Saturday 4 April 2009

...while rescue workers tried in vain to pull her from under the TBR pile...

I'm sure there are people out there with to-be-read piles that dwarf mine - but that's hard to imagine right now. My bedhead bookshelf is stuffed with new titles, there are more piled on top of it, and others are winging their way from Amazon at this moment. Here's a sampling of the ones balancing over my head:

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Forever My Love by Jeff Rivera
The History of the Maroons by R.C. Dallas
The Beauty of Color by Iman

Those have been hanging around since last year. Then there's To Ride the Chimera and Wolf Hunters, both by Kevin Killiany, a friend to this blog; Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman; King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry... I'm embarrassed to continue.

You'd imagine that a rational person would refrain from ordering books at this juncture, but I obviously can't count myself among the ranks of the reasonable and level headed. I've pursued a lifetime love affair with all things Italian, from my taste in movie stars as a teenager to my taste in food and landscapes. The movies The English Patient, My House in Umbria and Under the Tuscan Sun just honed my obsession, and then, a year ago, blog friend nyc/caribbean ragazza left her LA film producer job and moved to Italy where she now lives and writes. I was reading her blog this week and there was a quotation by Andrea Lee, an American writer living in Italy, and the end result was the addition of Lost Hearts in Italy to my Amazon cart, where it landed right next to A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi, so what was I to do? I threw in On Beauty by Zadie Smith for good measure, and clicked the checkout button.

A Tuscan view

My wish list is also scaring me. There's so much stuff in there, including a bunch of books by writers I know online whose books I must read. But I need to get on with the ones I have lying around here so, if you see me heading anywhere in the direction of Amazon again, looking furtive and shifty-eyed, please, I implore you, head me off. Use any means necessary.

11 comments:

Chris Stovell said...

That was very naughty of you... I'm looking at your tbr pile and thinking there are a few titles I should add to mine!

KeVin K. said...

I'm pretty sure there's nothing Italian in Wolf Hunters or Chimera, so you can move those to the end of the queue....

kim said...

"...I obviously can't count myself among the ranks of the reasonable and level headed."

I love you.

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

Now you've given me more ideas for books that I need to order. Sigh, my wish list was frightening enough already.

Sandra Cormier said...

I'm so glad I managed to sneak in under the pile! When I saw your list on Goodreads, I felt like such a slacker.

Anonymous said...

Life is too short not to buy more books. The second biggest chunk of my time Internet time is spent looking at books on Amazon and I am not ashamed to admit that one. As Douglas Adams once wrote,"Resistance is useless" so why resist. Read Tuscan books, drink Chianti wine, eat sunflower seeds and bake in the Trinidad sun :)

Liane Spicer said...

ChrisH, I know! I should be punished, I should.

KeVin, I'll do no such thing. A diet of Italian only would soon make me sick of the stuff.

Kim, :D You think I'm joking, don't you. Ask my family - they all believe I'm cuckoo as hell.

Debs, frightening is the word. That's the thing about hanging around writers: they always have good reading recommendations.

Liane Spicer said...

Chumplet, my TBR pile was nothing like this when I got The Space Between. Now that Bad Ice and Toast Bitches are here, it's another matter altogether - but I will get to them. Writer buddies' books are priority! (Don't you dare feel like a slacker, because while I whiled away the hours updating Goodreads last week, you, I'm sure, were writing or editing or doing promo or something really productive. I'm the slacker here.)

akalol, I have so much reading to do before I die, I'll probably need to go into extra time. Hope the guy upstairs cooperates... Read Tuscan books, drink Chianti wine, eat sunflower seeds and bake in the Trinidad sun... Ahh, paradise!

writtenwyrdd said...

Mine's 170 and counting. Scary.

Liane Spicer said...

Wryttenword, hi there! Welcome!

170 and counting? Crikes. I don't dare count mine. :)

writtenwyrdd said...

And yet I cannot stop buying. It's an addiction...