My book shopping list

The other day I worked out that almost a third of the books on my shelves I have yet to read. At the beginning of summer it was only a quarter and it’s not as if I’m a slow reader. Which means that I have bought A LOT of books. So I think it might be time to get my book buying addiction under control.

My answer to this, as with so many things, was to write a list. A list of books that I am allowed to buy and that I must not deviate from!

It’s still a really long list. It’s not as if I’m making myself go cold turkey or anything. And this may be my third draft because I kept thinking of more authors who needed including. But it’s a start.

This should keep me going until the end of year. Hopefully. With my insistence that all my books be second hand balancing my desire for nothing but beautiful editions on my shelves it can take me months before I purchase even a single book (or I could tick ten off my list on one day).

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I’ve been hunting for a nice copy of this for a while as I hear such great things about it and I don’t read enough dystopian fiction.

2. Agnes Grey, The Professor, Villette or Shirley by Anne and Jane Bronte

Much like with Jane Austen I imagine that just because these books aren’t as famous as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights it doesn’t mean there won’t be a gem in there.

3. The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield

I’m after this book mostly because it comes in the same series as my beloved copy of Valley of the Dolls.

4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

This ones purely because I read it as ebook so I now must own a physical copy!

5. George Eliot

I’d like to say Middlemarch but it’s just so damn long! But I enjoyed Silas Marner so much that it seems silly I’ve never read anything else by her.

6. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

This plot of this makes it sound like my ideal book – about a woman writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot. And I very much enjoyed The Virgin Suicides.

7. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Another one that I’ve read but don’t own my own copy.

8. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I keep seeing this book mentioned places at the moment so I’m taking it as a sign that I should be reading it.

9. The Other Queen and The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory

These are the missing puzzle pieces from my complete collections of the Cousins’ War series and The Tudor Court Series. The Other Queen shouldn’t be too hard to find but The Taming of the Queen is still very new.

10. Thomas Hardy

One of my favourite authors of all time and yet I only own one of his books! This needs correcting.

11. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

I got a bit nosy on the train at what the man sat opposite me was reading and it turned out it was this. And a quick google told me that I desperately need to read this book. I love anything that bashes neoliberalism.

12. Phillip Larkin

I really enjoy poetry but my knowledge is limited to the classics. So I’m trying to introduce some more contemporary poets into my collection too.

13. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E Lockhart

This one might be a long time in the coming but I really want to read it.

14. A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin

I’m slowly building up my collection of paperback George RR Martin’s but I’ve still got a long way to go (I currently have two of the seven).

15. Moranthology by Caitlin Moran

I borrowed this off a neighbour when I read it but now must have a copy of my own.

16. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I need this for my mission to read lots of New York based books. And although I’ve come across several copies, I’m holding out for the perfect edition.

17. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Another for the New York collection.

18. The Love Machine and Once Is Not Enough  by Jacqueline Susann

Because I loved Valley of the Dolls too much not to read more by her.