My Ideal Bookshelf (?)
My Ideal Bookshelf (?)
There’s a new book out called My Ideal Bookshelf, which I read about at Mental Multivitamin, then promptly put on my amazon wish list. She posted her Ideal Shelf, here is a stab at mine–hey, it goes to 11!
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Life with Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Illustrated Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, ill. Dame Darcy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Hamlet, The Tempest and Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
The Holy Bible NRSV
Also, please note, I picked particular Shakespeare plays rather than a collection. More challenging, no?
Wuthering Heights and A Wrinkle in Time almost made the cut. I think I’m missing a good, cathartic weepie. Probably should have put Anne of Green Gables on there, in lieu of Witch of Blackbird Pond.
What does your shelf look like/contain? You can print out an illustration at the Ideal Bookshelf site, too.
November 29th, 2012 at 10:33 am
We bought one of the originals for my brother a couple of years ago when he got his Ph.D. The best part (for me) was that his bound thesis was one of the books we had painted into the piece.
November 30th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
dude, I oddly won that book on goodreads and it’s fantastic. I really love it.
December 2nd, 2012 at 1:50 am
Hello! Thanks for posting this — it turns out the editor/author of “Ideal Bookshelf” is a graduate of the school where I work — she’s amazing and I had no idea she’d done this. Thanks! Possession and Anne of Green Gables would definitely be on my list. Also, Andre Dubus’ Broken Vessels (non-fiction), Angle of Repose, and History of Love by Nicole Krauss would all make the cut I think but I’d also have to put the New Yorker subscription in there since in my current state, that’s really what I read! But reading about your reading inspires, so thanks!
December 2nd, 2012 at 9:51 am
Jennifer, I hated Angle of Repose, felt like the author didn’t have any empathy for the character of the wife, and that the narrator was such a creepy old man that I couldn’t have any empathy or sympathy or find him engaging to read about. But I loved History of Love, though I avoid the New Yorker, because I know that would end badly for me (piles and piles of unread magazines, reproaching me). I didn’t include any graphic novels or comic books, and those should be there, most probably the collected Sandman by Neil Gaiman.
December 3rd, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I have the library pile and the adanvce reader copy pile. Sometimes I am so bad with the ARCs that I don’t even get to them until after the book is out, which is SO not the point. I know I have at least 16 books in the library pile, and the ARC pile is even bigger Oh well, it means I never run out of reads I know what you mean about posting I rarely post in my blog about books because I’m always updating the library site, but I always post an end-of-year review. I need to get to that.Have you ever seen Shelfari? It’s a site that lets you upload your favorite books and to-be-read books, and then you can put a little widget on your blog. It’s pretty cool, but it can eat your free time, and then you’re like, I could have been using that time to read! Haha. *book nerd runs away*
December 4th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Khalil, I’m on Goodreads instead of Shelfari, and I gave up on ARCs a while ago–too many typos, plus, like you, often the book would come out in paperback and I’d still not gotten to it!