Sharon had an interesting post yesterday under the guise of a Thursday Thirteen on the subject of authors she collects but has yet to read. She asks, "Are there any authors whose books you have more than 4 of that you haven't read but intend to?"
I have four unread Peter Ackroyds floating around, but I've read a couple by him as well so I can't count him. After I scroll through my to-be-read list (sorely in need of an update, I realize), I find that I don't have any authors on the list that I've stockpiled in great quantities without reading something by them first. I'm not much of a risk-taker when it comes to shelf-sitters, it seems; I simply don't have the space.
I did manage to put together a list of 15 fiction writers as yet unread with two books on my shelves:
Mikhail Bulgakov
Ethan Canin
Louis de Bernieres
Ivan Doig
Ford Madox Ford
Nadine Gordimer
David Markson
V.S. Naipaul
Lawrence Norfolk
Richard Powers
Thomas Pynchon
Susan Sontag
Graham Swift
David Toscana
Richard Yates
That's it.
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I have exactly two authors who could fit on that list -- yours, that is, with two books I own by an author I haven't read. They are Alice Munro and W.G. Sebald. I'm clearly not buying enough books :)
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine having as many as 4 — that seems like a huge risk. I stockpile author works only with series it seems: Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy (I started the first, then bought the rest cuz they were cheap), and Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos series (which I bought as a set, I have 3 to go); in both cases I'm familiar with and like their other work.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I have 2 unread George Eliot novels, which came omnibussed with Middlemarch.
Of your list I have at least one by Bulgakov, Ford, Gordimer, and Sontag. I have 3 by Swift.
ReplyDeleteSounds awfully familiar.
ReplyDeleteI once set out to read Louise Erdrich and I have several of her books. Life and other books keep postponing the inevitable.