I think just about every reader has a least one book that they've been meaning to read for awhile (months or even years) but, for one reason or another, they just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe it's a book a friend recommended last year, or a title you've flirted with in a bookstore on more than one occasion, or maybe it's a book that's sitting right there on your bookshelf, patiently waiting for you to pick it up -- but the thought is always there, in the back of your mind: Why haven't I read this yet?
This week, tell us about a book (or books) you have been meaning to read. What is it? How long have you wanted to read it? And, why haven't you read it yet?
Sigh. This list is so long but three titles jump immediately to mind. Books that I own, and still have not read. The first, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has been on my shelves so long that I can't even remember when I acquired it. The second two, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Enchantress of Florence, were purchased in hardcover the weeks of their release because I simply had to have them immediately. So of course I have yet to read them. And they are now out in paperback.
Some will answer this today, and not own the titles they list. Then, I suspect, there will be even more, like me, who own the titles they have long meant to read. And why do we buy books and then not read them for quite a while or maybe never? Treats for ourselves? A type of consumerism we can't free ourselves from? A feeling that if we own the book then we will not forget it amongst all the other books that cross our path? Sometimes when the subject matter appeals to me, I just want to own the book as a means of connecting to the idea and sometimes as a means of connecting to the book as object. A feeling of satisfaction I still cannot imagine deriving from a Kindle. Holding that desired books in your hands. Again the Basbanes, A gentle madness.
Check out other books not read at the links on Weekly Geeks.
