My “books to read” shelf

I love books. I can’t help myself, I buy a lot of them. Mostly I buy them second hand from charity shops, so I can persuade myself there is some justification for my addiction.

I read somewhere around 35-40 books a year, so this represents more than a year of reading for me. I track my reading using Goodreads, which is also a useful place to keep a to-read list to add books when friends recommend them. I have 283 books on my want-to-read list – that’s seven years’ worth of reading.

This is my to-read shelf. It has 32 books on it. However I know from looking at it that some books are more likely to be read than others.

Books I am currently feeling inclined to reading include:

• Miranda Emmerson “Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars”
• Ruby Wax “Sane New World”
• Lily Allen “My Thoughts Exactly”
• Oyinkan Braithwaite “My Sister the Serial Killer”
• Kate Atkinson “Transcription”.

The less-likely-to-be-read books include:

• Orhan Pamuk “My Name is Red” – I’m unlikely to start another one of his when I still haven’t finished “The Museum of Innocence” that I started last year;
• Herman Melville “Moby Dick” – I’m not sure there is ever a good time to read about whaling;
• Robert Hughes “The Fatal Shore” – the font is really small and unappealing;
• Joyce Carol Oates “A Book of American Martyrs” – I know you shouldn’t judge this way but I really don’t like the colour design of the spine.

This shelf contains books that:

• I bought new (Jean MacColl “Sun on the Water”)
• I bought second hand (Christine Mangan “Tangerine”)
• were gifts (Orlando Figes “Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia”)
• I bought when I was studying (J.H. Elliott “Empires of the Atlantic World”)
• I got for free from a swap shelf at work (Herman Melville “Moby Dick”)
• I bought because I felt they were books I “should” read (Richard Flanagan “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”)
• were part of my work’s Literature Prize longlist (Jacek Dehnel “Lala”),
• I picked up on spec to fill a multi-item purchase deal (Carolina de Robertis “The Invisible Mountain”)
• And a book that is technically my husband’s but which he thought I would like to read (Stewart Lee “Content Provider”).

I know that as soon as I am able to go out into the world again, I will start acquiring more books. So I need to keep reading to move books off this shelf and make some space. There is still a small gap on this shelf – I could fit maybe one more book, or two if they’re skinny.

What books are on your to-read shelf?

Have you read any of the books that are on my to-read list? Are there any books here you would recommend I read next?