Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Top 10 books we had to buy... but are still unread

Question: Top 10 books we just HAD to buy... but are still sitting on our bookshelves (unread).


Answer: While we pride ourselves at stocking our home library with many of our favorite completed novels, there have been several that remain in a holding pattern on our TBR shelf.  The genres of these unfortunate books are as far reaching as the excuses we plan to employ below.  The good news is that half of these titles are already slated on to be read in 2011 (barring any unforeseen changes of course...). 

  1. Scarlett (Alexandra Ripley) – Gone with the Wind is one of our favorite, favorite novels of all time.  Because of this, we’re still kind nervous to mess with the plot of the original work.  We’re still unsure if Rhett and Scarlett should be reacquainted.

  1. Shogun (James Clavell) – A classic example of a classic we bought that remains unread.  Hopefully 2011 is the year...

  1. Jamaica Inn (Daphne Du Maurier) – We loved Rebecca, yet for some reason we have not sampled one of Du Maurier’s other novels.

  1. The Floating Book (Michelle Lovric) – This was a bargain book with a really cool cover.  

  1. The Fifth Elephant (Terry Pratchett) – It’s hard for us to pass up any of the Discworld novels, unfortunately we were slightly underwhelmed by The Color of Magic. 

  1. The Princess Bride (William Goldman) – Funny story.  We were quite disappointed to find that this novel is only an abridgement of S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale.  Only recently did we find that the whole thing is a silly ploy and that the entire novel was actually written by William Goldman...  S. Morgenstern does not actually exist. 

  1. AdelĂ© (Emma Tennant) – We’re always game for any Jane Eyre spinoff.  

  1. Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton) – One of these days we’ll tackle this one.  I think we’re trying to wait until we’ve completely forgot the plot of the movie.

  1. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Victor Hugo) – This one’s a monster and we refuse to commit to any read date.  At least it still looks good collecting dust on the shelf.

  1. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) – Another unread classic way down at the bottom of our TBR list.

Have a great week and head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to join the fun!

10 comments:

  1. I still can't believe there is a sequel to Gone With the Wind! I guess if you read it and dislike it, you can just refuse to accept it cause it's not written by Margaret Mitchell though!

    Also, DON'T read Robinson Crusoe! Just don't do that to yourselves. The very first novels=terrible terrible things..

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  2. I have Shogun too. I'd like to read it some day.

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  3. Classics seem to make their way down to the bottom of my pile too. I really want to read the Three Musketeers but never seem to get to it. Also want to read Jane Eyre again...

    Don't know if I'd bother with Scarlett - unless you are just curious. It didn't do that much for me--don't expect it to be like Gone With the Wind.

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  4. I haven't read any! But like me, your list contains a lot of classics.

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  5. I like the diversity of your list. And I'm new to your site!

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  6. I got fooled by the whole S. Morgenstern thing when I read The Princess Bride, too. I was slightly younger, but I even went looking for other books by S. Morganstern. Thanks for hopping by.

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  7. The only one I've read on your list is Robinson Crusoe, which I liked more than I thought I would.

    Check out my list here: http://hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-ten-tuesday-tbr.html

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  8. I read Scarlett way back in the day - probably 15 or 16 years ago now and I remember it as being -okay- but not great. I really need to read Gone With The Wind again too, it's been a very long time.

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  9. Do yourself a favor and skip Robinson Crusoe. Seriously. It's not worth it. You will want that time back.

    Jurassic Park is good, but very different from the movie.

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  10. JURASSIC PARK is a terrific read. I agree, it is different from the movie and worth the read. LOST WORLD is also quite good and MUCH different from the lackluster film.

    SHOGUN is terrific. Clavell was an incredible story-teller.

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