I make myself a reading list every summer because I like lists, not because I seriously expect to read most of the books I choose. I'm used to picking out ten or so books that intrigue me, putting them at the top of my to-read stack, getting distracted almost immediately by another nearby stack of books, and finishing out the season having read as many as three of the books on my actual list, plus half a dozen other books that crossed paths with me along the way. A book that seems just right in late June may not look quite as attractive by mid-July—or by next week.
So this list is incredibly provisional; it also has a specific scheme to it. You see, the books in my house that I haven't read include an excessive amount of books that were given to me as gifts, borrowed books that I ought to return to their owners, library books that should be going back into circulation, and books I've enthusiastically bought in the last few years and never made time to read. That is the way it's been since I was a teenager, and I expect it to be that way when I'm eighty-two. Still, it would be nice to devote a season to catching up with books that fall into those four categories.
I'll start with the gifts, since those are inevitably the books I most regret not reading. I receive something like six or eight books a year from family and friends, many of which I don't pick up for years after the gifting. This year I'd like to return the goodwill of the people who gave them to me by reading at least a few of the following:
1. Giving Good Weight, John McPhee (Received in August 2000)
I have owned this book for my entire adult life. It was a gift from my friend Tessa on the occasion of my eighteenth birthday; I've taken it traveling with me, moved with it every time I've moved, found a spot for it in every bedside bookcase, and never read far past the first of its five essays. That essay, the title piece, is a long, beautiful piece of journalism from the late '70s about vendors at New York's Greenmarkets (farmer's markets); the other essays, from their descriptions, sound just as good. I'd really like to read it before it really gets to be ten years since Tessa gave it to me, which gives me about a month and a half.
2. Sabriel, Garth Nix (Received in August 2007)
This one arrived right around another birthday, along with Witi Ihimaera's The Whale Rider, which I've since read. Both books came from my girlfriend during the time when we were just friends shyly sending books on each other's birthdays. I'm about ready to dig into a good new fantasy author—it's been a while—and this is one of Jamie's favorites, which works for me.
3. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett (Received in August 2002)
It's been about eleven years since I first heard this Pratchett guy was pretty funny. It's been about eight years since my parents, at my request, gave me this Discworld novel as a birthday gift. Its protagonists are a trio of witches who have a few things in common with the fortune-telling weird sisters in Macbeth, and I have a soft spot for fantasy reworkings of Shakespeare (sections of Neil Gaiman's Sandman come to mind, as do several characters from the TV show Gargoyles), so this should be just my thing.
4. A Midsummer Tempest, Poul Anderson (Received in 2001?)
Speaking of which, here's one that caught my attention for exactly the same reason. My friend Glen was trying to unload his tall stacks of science fiction and fantasy novels years ago, and let me go through them before they were to be donated or sold. This was the only one I picked out from the pile, never having heard of Poul Anderson but intrigued by the idea of an alternate universe in which everything written by Shakespeare was literally true. I still don't know anything about Anderson's writing ability, but his concept alone is still striking enough to make this worth a try.
5. All that Remains, Patricia Cornwell (Received in February 2008)
I was reading Cryptonomicon on the bus a couple of years ago when the middle-aged man sitting next to me saw that I was reading something, struck up a friendly conversation with me about how much fun reading was, and gave me his Patricia Cornwell novel. I think it's the only non-religious book I've been offered by a total stranger, and the moment was memorable enough that I decided to hang onto it and eventually read it. I know close to nothing about Cornwell, or Kathy Reichs, or anyone in that whole forensics-mystery subgenre, but I'll try most things once, and that guy on the bus was nice.
So that list represents my resolve to put a dent in the dozens of books that have been generously given to me. Next up, five books I've borrowed from people I know, which I should be reading and returning fairly soon.
