Weekly Geeks – The books you’ve waited too long to read

Published on by Margaret

This weekend, Weekly Geeks host EH asks about books we have waited too long to read.

Is there a book that has been hanging around your reading pile for far too long before you got to it. A book that probably got packed away until you accidentally got to it or a book that you read a few pages in and never got back to.

There are quite a few books over the last few years that I have started to read and not finished. I don’t mean the ones that I don’t intend to finish. Rather these are books I would like to read all the way through but have not so far got round to it. They are mainly non-fiction and the reason I’ve not finished them is usually that they take more time to read than fiction and so I slot other books in between reading sessions and sometimes just don’t get back to the non-fiction.

These are some of them – all books I do intend to finish:

  1. Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man by Claire Tomalin – I stopped reading this partway in as I decided I needed to read more of Hardy’s own books before going further. I’ve read a few more of his books, but have never got back to this biography.
  2. A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela – I must have read about half of this book before I stopped. It was so long ago that I can’t remember why I didn’t finish it.
  3. A Dead Language by Peter Rushforth – this one is fiction. I loved Pinkerton’s Sister by Rushforth. I found A Dead Language hard-going, but I will get back to it one day. The downside is that I’ll have to start it again as I’ve forgotten who all the characters are.
  4. 1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro – I can’t remember any specific reason I haven’t finished this book.
  5. Body Parts: Essays on Life Writing by Hermione Lee. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each essay that I’ve read so far. As the essays are self-contained there is no problem in reading it in instalments.

6 thoughts on “Weekly Geeks – The books you’ve waited too long to read”

  1. What a cool post and I can so relate to everything you wrote..

    I read quite a bit of non- fic, but as you said some are a brute to get through…

    I just completed one on work ethics and professionalism – and although this is an area I love, reading the theory of it just takes so much out of me..

    I am intriqued by the 1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare – as I am just catching up on a few Shakespeare so that would be a lovely book to follow up with…

    Body Parts: Essays on Life Writing – This one I am going to chase up – as one of my pet peeve in books especially fiction is the logistics of arms and legs… sometimes I swear there are extra arms and legs in a few scenes I read..
    Thanks for partcipating this week.
    E.H>

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  3. I’ll have to find the Hermione Lee book. I have read several biographies by her and find her fascinating. I have many FAT non-fiction books on my shelves that I will eventually get to but they just take so long.

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  4. Hi Margaret,

    You hit the nail on the head, with your reply to Kerrie’s comment.
    Non fiction books are always something I either start to read but never seem to finish, or something that I really must get round to reading one day.

    I’m afraid I am in the grip of fiction completely, so perhaps I am just an escapist by nature.

    I must be the only person in the world who hasn’t read ‘Catcher In The Rye’, although there is a brand new copy sat on my shelves.

    The other book I own that I have always been going to get around to reading is ‘Lord Of The Flies’

    There are probably many others if I sat and thought about it.

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    1. Yvonne, you’re not alone I haven’t read Catcher in the Rye either. Lord of the Flies was one of the set books at school, so I have read that – I don’t remember much about it though.

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