I know you'll all be jealous that I have these ahead of me and you are all through them already, (LOL) but I just got The Light Years, the first book in the Cazalet Chronicles and The Founding, the first book in the Morland Dynasty,
I also just acquired High Rising by Angela Thirkell and All Tarts are not Apple by Pip Granger.
Life is grand!

Just in the last few weeks: House of Mirth by Wharton, I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak, the new one by Anne Tyler, and Zadie Smith On Beauty. I'll probably read all of those first, at which point I hope my order for Kate Atkinson's new one will show up.

I really do need to go through my TBR - I've got lots of stuff that I picked up based on liking one thing by an author, then found that everything else was 'eh'. I also have lots of non-fiction of the type that I should have, but I really don't want to read (the one on Katrina is a case in point).

I try not to add to my TBR stack by reading books as soon as I get them. I went to B&N on Saturday and bought two books and four magazines, and I finished reading all of them Monday night. A recent exception may be Tristram Shandy which I bought on impulse, but when it arrived felt no desire to start on it.

If I laid all the books in my endless TBR stacks end to end, they'd probably reach to the moon....and back. We wouldn't have to send a spacecraft to get to the moon. We could all just walk.

Cindy, good luck on Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I don't know why, but after getting about 1/4 of the way through, I just couldn't take any more. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind or something.

Right now, my library stack consists of Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, and Helen of Troy by Margaret George (not sure whether I'll get around to this one or not, but it looked interesting). In addition, I keep adding to my stacks every time I set foot in B&N. I fear I might have a touch of OCD. *sigh*

There are several TBR stacks - if you don't have quite enough to reach the moon, colormeconfused, I can probably help:) But I don't really want to even think of the titles of my TBR books right now - I'm still only slightly more than halfway through War and Peace, and easily distracted from it by other books.

paperbackswap has been my downfall-61 and counting-as has the ability to place reserves online for the library. But I don't feel guilty if I don't finish a book-so my library tbr list ebbs and flows-I may request a book because it sounds interesting, but when I get it in my hands, it isn't my thing at all...so back it goes. And my pbs pile changes too-I read, list, and mail out as well as request.

My TBR pile always gets bigger and bigger because I keep going to the library and the I have a stack of MBRs. (Must Be Read or they have to go back untried!)

I really do try to avoid bookstores but sometimes I just have to go! I also confess to buying a few books at Costco, but I usually read those fast because they are hot seller's that I'd have to wait for at library.

Then there are the SBRs. (Should be read because I borrowed them from a friend.) If it's popular I do read right away so I can return, but I have a couple friends that buy lots of books and never go to the library; they don't care when I get them back. But my conscience nags!

I've got 3 right now that are all really too long if I'm going to get the 2 novels read for discussion on Oct. 1.The White Russian, Midnight Band of Mercy and His Mother's Son. WR seems to be the best of the lot from Amazon reviews, but HMS would be the shortest. Sometimes I can talk the librarian into letting me have another renewal, but it's chancy. Paying my fines without complaining helps!

Guess I'll go to Bel Canto because I had it on tape last year and didn't finish it. Need to see if I can get into it as a book. AOI is an old friend so it will be a fast read.

My read to buy ratio is something like 1:6 (in other words, I maybe read one for every six or so that I buy -- and the pile grows). My latest acquisitions were several of Mary Renault's books. I decided I wanted to revisit her Alexander and Theseus books, and I also bought Steven Pressfield's Last of the Amazons. I really am trying not to buy any more until I do better about reading what is in the TBR pile. I'm so susceptible to being in a "mood" for whatever I'm reading, though. Hence the buying sprees.

I just joined paperbackswap.com and now, I have The Age of Innocence, The Good Earth and Breathing Lessons coming in the mail! I just started Middlesex and have three other books waiting on my nightstand...! What have I done????

I keep buying books AND requesting things from the library and the library stack always wins. Right now I have The Age of Innocence and Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy ticking away toward their due dates, and I'm waiting for three other books on reserve.

In the meantime, the TBR pile grows (I think it's hit the 200 book mark, I'm frankly scared to count). Between library sales and used books online, it's far too easy to buy when I should just jot down the title and get to it later! I've also recently discovered a restaurant that gives books away with each meal AND has a used bookshop where you can buy if you don't find what you want on the freebie bookshelves in the dining room. Dangerous!!

oh April-the top of the slippery slope.
Today I have begun to redo my office bookshelves, so I can divide books I have in my head and shelves into:
I own it,
only remember reading it from the library
or
never saw it before...where did THIS come from?
I also need to create some order, as my history books have started to migrate over to the mystery shelves and you know what that means! pretty soon we'll have little historical mysteries running all around and I'll have MORE to read.

I don't have much of a TBR stack because I read lots of library books. I buy authors I like to keep (or can't wait for at the library). Right now, I have Winter's Child by Margaret Maron and The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters of my own, a borrowed copy of No Second Chance by Harlan Coben, and five library books waiting. Such riches we have! "Richer than I, you can never be; for I had a mother who read to me."

I am sitting here chuckling......not only do I have TBR piles here and there and everywhere, including a walk-in pantry closet shelves floor to ceiling with wonderful books....but my daughter and two granddaughters ( 9 and 5 ) and my grandson (11) are the same kind of voracious readers!!
We were just speaking about how each has piles of favorite books by their bedside and all have to be pried out of bed on school days because they are "reading a good book"!
My oldest granddaughter takes a book to bed with her and after lights are out she gets a penlight and reads! Her Mom has to be vigilant or she'll read most of the night.
My grandson, when he was 4, used to get up out of bed after being tucked in and sneak into the bathroom with a favorite book " because he could read by the nightlight"!

Is this genetic!?? LOL

My TBR additions this month (so far) are The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer, Dark Angels and Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen, and The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. I have a few books on pre-order with Amazon, including the new books by Michael Connelly and Charles Frazier. The number of TBR books I have is embarrassing so I'm always glad to know that I'm not alone!

"Richer than I, you can never be; for I had a mother who read to me." Who wrote that? I love it!

frances-I have Dark Angels in my TBR pile also-be sure you read Through A Glass Darkly first. Karalk-I sure do envy you the whole Morland series-I am presently reading bk. 23 and have loved them all-happy reading to you!
Carolyn-I have 2 Minette Walters books coming from PBSwap-I assume you really enjoy her? The Devil's Feather looked good but thought I should try something else by her also. I can't remember offhand what I am getting-which are the best????
On my TBR shelf(among others)-The Dark Angels, Paint It Black by the author of White Oleander, 4-5 books from paperback swap, American Cookery-Laura Kalpakian, Anna Quindlan's book, Mockingbird,booksn 24-25 of the Morland Dynasty and several others at last count.

carolyn,ky I am like you, I read a lot of library books and then buy the ones I can't live without. But there are still books that I think I want to own but can live without. However a poster on one of these boards has me rethinking all this by remarking that one can't trust libraries to keep the right books. So now I tend to buy more books although most of mine will probably come from the two used bookstores here.

Today I added Susan Orlean's book about various intersting people she has met...the title escapes me at the moment. Anyway I enjoyed her Orchid Thief a few years ago but didn't care for the movie version. When will Hollywood understand that when they start changing the story the story changes and usually not for the better?

Pam 53, I do like Minette Walters, but I think I keep buying them only because they are offered through the Mystery Guild at a good discount and I have all of them so far. I can't really say which I like best--she doesn't write a new one really often, and I tend to forget them in between. I do know they all seem to have a very tense, if not downright terrifying, denouement.

Karalk, here is the complete poem:

THE READING MOTHER

I had a mother who read to me,
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a mother who read me lays,
Of ancient and gallant and golden days.
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a mother who read me things,
That wholesome life to the boy heart bringsÂ
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold,
Richer than I, you can never be.
I had a mother who read to me.

Strickland Gillilan

To the moon and back? Ah well, let's just go to Pluto (STILL a planet in my mind) and back.

The Know-It-All - AJ Jacobs
Firestorm - Nevada Barr
The Lovely Bones - Alice Seebold
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Unholy Loves - Joyce Carol Oates
Glory - Vladimir Nabokov
Boone's Lick - Larry McMurtry
One Man's Bible - Gao Xingjian
Portrait of an Artist, as a Young Man - Joseph Heller
Bookman's Promise - John Dunning
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets - Stephen Crane
Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym

And that's just the stack next to the computer. There are literally a few thousand more around here that I have yet to read.

It's just grand.
PAM

Carolyn, I love that poem. It makes me a little sad though because I read and read to my son and he loved it. Then they put him into the Advanced Reading Program in the fourth and fifth grade where they really dissected books and his love of reading went right out the window. I did go to the teachers and the principal to have him removed from the program but they told me he was being lazy and didn't want to do the work and I went along with that but now I know I was right and should have stuck to my guns because I could see what was happening to him. It is just in the last couple of years, he's 23 now, that he has read a couple of books.

Thanks, Carolyn. I will print it and stick it right above my monitor. I love it.

Gooseberry, I'm so sorry for what happened to your son. In my case, I read like crazy to my son from the time he was born, (he is 18), my husband and I are voracious readers and my son has NEVER enjoyed reading. Too much access to television and movies. I was careful with quality, but not so careful with quantity.

Karalk, thanks for the sympathy. I don't blame the teachers at all. They were doing what they thought best for him and probably most of the kids responded well and it encouraged their reading. But I think Bill is like me, it took the magic out of reading for him as I think it would have me. I have never joined a book club for the same reason. I don't want to read on a schedule. I am too moody as a reader.

Pam, I have enjoyed all of Nevada Barr's books.

I have just started four weeks' holiday (woohoo!!) and have brought home with me from work:

Under Orders by Dick Francis (thought the last couple were rubbish but this has Sid Halley in it, so worth a try)
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
Secret River by Kate Grenville
Map of Bones by James Rollins
The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

I also have about three shelves of books bought at work and not yet read.

PS Glad to see so many people reading the Morland series - I think I can claim to be the instigator of interest in that series here at RP.

After reading Midwives I needed an emotional break-so I read two Ruth Dudley Edwards mysteries and now Snobs-I'm only a few pages in-looks light and fun so far...we'll see.
Karal-we have puzzled over this anomaly here before-the situation you describe is the same in my house-DD is a voracious reader...DS (age 17) was read to "before he was born!" as I read to DD. I controlled what he watched-we linked videos to books-he has seen parents and sister read since he was born-but he doesn't read-except for Sports Illi and the newspaper. High School Lit classes are agony. DD is an English comp teacher heading for her PhD. Same genes, same environment! weird.