his book about Agent Zigzag was good.
• Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre

 

1) The Ghost Brigades (second book in Old Man's War series) by John Scalzi. Got about half way through, but didn't really find anything about it nearly as interesting as the first book, and got bored. Also, different MC than the first book

2) The Last Colony (third book in Old Man's War). Supposedly the MC's from the first two books meet up, but since I couldnt get through the second, ohwell.

3) Dance of the Dragons. So fucking boring, I couldn't finish it.