Unread books

I have this annoying habit where I buy books and then don't read them. Some of the time I don't even want the book in question, I just pick it up because it's on offer, or I need to complete an offer (Waterstone's 3 for 2, anyone?), so I just buy the book for the sake of it. And it sits there on my shelf, looking longingly at me every time I'm looking for a new book to read, saying "pick me! Pick me!" like we're on some sort of school sports team and I'm the captain. Anyway. I buy the books and they take up space on my shelves and I don't really want them but am never able to give them to charity or anything because I've not read them yet and I'd feel too cruel.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've put together a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, and one of the items on that list is to read all the unread books on my shelf. I'm going to make a list of them here so I can keep track, and maybe you guys can recommend what I should read first? Or second, or third, or... twenty-fifth? Ha. I don't know how many there are, but let's get started:

• Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
• Persuasion - Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
• Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
• Women - Charles Bukowski (half read, never finished)
• Life of Pi - Yann Martel (started, never finished)
• The Periodic Table - Primo Levi
• Complete Short Fiction - Oscar Wilde
• One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
• Paradise Lost - John Milton
• The Divine Comedy - Dante (read 'Inferno', but not the other two parts)
• Marley and Me - John Grogan
• Just Kids - Patti Smith
• A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
• Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
• Modern Baptists - James Wilcox
• SCOOP - Evelyn Waugh
• Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman - E.W. Hornung
• The Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
• Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
• Mapp and Lucia - E.F Benson
• Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
• The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov (started but never finished)
• Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
• Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
• Treasure Island - Daniel Defoe
• Robinson Crusoe - Robert Louis Stevenson
• Ulysses - James Joyce
• The Long Song - Andrea Levy
• Songs of the Humpback Whale - Jodi Picoult

Then there's a large selection of poetry books that I dip in and out of occasionally, so I won't list them. So in total I own 33 books (excluding poetry collections) that I've never read. Oops. At least they'll contribute to my reading goals etc...

Wow. Now I've made this list I feel bad about even considering buying new books. I would say I won't buy any more until I've read everything on this list, but I shouldn't make promises I won't keep!