Collateral Bloggage What passes for thought around here…

Better Dead Than To Be Read, Or Wherever the Whims May Take Me

When I originally read about the To Be Read Challenge, I balked.  Better Dead than To Be Read!!!  And then I calmed down.  But one of the reasons I’ve never wanted to be a book reviewer who gets sent books is that I don’t like anybody telling me what to read.  Oh, I’m fine accepting suggestions from people, and I definitely pick up books based on reviews I read, but mostly I just like to read whatever, whenever.

And now that I’ve started thinking about What I Will Read Next Year, I know I don’t even really like it when I tell myself what to read.

I’ve often told The Fair Elaine that she likes to make lists just so she can beat herself over the head with them.  So perhaps I’ve just gone the other way.  If I don’t make a list, I can’t feel bad about not finishing it!

But, it’s almost to the New Year, and I suppose I should try to be more listy and regimented.  So, I present to you my To Be Read list:

Fiction TBRs:

• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• Emma, by Jane Austen
• Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
• Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
• Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Nonfiction TBRs:

• God of the Possible, by Greg Boyd
• The Inescapable Love of God, by Thomas Talbott
• Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, by C. Baxter Kruger
• The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, Edited by James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy
• Ball Four, by Jim Bouton
• 1776, by David McCullough

Now, I’ll admit that I’ve already started two of the nonfiction titles, but it’s been long enough that I’ll have to double back and basically re-read.  And even if I don’t, I still have a good eighty percent of each that’s unread at this point.

I also plan to read 2010, on account of having read 2001 this year and for the other obvious reason.  So consider it an alternate should one of the other titles not pan out.  One other alternate is Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  I’ll try to hit both alternates in case anyone objects to my Already Started titles.

(A nonfiction alternate is Feeding Your Appetites, by Stephen Arterburn.)

I can already tell that I’m going to have to seriously control my random library gleanings.