Monday 20 September 2010

What do you want to have read by the end of the year?

I know... It's not a race, it's good to have a few books on your shelf that you haven't read blah blah blah ;o) If you're anything like me though, you have more than a few books on the pile where you look at them and think, "I was looking forward to reading that months ago, what happened...?"

Life happened, that's what :o) Now it's almost October and you're wondering where the year has gone. One thing you do know though is that you want to read at least three of those books in the pile that have been there since before the pile sprang into its unwieldy existence. What three books are they?

Mine are...



'Dust of Dreams' - Steven Erikson

Yep, that old chestnut again. I've come too far into the series to give up but I just can't get beyond the first one hundred or so pages. And so 'Dust of Dreams' continues to sit there, glaring at me and daring me to have another go...



'Lord of the Silent Kingdom' - Glen Cook

This book has actually been sat in the pile since this blog sprang into being. 'Surrender to the Will of the Night' isn't far off its release date so I want to get stuck into 'Lord' sooner rather than later.



'Shadowrise' - Tad Williams

This one hasn't been on the pile all that long but Tad is a favourite author of mine so I can't believe that I haven't picked it up yet, 'Shadowrise' feels like it's been sat there longer than it actually has...


Those are my three books then. I'm not challenging myself to finish them by the end of the year because we all know how rubbish I've been at the challenges recently! I'll just have to see how it goes, there's a few months yet :o)

How about you guys? Are there any books that you definitely want to have polished off by the end of the year? Leave me a comment and maybe we can all come back on New Year's Eve and see how we got on. I'll be the one still stuck on page one hundred and fifty of 'Dust of Dreams'... ;o)

19 comments:

WordTipping said...

I would really like to have the Song of Fire and Ice series polished off along with a couple of the new Horus Heresy books done. Other than that I have a couple more on my backlog but who knows if I will have time over the holidays.

David said...

I'd like to have finished "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, "The First Heretic" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, and "The Emperor's Finest" by Sandy Mitchell. And for good measure I'll throw in "Prospero Burns" by Dan Abnett, but I probably won't see that one until next year.

Bryce L. said...

With brand new babies this year for both of us, I hear ya! :D

I thought I would have already read The Magicians, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, and Horns. And the sad part is I don't think I'll even get to them by year's end. I make too many promises. :)

GB said...

A good half of my TBR pile I wanted to have read by now. So many of them are debut books in a series and the sequels are starting to come out now. Sigh.

Top three, though, would have to be Staked by JF Lewis, Black Blade Blues by JA Pitts and Blood Vice by Kevin Melton.

Unknown said...

China Mieville's Kraken and Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur... tomes that need more than just the passion to read to finish it in my case.

Ryan said...

I'll be back full time at school in about a week, so after that I'll be happy to get any small amount of reading time in...so for me, just creating that time in my schedule is my goal. As for what to read...Hoping to finally read something by Brandon Sanderson.

JamesY said...

I think the three I would pick are:
Jordan/Sanderson - The Gathering Storm
Alan Campbell - God of Clocks
Mark Charan Newton - City of Ruin
However, this is likely to come under threat from new purchases, random other unread choices or indulging in re-reads. With The Crippled God looming on the horizon I too may be reading Dust of Dreams.

fbelic said...

I can't wait for "The Gathering Storm" to come out. I have to guess the right time to start rereading previous books so I'm finished with them when TGS arrives ;-)

Sascha W said...

My three books are:
C S Friedman - Black Sun Rising I would really like to start the series (which I got last week) since it looks like it is so much different from other Fantasy series.
China Mieville - The Scar I read Perdido Street Station last year and was blown away. But it also was a very slow read. I fear The Scar is that also, so it has been in my list for at least a year but I never tried it.
Mary Gentle - Ash A Secret History. An 1100 page small print tome of a book. I have been planning to read this for 2 years but I somehow never get around to reading it. I think it would take me over a month to get through it.

Mieneke van der Salm said...

Oh I have too many books on my TBR-pile, but books I really want finish before the end of the year are Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur, Sam Sykes' Tome of the Undergates, Brent Weeks' Black Prism, Charles Stross' The Fuller Memorandum (yay, it arrived last weekend :D) and Peter V. Brett's The Painted Man. These will have to be mixed in with some of the non-sff books on my TBR-pile for a feature I have on my blog. So, I don't know how far I'll get. But I have to say, I'm pretty lucky that my baby loves to be read to from my books, so I can combine entertaining her and reading on a regular basis, at least at night!

Murf61 said...

I have far too many unread books at home... but the top three must reads are:
- Guardians of Paradise by Jaine Fenn
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar

fbelic said...

Oh, mistake. I was talking about "Towers of Midnight", not "The Gathering Storm"...

D-man said...

Here are three that I've had on my "to read" list for a while now:

The Edge of the World - Kevin J. Anderson
Reaper's Gale - Steven Erikson
Pirate Freedom - Gene Wolfe

I need to get back on track with the Malazan series, so Reaper's Gale is a definite read for the fall. The other two will largely depend on what I purchase between now and the holidays. I know The Way of Kings is currently sitting on my shelf, begging to be read...

Valashain said...

I've actually managed to read all of the books I mentioned in the end-of-year post except The Crippled God by Erikson (pushed back to early 2011) and Towers of Midnight (yet to be released). Apparently I should be more ambitions next year.

kaphin said...

Kraken and Zero History.
The Windup Girl if I have extra "free time."

mediaedward said...

Does anyone else think "Dust of Dreams" is boring as.. well, dust?
Malazan book of the Fallen went downhill for me since "Midnight Tides".

Lagomorph Rex said...

my goal is to have finished 150 books by the end of the year, I'm currently finished with 122 of them.

Elfy said...

I refuse to say anything specific, because I just know that something else shiny is going to jump out at me and mess it up. Hopefully I will have at least started Malazan.

ediFanoB said...

My current TBR pile consists of around 35 books.

These are the ones which I definitely want to read:
Kraken by China Mieville
Under the Dome by Steven King
Black Hills by Dan Simmons
The Last Page by Anthony Huso

It is door stopper time :-)