State of the TBR November 2014

Well, here’s the TBR, and that’s not doing too badly, is it? I have a little gap which should include two sewing books I’ve loaned to a friend, but it’s all one on shelf! However … I did only manage to finish 6 books in October (and one on 1 November) and I do have a fairly substantial TBR on my Kindle, too.

The Kindle TBR does look lower than last time, although I have moved some books into the “Read” category that I had forgotten to move before. It’s a start, though, and it’s not actually bigger, at least … By the way, I’ve become a little jealous of certain friends’ smaller Kindles with their no keyboard (I have only ever used the keyboard on this one once!), touch screens and snazzy cases. But I am mean, so I’m waiting until this one wears out before I go for an upgrade.  Excitingly, on here is the complete Anthony Trollope, and I am planning on reading the Barchester Chronicles, one a month, starting next January (I’m also going to re-do Galsworthy’s “Forsyte Saga”, 2 months on, one month off, through the year, along with Heaven-Ali).  If anyone fancies joining in with these challenges, please do pipe up!

After my panicky post about being stuck in the middle of a massive book, you’d think I would have mended my ways and be reading fewer books concurrently. However, this is not so. Oh dear! As well as the Georgette Heyer which I recently finished and will be reviewed soon, I’m reading four other books – three in print and one e-book.

I’m actually getting on OK with the Sartre book by Iris Murdoch – I’m more than half way through and I certainly understood the chapter on language and am getting something out of it.

“Learner  English” is fantastic: it’s all about how people’s first language ‘bleeds’ into and affects their production of English. It goes chapter by chapter through the major world language groups, and certainly a) backs up some things that I’ve guessed about those languages and b) is teaching me a great deal about how other languages are constructed. Fascinating stuff indeed!

I’ve also started “Underground to Everywhere”, which my friend Verity gave me for my Secret Santa Christmas present last year; that’s fascinating stuff, too, with so much detail in the text and side bars, and illustrations such as maps and posters. All good stuff and feeds my strong liking for transport-themed books.

On the Kindle, I’m reading “The Horologicon” by Mark Forsyth, which was a cheapy offer on Amazon a little while ago. It’s a compendium of interesting and little-known words, based around the time of day at which they’re used, so you have all the words for having a lie-in or a hangover together, etc. It makes for a lively and interesting read, although I have heard of a few of the words so far, so they can’t be THAT obscure. It’s a good book to dip into, so having it on the Kindle is perfect for those little blocks of time.

So, these will take me a while to get through, especially as I’m using NaNoWriMo (national Novel Writing Month) to work up my research notes on Iris Murdoch into something in writing, at least. I’m not sure whether my book will be shorter than the 50,000 words NaNoWriMo helps you to produce, but I know that I wouldn’t normally spend Saturday morning writing up my notes on books about book groups, so it must be having some effect. I hope it doesn’t clash with my reading time too much, however.

Anyway, if I do manage to get to them, here are the next books on my TBR. I have an interesting-looking history of the Ordnance Survey (it has very small print, so I’m glad that I’ve got my new glasses sorted out); a book on the history of Birmingham, Liberty’s excellent how-to-sew book, the biography of Puffin editor Kaye Webb, and the novel “Americanah” which our friend Bridget gave us for a wedding present and I’ve been desperate to read for some time. The last book in that little lot is the non-fiction book on exploration I’ll be reviewing for the first 2015 edition of the Shiny New Books newsletter. Exciting!

What are you reading? Are you formulating any reaching challenges for 2015? I’d love to hear about them!