Wendy House Wednesday: my to-read piles

I have a lot of to-read piles dotted  around. If a book isn't shelved, it's probably waiting to be read by me. My orderly husband must finds this system trying, particularly as some of the books belong to him, but he is very kind and holds his peace.

This pile (left) features The Hunger Games which my little sister strongly recommended, and I am determined to read. There's a book about descriptive writing in the pile -- I didn't get on with it at all. It's going to the charity shop. There's the Bettany Hughes Socrates book which I started while I was pregnant but couldn't manage. It belongs to Nick, so I'm going to re-shelve it, along with the other two books, both of which I've read.

Further along the same shelves (right) we have some Conans -- I have a weakness for pulp fiction and I always have a few of Robert E. Howard's prehistoric adventures on hand for times of stress.

There's Fiona Robyn's excellent A Year Of Questions, which I now own as an e-book, so I'm shelving that. I'll work through it again when things are less roller-coasterish.

Carnevale by MR Lovric -- I started and then begun a course that involved lots of reading. By the time I'd got through this I was pregnant and the heroine had her newborn son taken from her and I couldn't face reading on. I'm shelving it and will return to it once I've finished the baby years because it's excellent, sensual and sensuous and set in a fantastically sexy and exotic historic Venice.

The three Wilbur Smith books -- I devoured River God while travelling round Africa and thought I'd like to read the sequels. Maybe one day, but not now. Charity shop, as they are easy peasy to get hold of.

Nick recommended these (left) because I like large sci fi novels about other worlds but I couldn't get on with them. Not going to feel guilty about it. I'm not.

These, on the left, are some writing books. I keep a stash handy and read one whenever I feel writerly. I'll get through them in due course.

This is a pile up in Nick's room. There are some (borrowed) poetry books which I must to put in the basket by my nursing chair because that is where I read poetry at the moment, and one poetry book which is destined for the charity shop.

Dawkins' The Magic of Reality is for Alec when he's older, but I thought I'd read it too. It explains science in clear terms and I love Dave McKean's illustrations, but it left me with the same slightly dirty feeling I got when I discovered that the Narnia books are an allegory for Christianity. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials made me feel the same way. It needs to go back in Alec's bookshelf.

Memoirs of a Geisha I pulled out to check something and it needs shelving again. There's another paperback Conan which I've read so it's going to the charity shop; and that big black Complete Conan was Nick's gift to me to say thank you for Alec. I'm still working on that.

Rebel Heart is a sequel to Moira Young's Blood Red Road, a post apocalyptic dystopian story with a fascinating strong female voice. I loved it and raved about it. I got halfway through Rebel, got pregnant and just couldn't fancy it any more. Same with Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air -- another excellent world, weird and steampunky, very dark and not quite like anything else I've ever read. I'l shelve both of them and try again later.

This was an instructive exercise. It's very freeing to state, "I will not read this" and take control of what goes into my head. I should do it more often -- before the piles start looking so untidy.