Pick-a-Shelf discussion

Um, kinda like a challenge, I supposed...

I just figured that I've been on GR since mid 2008; I have 572 books on my to-read shelf and I keep adding to it each day!! So I want to challenge myself to read at least 10 of the 'oldest' books I've placed onto this shelf (but I've placed a limitation to read only stand alone books) this year.

And I WANT some company, LOL!!

Anyhow, here's my bottom 10:
1. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
3. Doggone by Erik Ryman
4. The Anubis Gate by Tim Powers
5. Out by Natsuo Kirino
6. The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles
7. Jonathan Strange Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
8. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
10. The Sacrifice Stone by Elizabeth Harris

Is anyone with me? Anybody?

I will join you!! I would have a year. I joined in 2008 too and all these books were added that year... So long ago. Every time I look at my TBR shelf, those books at the bottom call to me and for some reason I still let them sit there.

Here are mine:
1. The Birth House
2. One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
3. The Third Angel
4.In the Woods
5. Everything Is Illuminated
6. No One You Know 4/24/11
7. Me & Emma
8. The Red Tent 2/6/11
9. The Lace Reader
10. The Confessions of Max Tivoli

Yay, Tara! We can do it! 10 books in a year, it's doable, yea?!

I'll join you too, but I have to figure out which books to pick first -- I just moved them to a different room, so I can no longer just pick the ones on the bottom ;)

It looks like I only joined in 2009, but I still have a lot of hangers on from those days, can I play, too?

I tried this last year and failed miserably. Here's this year's attempt, from my tbr-at-home shelf:

1. Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife By Irene Spencer
2. Fallen Skies by Philippa Gregory
3. A Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory
4. The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan
5. The Cry of the Dove: A Novel by Fadia Faqir
6. I Am America by Stephen Colbert
7. The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
8. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
9. Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
10. The Sound of Blue: A Novel by Holly Payne

Of course, Adrienne. It doesnt really matter when you joined GR, it was just my thought process which led to this goal for the year.

And Lauren, good luck with this year's attempt. Hopefully, doing it with together, we ca spur each other on!! Go, Lauren, go go go!!! ;)

Oh and amazing that so far not 1 common book that we can read at the same time ...

Thanks for the encouragement Karen I may need it! Good luck to all other participants as well :)

While we have no overlaps I have read the following books listed above:

Lovely Bones
The Birth House
Everything is Illuminated
The Red Tent

Okay, so the 10 oldest books on my tbr are:

1. Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris by Sarah Turnbull
2. Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by Oliver James
3. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
4. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
5. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
6. The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
7. Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine
8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
9. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
10. The Black Tower by Louis Bayard

One Down! 1/14/11

I like this. I am definitely going to try this. So here is my list.

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martal
2. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
4. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
5. The Town that Forgot to Breathe by Kenneth Harvey.
6. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
7. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
8. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
9. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coehlo
10.The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

This sounds like fun, and like Karen, there can't be too many challenges for me. Here are my LOST books (BTW Karen - how long does it take you to come up with these wonderful names?)

1. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
4. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
5. The Shack by William P. Young completed 1/25/2011
6. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells
7. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
8. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
9. The Concubine's Tattoo by Laura Joh Rowland
10. Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson 2/23/2011

I loved Secret Life of Bees. Shadow of the Wind is on my definite to read list this year.

Karen wrote: "Um, kinda like a challenge, I supposed...

I just figured that I've been on GR since mid 2008; I have 572 books on my to-read shelf and I keep adding to it each day!! So I want to challenge mysel..."

Karen, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time faves. HUGE, but worth the read.

I will read (note to self - yes, you WILL):


1. The Glass Castle
2. The Memory Keeper's Daughter
3. Suite Française
4. Carry On, Jeeves
5. Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie
6. Eventide
7. The Sunday Philosophy Club
8. Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's
9. Peony in Love
10. Those Who Save Us

Finished 8/10 for 2011...the other 2 are being carried into 2012.

Oh heck, I will join in too! Must get rid of chunk of tbr this year ;) I can do it, I can do it......

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2. Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
3. The Glass Castle
4. Life's a Beach
5. Keeping the House: A Novel
6. What Do You Do All Day?: A Novel
7. Breaking Dawn
8. The Mercy of Thin Air
9. In the Woods
10. Working on the Edge: Surviving In the World's Most Dangerous Profession: King Crab Fishing on Alaska's HighSeas

My LOST list:
1. Fine Prey, by Scott Westerfeld
2. The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness - finished 4/23
3. The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken - finished 3/1
4. Feed, by M.T. Anderson - finished 7/10
5. Oryx and Crake , by Margaret Atwood - finished 2/6
6. London Reign, by A.C. Britt - finished 7/28
7. Merryl of the Stones by Brian Caswell
8. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher - finished 9/16
9. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
- finished 10/30
10.Candor by Pam Bachorz - finished 7/18

I'll join in as well, as I'm not sure which are the oldest books in the tbr pile I'm going to pick from the books that I added in the first two months after I joined. I'm also giving myself the rule that I can only have physical books and no ebooks, afterall ebooks don't take up any physical space and they don't give you dirty looks when you pass them by and pick another book.

1.The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes by Jennifer Crusie - 08/03/11
2.The Carnival Master by Craig Russell
3.Genesis of the Grail Kings: The Explosive Story of Genetic Cloning and the Ancient Bloodline of Jesus by Laurence Gardner 25/02/11
4.Looking Good Dead by Peter James
5.The Thieves of Faith by Richard Doestch 01/06/11
6.The Street Philosopher by Matthew Plampin
7.Contract with God by Juan Gomez Jurado 2/03/11
8.The Lure by Bill Napier 22/01/11
9.Ghostheart by R.J.Ellory
10.Blackout by John J Nance

Karen wrote: "... and they don't give you dirty looks when you pass them by and pick another book "

Karen, I LOVE the visual image that brings to my mind! :)

I'll give this a go.
My LOST list:

1. Beloved
2. Infinite Jest
3. Grace by Elizabeth Scott
4 College Collage
5. Of Mice and Men
6. The Great Gatsby
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude
8. The count of monte cristo
9. memoirs of a geisha
10. The lovely bones

Okay, here's a problem. I started reading one of the books on my list and it's awful. I have no intention of finishing it since I don't force myself to read books I don't like. Shall I replace it with another on my list?

Adrienne wrote: "Okay, here's a problem. I started reading one of the books on my list and it's awful. I have no intention of finishing it since I don't force myself to read books I don't like. Shall I replace i..."

Oh no, Adrienne. That's why it's been sitting on your shelf forever and a day, isn't it? Which book is it?

Well, just cross it out on your list and don't worry about replacing it with another book. What I was going to do & perhaps suggest in the future is that if we have 'read' all our bottom 10 then we just keep on reading with whatever's left on the bottom and see how far we go :)

I've run into a different issue from Adrienne's: 3 of my 10 are going to be hard to get -- they're not at my local library and in some cases are out of print. Guess that's why they're still sitting on the TBR list. And the Amazon & Alibris prices for one out-of-print one are pretty hefty. So now I know what I should be looking for when I'm browsing in used bookstores. :) At least the library has agreed to order one of them for me. Once that's done, I'll ask about inter-library loan for another.

By the way, our library is strangely hesitant to agree to inter-library loan, as though it's very expensive. Does anyone else have that experience?

oh dear, Susan, I guess you could leave these 3 until later in the year if you can get your hand on them and if you can't, feel free to replace with what is more available.

I've never asked for inter-library loan as I think it actually cost a couple of bucks for us here in Aus. Or at least it did, a few years back, I'll have to look into it again.

Karen wrote:
I've never asked for inter-library loan as I think it actually cost a couple of bucks for us here in Aus. Or at least it did, a few years back, I'll have to look into it again"

Our library doesn't charge us, but the librarian told me it can cost them more than $15.00. I'm not sure why it should be so much.

*sigh* Adrienne, I also could not finish one! It was just absolute rot, oh wells... NEXT! ;p

I finished my first one. The Shack by William P. Young. It was a very interesting book. A lot of Christian philosophy, but underneath a beautifully written story about a man trying to deal with the tragedies in his life. I gave it 3.75 stars. I am really glad that I finally got around to reading this one!

OK - Here is my list. They are the 10 on my list the longest THAT I OWN.


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Thirteenth Tale
Olive Kitteridge
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Interpreter of Maladies
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The Poisonwood Bible
The Forgotten Garden
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Lahni wrote: "OK - Here is my list. They are the 10 on my list the longest THAT I OWN..."

Oh, Lahni, there are quite a number of good books on your list there! Guernsey would be a quick & easy read. I loved The thirteenth tale & the time traveler's wife! I think you would be very happy when you have read your 10 books :)

this one sounds interesting, but my shelves are all goofy because I had to re-load all my books middle of last year - even though i've been on gr since early 2009...so all my dates are like June 3 (I think) or something like that

oh that's a shame, Dee. If you want, you could go to your actual physical shelf at home and pick 10 books at the bottom collecting dust ;)

Lyn M wrote: "This sounds like fun, and like Karen, there can't be too many challenges for me. Here are my LOST books (BTW Karen - how long does it take you to come up with these wonderful names?)..."

Dunno how I missed this comment of yours, Lyn. Glad you think the names are wonderful (bit corny too, aren't they? LOL)

Karen said: Oh, Lahni, there are quite a number of good books on your list there! Guernsey would be a quick & easy read. I loved The thirteenth tale & the time traveler's wife! I think you would be very happy when you have read your 10 books :)

I know! I really want to read these books too but some how they keep getting pushed aside for books that fill other challenges. And often those other books are only moderately good. Now is the time to not let them get pushed to the side!

those would be the books piled on top of the bookshelf in the basement...lol! i'm running out of space...I might do that though...good idea!

Karen wrote: "oh that's a shame, Dee. If you want, you could go to your actual physical shelf at home and pick 10 books at the bottom collecting dust ;)"

Here are ten oldies (and hopefully goodies) that I hope to knock out this year:

1. She's Come Undone (****) - finished 1/2/2012
2. Midwives
3. Stones from the River
4. City of Shadows: A Novel of Suspense (****)
5. State Of The Union (**1/2)
6. Gone, But Not Forgotten (***1/2)
7. The Given Day
8. Shanghai Girls (***)
9. The Time Traveler's Wife (***)
10. Blowback

Karen wrote: "Lyn M wrote: "This sounds like fun, and like Karen, there can't be too many challenges for me. Here are my LOST books (BTW Karen - how long does it take you to come up with these wonderful names?)..."

Actually, I think they are very creative :)

I LOVE this challenge, but I sooooo don't like my list! The books at the bottom of my TBR list are all related to work. Do you know how hard it will be to read work books? I had to talk myself out of skipping to when my TBR got more interesting and started containing fiction books. Sigh, but then I got to thinking about the purpose behind the challenge, and sigh, well, I did edit my list to leave off some of the heavy 'textbook' like work related books--only the fun work books made it! And happily, a couple of fiction ones made it.:)

1. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
2. Sons of encouragement series (it's a 5 book series, but they are small books (around 225 pages each) by Francine Rivers
3. Day After Night by Anita Diamant
4. The Five Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary Chapman
5. Boundaries by Henry Cloud
6. Shogun by James Clavell
7. The Reign of Mary Tudor by James Anthony Froude
8. Stressed-Out Girls by Roni Cohen-Sandler
9. Real Boys : Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack
10. You'd Be So Pretty If . . .: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their Bodies Even When We Don't Love Our Own by Dara Chadwick

**teehee, I've got Stressed Out Girls up right after The Reign of Mary Tudor. Oh the irony!

Tina wrote: "I LOVE this challenge, but I sooooo don't like my list! The books at the bottom of my TBR list are all related to work. Do you know how hard it will be to read work books? I had to talk myself o..."

Tina,
I don't know the others, but I think you'll find The Five Love Languages of Teenagers a pretty quick read. Maybe if you start with that, it will give you a feeling of momentum.

Tina wrote: "I LOVE this challenge, but I sooooo don't like my list! The books at the bottom of my TBR list are all related to work. Do you know how hard it will be to read work books? I had to talk myself o..."

Shogun will not be a quick read, Tina, but it is such a good book!

Susan wrote: "Tina wrote: "I LOVE this challenge, but I sooooo don't like my list! The books at the bottom of my TBR list are all related to work. Do you know how hard it will be to read work books? I had to ..."

Good call Susan! I've also got his 5 languages of children on my TBR, but it just missed the cut off of the 10. . .

Lyn M wrote: "Tina wrote: "I LOVE this challenge, but I sooooo don't like my list! The books at the bottom of my TBR list are all related to work. Do you know how hard it will be to read work books? I had to ..."

It was one of the very first group reads when I first joined GR. Never got around to reading it then, and it's been haunting me ever since. It's one of those that I can't wait to read, but just can't seem to commit myself to the time. This challenge will light my fire!

two down, eight to go.

I really like this idea, I wish I had found it at the beginning of the year. I think I already did one but since I don't know where it stood on my tbr I won't count it and I will start from here.
2 / 10 read
1. Holding the Dream
2. Visions of Heat
3. A Quick Bite
✓ 4. Master of the Night (3/8) ****
5. Heart of the Dragon
6. Playing with Fire
✓ 7. Wicked Lovely (3/12) ****
8. Twilight Phantasies
9. Stray
10. Tempting Danger

It's frustrating how so few of my LOST books seem to fit into the monthly challenges! Many of them don't even have covers with one predominant color so I could use them for 3.3. I think need to try to commit to one of them each month.

Susan wrote: "It's frustrating how so few of my LOST books seem to fit into the monthly challenges! Many of them don't even have covers with one predominant color so I could use them for 3.3. I think need to try..."

I've been having the same problem. Think I will have to just start putting one a month on my pile to read, too.

That's what I have tried to do. One a month.

Susan wrote: "It's frustrating how so few of my LOST books seem to fit into the monthly challenges! Many of them don't even have covers with one predominant color so I could use them for 3.3. I think need to try..."

oh no!! Well so far, I've managed to read 1 a month so that seems to be working out okay but I hope (since ROAR is going for the whole year) there will be some challenges you can fit your LOST books in! I'm sure some will fit for Mini SAT (at the least!)

Two of my LOST books fit this months ROAR, yippee.

One of mine does. I love when that works out!

Kazza wrote: "Adrienne wrote: "Okay, here's a problem. I started reading one of the books on my list and it's awful. I have no intention of finishing it since I don't force myself to read books I don't like. ..."

That would be me just now getting around to answering this. Geez, what a space cadet!

It was Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. I started it, but it was not at all what I was expecting. And nothing I wanted to read. Sigh.