Easier Said Than Done

I've had the itch to buy books again (hey, it's been over a month), so I've just been doing a lot of "wish list" adding on Amazon. And I mean a lot- another day, another post. Anyway, I ran across a book called Howard's End Is On the Landing: A Year of Reading From Home, a piece of non-fiction with a great premise. The author, Susan Hill, was searching for her copy of Howard's End and realized how many shelved, unread books she had in her home. She decided to only read from what she had for a year, simultaneously compiling a list of the top forty books she would keep, if she had to choose (not sure why forty, or why the hypothetical book collection whittling down). Obviously, this synopsis spoke to me. A collection of unread books? Check. A collection that keeps growing, taking over living space? Check. A love for creating random lists of favorites? Check. Oh, Susan, you get me!

At first I thought the idea of creating a list of just forty books was silly/anxiety producing. But, then I got to thinking- what if I was in the midst of a nuclear holocaust and someone had room in their bunker for me and just forty books? Or, what if an evil book thief dressed in all black came to my house and said he was going to chop of my head unless I chose just forty books while he took the rest? The list wasn't so silly now. I completely get it.

So, in the next few weeks I am going to come up with my list of forty books. My biggest concern is knowing that there are thousands of books in existence that I haven't read and probably deserve a spot of my list. I'm thinking yearly revisions. Oh, and please note that I'm not participating in only reading from what I have. There's no way I'm going to completely stop buying books!

Oh, and for the record, I haven't bought the book... yet!