Larry did this first, Joe did it a couple of days ago. Now it's my turn... (You may have to click on the pictures to enlarge them)
These are a mixture of books that were either too large to take on the train to work or suffered as a result of the 'reading burn out' that I've been having a good old moan about recently...
These are all books that I started reading but never really got into for one reason or another. There was a lot of online discussion about 'The Magicians' and I thought I'd let that die down before giving it another go (I could see both sides of the argument based on what I'd read so far). 'The Grave Thief' was a book that I always seemed to find myself reading when I was too tired to properly get into it, same deal with 'Canticle'. I'll be giving all of these books another go in the New Year.
These are the books that looked really interesting and ones that I would have to read sooner rather than later... until they got lost in the reading pile and promptly forgotten about. I need to read 'The Red Wolf Conspiracy' before I can get into 'The Rats and the Ruling Sea'... And why has 'Shadow Magic' made its way into another photo? That pesky poltergeist is playing tricks again... ;o) Another book that should be in this picture, but isn't, is M. John Harrison's 'Viriconium', next year will be all about finishing that one off!
And here are more books that suffered from their job of holding up the rest of the reading pile. Has anyone here read 'Warbreaker' or 'Zadayi Red'? Are they worth picking up? I will be giving the former a go but am still pondering over the latter. I'm also pondering over 'Julian Comstock', do I give it a go?
How about all of you? What books were you planning to definitely read this year but never quite managed to? Did you buy them or are they still at the store waiting for you to go in...?
Comments please! :o) (And don't forget to look out for my 'Reads of the Year' list towards the end of next week!)
7 comments:
Merry Christmas Graeme!
If you haven't read Brandon Sanderson yet, I recommend Warbreaker as that one is a good standalone fantasy novel.
I have a pile of books that I haven't gotten around to reading and my notable ones that I had planned to read but didn't for various reasons:
The Shadow of the Wind by Zafon
Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook
Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
Guinevere Seaworth
My guest post for the lovely BookSmugglers has a list of unread books from 2009. Though not many overlap yours but you'll have to wait to see the full list ;)
The Red Wolf Conspiracy is one. Turn Coat isn't on it but I'm on a bit of Jim Butcher binge so I'll have that read by the end of the month I hope.
I'd say you didn't miss anything with Jasmyn.
It's an odd experience leaving a year unread and already having unread Jan releases looking at me.
It's going to an amazing 2010 - looking forward to your posts.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I would definitely give Julian Comstock a try. Of course, I am a big fan of Robert Charles Wilson (Spin and sequel Axis were great!)
I'll second Warbreaker
Well, for one I promise myself every year that I'm finally going to get off my duff and read Dune. Another year has passed, nearly, and that isn't going to happen. I am hoping a planned joint read with a friend will finally be the motivating factor I need in the coming year.
I planned to get to Shadow of the Wind and that didn't happen. Neither did Joe Haldeman's Marsbound, Warren Hammond's Ex-Kop, anything else by Charles Stross, since I enjoyed Halting State so much last year. I finally read my first Reynolds, Chasm City, and thoroughly enjoyed it but I have yet to get to any of his other work.
I definitely hope to read more science fiction short story anthologies in the coming year. On the fantasy front I want to finally read Game of Thrones and find out why GRRM is one of my best friend's favorite authors.
There is always more to get to than what I actually get to in a given year. But that is a good problem to have, I suppose.
'Warbreaker' was my first Sanderson novel, and I think it was great. There was a little lull in the middle before it raced to the end.
Too many books on the unread pile, and I just keep adding to it. Currently finishing up the Mistborn trilogy as well as my WOT re-read so I can start TGS, and my wife recently won an ARC of 'The Desert Spear' :-D, so that's on tap too.
Our piles look a lot alike. I too liked "Warbreaker" and "Julian Comstock;" they both made my "best of" list. You also gotta read "Boneshaker" if you haven't already. I hear "Red Claw" and "Jasmyn" are good. Right now I'm reading "A Shadow in Summer" and it's pretty exceptional so far.
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