The Books I’ve Bought (2013)

So when 2013 began, I started to make a list of the books I bought. As I was also trying to read more books than I bought to get my ever-growing to-read list to go down, I challenged myself to read every book, I bought this year. In that, I failed miserably. I read very few of them…!
Below the pictures, you’ll find a list of the books I bought with links to reviews of the ones I actually got around to reading. However, there are x books that I have bought and read this year but not gotten around to reviewing yet. These are: S.J. Watson: Before I Go to Sleep which I quite enjoyed and Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone and Leigh Bardugo: Shadow & Bone (The Grisha #1),both of which I loved!

                      

1. SJ Watson: Before I Go to Sleep
2. J.K. Rowling: The Casual Vacancy
3. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
4. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
5. Toni Morrison: Beloved
6. Salman Rushdie: Joseph Anton. A Memoir
7. Erlend Loe: Doppler
8. Félix J. Palma: The Map of Time
9. Peter Høeg: Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne
10. Peter Høeg: Elefantpassernes børn
11. Morten Ramsland: Sumobrødre
12. Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
13. Amy Chua: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
14. Dea Trier Mørch: Vinterbørn
15. Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera
16. Martin Amis: London Fields
17. Jane Austen: Mansfield Park
18. Vladimir Nabokov: Glory
19. Tove Ditlevsen: Man gjorde et barn fortræd
20. Kate Atkinson: Life After Life
21. Adam Johnson: The Orphan Master’s Son
22. Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone
23. Julian Barnes: Arthur & George
24. Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
25. Diana Gabaldon: Voyager (Outlander #3)
26. Dan Brown: Inferno (Robert Langdon #4)
27. Neil Gaiman: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
28. Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides
29. Leigh Bardugo: Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1)
30. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d’Urbervilles
31. Hilary Mantel: A Place of Greater Safety
32. Marjorie Celona: Y
33. Meg Wolitzer: The Interestings
34. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations

So as anyone can see, I buy a lot of books during a year that I just doesn’t get around to reading… For some reason I tend to read older books and then wait with the newer books until they too are old. I’m not sure why that is and I’m not sure whether I will work on this or not. As long as I read mostly books I own, it doesn’t really matter whether I read the new ones or older ones – except of course that I sometimes feel hopeless behind because I don’t read the must-read books before they are very old news…!

Related posts:

• Book Buying 2013 – part 7
• Back from Holiday (& Book Buying 2013 – part 6)
• A Few New Books (Book Buying 2013 – part 5)
• And I did it again … (Book Buying 2013 – part 4)
• Library Sale (Book Buying 2013 – part 3)
• The Annual Danish Book Sale (Book Buying 2013 – part 2)
• Book Buying 2013 – part 1

The Missing Urge

I’ve talked before on this blog about my love for buying books (here for instance). I love it. I love browsing book stores as well as online shops. But something has happened.

My birthday was just recently and I got three identical charms for a bracelet – so of course, I returned two of these and now, I have book buying money. Only thing is, I don’t seem to want to. I have been looking at online book stores and wondering about some of the books I know they have in the bookstore. But I haven’t bought any.

I’ve picked out 6 books that I really want and I know there are a lot of more, I equally really want. There’s the new John Irving, there’s the next in both the Outlander and the Magicians series. There’s The Night Circus which I have been recommended from several people. And then Ready Player One and The Slap – both books I am very eager to read. But … I’m not pressing checkout even though I have my birthday money to use for this.

Now why is this? Well, one of my goals for this year is to bring my to-read list down. Way down. I started the year with 181 books on it and now, it’s down to 174 (not counting the one I had a friend buying for me and the books I got for my birthday – I really need to add these to my to-read list). Anyway, my list is down to 174 and I like that. I like to see the number go down. I love to see the number being in the lover 170s. And I feel like I’ve worked hard for it. So why should I spoil it by buying new books, more books?

Now, this is a new feeling for me. Usually, nothing can stop me from buying books. The more, the merrier. But lately, I have had this new and different feeling. This feeling of just wanting to actually read the books I own and not keep on buying. It has been easy because I haven’t had any spare money lying around, just waiting for me to buy books with. And I have been trying to be responsible and not just go and buy books anyway.

But now, I have money for books. And I’m still not buying. It’s a very weird feeling. Wonder how long it will last!!!