Who knows if I'll ever actually get to these. But one can hope.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Obviously. I made it like 50 pages into this over a year ago. It's been wedged between my bed and the wall since then. Look, it's REALLY good. It's also a million pages long. WHY DID YOU DO THIS, SUSANNA CLARKE WHY. I remember having a copy of this while in college. Another copy was given to me in 2009 in a New York City hotel room by a friend visiting from Germany. And it remains unread.
John Adams. I've started this so many times. I've owned it for over ten years. That is EMBARRASSING. I was in high school when I bought it. I didn't even know how to drive, or that Evelyn Waugh was a gentleman and not a lady, or that hummus is delicious. THAT IS HOW LONG I HAVE OWNED THIS BOOK. I think I made it to his marriage with Abigail right before visiting Boston three years ago, but then I stopped again.
Little Altars Everywhere. I read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when I visited my best friend, who at the time lived in Houston. That book will forever be associated with Houston for me, and I loved both of them. So I got the first in the series when I got back home, and promptly never read it. Which is ridiculous, because Ya-Ya is awesome and you should read it.
Daniel Deronda. I know I've owned this since at least 2007, because I have a picture of my Unread Books Shelf on facebook (hahahaha it used to just be one shelf) and it's on there. My EXCUSE for this is, of course, that I was permitting myself one George Eliot a year so I didn't run out prematurely. But now it's the last one. And after I read it, there won't be any more. And if my experience with the end of Edwin Drood was any indication (even though there's a ton of Dickens I haven't read but IT'S HIS LAST ONE), I will be a weepy mess when I read it. Ooh but I hope it has people kissing in it. People kissing is my FAVORITE.
Shirley. I think most girls at some point get real excited about Jane Eyre, try reading absolutely any of Charlotte Bronte's other books and then...kinda...drift away. Because wow. Ma'am, people do not want novels about the Industrial Revolution. They want crazy ladies locked in attics and rugged gentlemen going MAD with desire for tiny governesses. That, please. Not "The farmers have upset the wagon that was carrying the new cotton gin into town!" That is not thrilling to our young souls.
The Divine Comedy. Oh man, did I have a plan summer of 2007. "This summer!" said I. "This summer I will read Paradise Lost, Pilgrim's Progress, and The Divine Comedy! Oh, how learnèd I shall be come autumn!" Then I spent over a month reading Paradise Lost, because it's written like this:
Not uninvented that, which thou aright
Believ'st so main to our success, I bring."
So I've owned a very nice copy/translation of The Divine Comedy for six years and done nothing with it whatsoever.
Good luck gettin' read, books.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Obviously. I made it like 50 pages into this over a year ago. It's been wedged between my bed and the wall since then. Look, it's REALLY good. It's also a million pages long. WHY DID YOU DO THIS, SUSANNA CLARKE WHY. I remember having a copy of this while in college. Another copy was given to me in 2009 in a New York City hotel room by a friend visiting from Germany. And it remains unread.
John Adams. I've started this so many times. I've owned it for over ten years. That is EMBARRASSING. I was in high school when I bought it. I didn't even know how to drive, or that Evelyn Waugh was a gentleman and not a lady, or that hummus is delicious. THAT IS HOW LONG I HAVE OWNED THIS BOOK. I think I made it to his marriage with Abigail right before visiting Boston three years ago, but then I stopped again.
Little Altars Everywhere. I read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when I visited my best friend, who at the time lived in Houston. That book will forever be associated with Houston for me, and I loved both of them. So I got the first in the series when I got back home, and promptly never read it. Which is ridiculous, because Ya-Ya is awesome and you should read it.
Daniel Deronda. I know I've owned this since at least 2007, because I have a picture of my Unread Books Shelf on facebook (hahahaha it used to just be one shelf) and it's on there. My EXCUSE for this is, of course, that I was permitting myself one George Eliot a year so I didn't run out prematurely. But now it's the last one. And after I read it, there won't be any more. And if my experience with the end of Edwin Drood was any indication (even though there's a ton of Dickens I haven't read but IT'S HIS LAST ONE), I will be a weepy mess when I read it. Ooh but I hope it has people kissing in it. People kissing is my FAVORITE.
Shirley. I think most girls at some point get real excited about Jane Eyre, try reading absolutely any of Charlotte Bronte's other books and then...kinda...drift away. Because wow. Ma'am, people do not want novels about the Industrial Revolution. They want crazy ladies locked in attics and rugged gentlemen going MAD with desire for tiny governesses. That, please. Not "The farmers have upset the wagon that was carrying the new cotton gin into town!" That is not thrilling to our young souls.
The Divine Comedy. Oh man, did I have a plan summer of 2007. "This summer!" said I. "This summer I will read Paradise Lost, Pilgrim's Progress, and The Divine Comedy! Oh, how learnèd I shall be come autumn!" Then I spent over a month reading Paradise Lost, because it's written like this:
Not uninvented that, which thou aright
Believ'st so main to our success, I bring."
So I've owned a very nice copy/translation of The Divine Comedy for six years and done nothing with it whatsoever.
Good luck gettin' read, books.
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