Having a clear-out
Trying to tidy-up and de-clutter, I have been thinning out the book collection. Am I going to read it again? No. Might someone else want to read it? Maybe. Off to the charity shop with you… and it is not with sadness or regret. I have enjoyed picking them up and looking at them again and, perhaps, remembering something from them, if not the content, then when it was purchased or the place. There is no tactile equivalent with an e-book and these books can be shared for others to enjoy and a charity to make some minor benefit.
In a completely random order
Nick Hornby – High Fidelity, 1995
Barbara Kingsolver – The Poisonwood Bible, 1998
Geoff Dyer – Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It, 2003
Geoff Dyer – Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, 2009
Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain, 1997
Sarah Hartley – Mrs P’s Journey, 2001 “The remarkable story of the woman who created the A-Z map.”
Beverley Naidoo – The Other Side of Truth, 2000
Ben Elton – Past Mortem, 2004
Barack Obama – The Audacity of Hope, 2008
John Lanchester – Capital, 2012
Howard Jacobson – In the Land of Oz, 1987
Monica Ali – Brick Lane, 2003
Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, 2003
JG Ballard – Kingdom Come, 2006
Hong Ying – Daughter of the River, 1997
Anfrea Levy – Smal Island, 2004
Alexander McCall Smith – The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, 1998
Ravi Shankar Etteth – The Tiger By The River, 2002
John Simpson – News From No Man’s Land, 2002
John Simpson – Give Me Ten Seconds, 2001
Iain Sinclair – London Orbital, 2002
Joseph Stiglitz – Globalization and its discontents, 2002
Tim Moore – Do Not Pass Go, 2002
Arundhati Roy – The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, 2004
Alain de Botton – A Week at the Airport, 2009
Tom Chesshyre – Tales from the Fast Trains: Europe at 186 mph, 2011
Dora Loewenstein and Phili Dodd (ed) – According to the Rolling Stones, 2003
William Horwood – The Boy With No Shoes, 2004
Jonathan Coe – What a Carve Up! 1994
Jonathan Coe – The Rotters Club, 2001
Jonathan Coe – The Closed Circle, 2004
Jonathan Coe – Number 11, 2015
Mick Waters – Thinking Allowed on Schooling, 2013
Andrew Sims – Tescopoly, 2007
Charles Leadbetter – Wethink, 2008
Well, what of the books that remain on the shelves? Many were retained for reasons of on-going interests or a project. This exercise has already been useful for seeing what was there – and, in some cases, what is still there. Here is one in that category, and you should understand why…
“that life is to be enjoyed not endured”
Oliver James – Affluenza (How to be successful and stay sane), 2007