Sunday, July 04, 2010

Opportunity Costs

I've greatly enjoyed my Richard Stark binge - 13 Starks in a row (11 Parkers and 2 Grofields).  I started The Sour Lemon Score but put it aside to read The Passage by Justin Cronin.  My plans were to take a break after Butcher's Moon (maybe six months or so, not 23 years like some people) but The Passage was screaming READ ME NOW and I gave in.  (I'm glad I listened, the book is fantastic.)

A towering stack of must-read books has piled up while this Stark obsession has been going on:

-Naming the Bones by Louise Welsh (which I was a third into when I picked up The Hunter)
-Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindquist (which reminds me I still need to read Let The Right One In so I can watch the movie)
-The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathon Coe (one of my absolute favorite novelists)
-The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
-61 Hours by Lee Child (due back at the library in 48 hours)
-The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (already started last fall? just got back from the library)
-Burial by Neil Cross
-The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost (recommended by a friend)
-An Egyptian Journal by William Golding (honestly, I have no idea why - it just seems neat)
-The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson (left over from October)
-The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (wonderfully reviewed new novel about journalists)
-there are others that didn't make the list, trust me

To make matters worse, The Passage is making me want to read (and if I don't have, acquire):
-Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
-The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
-The Stand by Stephen King
-The Road by Cormac McCarthy
-The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (been meaning to read this for years)
-Feed by Mira Grant
-Earth Abides by George Stewart

And Amazon is sending me two new books - Lucy by Laurence Gonzales and Kraken by China Mieville (human-animal hybrids and squid, perennial favorites of mine).  And maybe, just maybe, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.

As for now, I'm going back to reading Low Moon by Jason.  But only if I don't go dig out my Beryl Bainbridge novels.

2 comments:

Nick Jones (Louis XIV, the Sun King) said...

I'm around a hundred and thirty pages into The Passage, and you were quite correct: it is fantastic. Definitely read King's The Stand -- thus far, The Passage is reminding me quite strongly of that. Read it in the expanded version though for the full effect (it was revised in 1990 I think). Day of the Triffids is also excellent.

Book Glutton said...

The Stand is now definitely a must read. King's 'occasional folksiness' has been a great deterrent to me reading more of him. I always look at his stuff but then put it back. The Dark Half is the only book I was able to finish. And even though I have never even cracked open a copy of The Stand, I am now determined to read it.