The List

I keep a list of the books I want to read in the back of my datebook (I still buy a datebook every year--and it's time to get one, because the tiny lines for each day of next year are getting crowded--and inn the back of the book I rewrite, every year, my phone numbers, and everyone's social security number--I know, I shouldn't--and an updated version of the list.)

The list includes books people tell me about, books I see reviewed or read articles about or glance at on the table at the bookstore, books I hear about in conversation.  Sometimes I write down the title, but sometimes just the author, and then later I look at the name and wonder who on earth it is.

The problem is: I keep the list, but I rarely refer to it.  I get sucked in by the new books shelf, or someone gives me a book, or I pick up a book at someone else's house.  So the list gets longer, and rarely shorter.

Here's the 2006 version, exactly as it looks in the back of the datebook (crossed-off books are, obviously, the ones I've read [uh, nope, I actually have no idea how to cross things out in Blogger--I thought it would be obvious, as everyone seems to do it, but it's not, so let's just go with asterisks for the ones I've read, or abandoned, which is in fact more visually accurate, as on the list itself I just make a dash at the beginning of the item, kind of ticking it off, rather than crossing it off]):

Laura Waterman, Losing the Garden
Donald Hall, The Best Day The Worst Day
Housekeeping [I know, isn't it scandalous?!]
* Wesley Stace, Misfortune [abandoned]
Towelhead
*Ruth Reichl [this was Garlic and Sapphires]
*Ian McEwan, Saturday
Andrea Levy, Small Island [I have taken this one out of the library many times, to no avail]
Christine Schutt
Lydia Davis [I wrote "short stories" by these two]
Patrick Hamilton [???]
Alice Mattison
*Jude Morgan, Passion [abandoned]
Lily King, The English Teacher
Dana Spiotta, Eat the Document [got this one from the library yesterday]
*Jay McInerney [read a few pages at the bookstore--yuck]
*Ayelet
Poppy Z. Brite
Octavia Butler
*Steve Almond
Deborah Eisenberg
Mary Gaitskill, Veronica [sitting on my desk since August]
Sarah Gran, Dope
I Capture the Castle [I know, I KNOW]
Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts, etc. [I'm pretty sure I'll never read this one]
*Justine Picardie, My Mother's Wedding Dress [referenced here]
*Michael Walker, Laurel Canyon [abandoned and blogged]
*Shari Goldhagen, Family and Other Accidents
Lee Server, Ava Gardner
Edward P. Jones
Michael Patrick MacDonald, All Souls [I'm working on it]
Naomi Alderman, Disobedience
Alan Moore, Lost Girls
Elizabeth Frank, Cheat and Charmer [got it from the library]
Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog...
Rodrigo Fresan, Kensington Gardens
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Jim Crace
The Plot Against America
Cancer Vixen
*Alison Bechdel, memoir