Secondhand bookshops are some of my favourite places in the world. I love a good (or even a bad) new bookshop too, but there’s something uniquely appealing about a shop full of books that have passed through others’ hands before finding their way to mine. The problem is that once I go into these places, all too many books find their way into my hands and before I know it, I’ve got over 400 books living with me in one room, double-stacked on a very large yet not-large-enough bookcase.
In an effort to free up some space (and hopefully some cash), I’m going to read through as many of the unread books I own as possible this year, selling or donating any which I don’t want to keep. And then, no doubt, buying more books with the proceeds!
The books are listed below, and will be struck through as I read. Wish me luck!
- Angier, Natalie
The Canon: The Beautiful Basics of Science - Anzaldua, Gloria
Borderlands/La Frontera - Arnott, Jake
The Long Firm - Atwood, Margaret
The Blind Assassin - Austen, Jane
Mansfield Park - Barker, Juliet
The Brontes - Barker, Pat
The Ghost Road (The Regeneration Trilogy) - Barker, Pat
The Eye in the Door - Barker, Pat
Regeneration - Barthes, Roland
Mythologies - Battles, Matthew
Library - Beauman, Sally
The Landscape of Love - Beauvoir, Simone de
All Men Are Mortal - Beauvoir, Simone de
The Second Sex (Vintage Classics) - Bernieres, Louis De
Birds Without Wings - Carter, Angela
Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman - Carter, Angela
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders - Carter, Angela
Black Venus - Carter, Angela
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories - Chippindale, Peter
“Observer”: What Is Islam? - Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Colette
Cheri (Le Livre De Poche) - Collective, Cambridge Women’s Peace
My Country Is the Whole World: An Anthology of Women’s Work on Peace and War - Collins, Wilkie
The Woman in White (Penguin Classics) - Conrad, Joseph
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (English Library) - Conrad, Joseph
Heart of Darkness - Dawkins, Richard
The Ancestor’s Tale - Dickens, Charles
The Old Curiosity Shop (English Library) - Dunn, Jane
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens - Faber, Michel
The Crimson Petal and the White - Faulks, Sebastian
Birdsong - Faulks, Sebastian
On Green Dolphin Street - Foreman, Amanda
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - Fowles, John
The Magus - Frankl, Viktor E.
Man’s Search for Meaning - Fraser, Antonia
The Weaker Vessel (Women in History) - Fraser, Antonia
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Women in History) - Fraser, Antonia
Marie Antoinette - Gaiman, Neil
Stardust - Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Geras, Adele
Facing the Light - Godwin, William
Caleb Williams (Oxford World’s Classics) - Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a Geisha - Gould, Steven
Jumper - Gould, Steven
Reflex - Gristwood, Sarah
Arbella: England’s Lost Queen - Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Popular Classics) - Hollinghurst, Alan
The Folding Star - Hosseini, Khaled
The Kite Runner - Hunt, Tristram
Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City - Jackson, Kevin
Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities - Kingston, Maxine Hong
The Woman Warrior (Picador Books) - Klein, Naomi
No Logo - Kostova, Elizabeth
The Historian - Lamott, Anne
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life - Levi, Primo
The Drowned and the Saved (Abacus Books) - Leyser, Henrietta
Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500 (Women in History) - Lynch, Scott
The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gollancz S.F.) - Manguel, Alberto
In Another Part of the Forest: Anthology of Male Gay Fiction (Flamingo Original) McEwan, Ian
Amsterdam- McEwan, Ian
First Love, Last Rites McEwan, Ian
Saturday- McEwan, Ian
Enduring Love - McEwan, Ian
In Between the Sheets - McGregor, Jon
If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things - Mukherjee, Bharati
Jasmine - Mukherjee, Bharati
The Middleman and Other Stories - Murakami, Haruki
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche - Nicholls, David
Starter for Ten - O’Farrell, Maggie
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - O’Neill, Jamie
At Swim, Two Boys - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note – Volume 4 - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note – Volume 5 - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note: Volume 2 (Death Note) - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note: Volume 3 (Death Note) - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note: v. 6 (Death Note) - Ohba, Tsugumi
Death Note volume 1 - Picard, Liza
Dr. Johnson’s London: Everyday Life in London in the Mid 18th Century - Plath, Sylvia
Letters Home: Correspondence - Plath, Sylvia
The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962 - Quincey, Thomas De
The Confessions of an English Opium-eater: And Other Writings (Oxford World’s Classics) - Ray, Rebecca
A Certain Age - Reed, A.W.
Maori Myths and Legendary Tales - Reichs, Kathy
Deja Dead - Renault, Mary
The Last of the Wine - Renault, Mary
Funeral Games - Renault, Mary
The Mask of Apollo - Renault, Mary
The Praise Singer - Rich, Adrienne
Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution - Robinson, Marilynne
Gilead - Russell, Bertrand
History of Western Philosophy (Routledge Classics) - Russell, Bertrand
Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (Routledge Classics) - See, Lisa
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus (Penguin Classics) - Smith, Dodie
I Capture the Castle - Sommers, Christina
Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics - Sterne, Laurence
A Sentimental Journey (Penguin Classics) - Storr, Anthony
Solitude (Flamingo S.) - Swift, Graham
Waterland - Tillyard, S.K.
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1750-1832 - Tolstoy, L.N.
War and Peace - Truss, Lynne
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation - Waley, Arthur
Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China - Warner, Marina
Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism - Wollstonecraft, Mary
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Penguin Classics) - Wollstonecraft, Mary
A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark: AND Memoirs of the Author of the “Rights of Woman” (Classics) - Woolf, Virginia
Orlando: A Biography (Vintage Classics) - Granta: The First 21 Years
- The Creative Writing Coursebook: Forty Authors Share Advice and Exercises for Fiction and Poetry
- The Vintage Book of Historical Feminism
- Beowulf: A New Translation
- Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas (Oxford World’s Classics)
