Reading post: Books from the white Ikea bookcase in my room

May has ended, time for another reading challenge update. In May my goal was to read unread books from the white Ikea bookcase in my bedroom. I pulled out 16 books (see photo) and decided to choose from the stack as the month went on. 

The stack was a bit intimidating, but I set to work on it. I pulled the first book off the top and just kept going. I'll describe them below in the order they appear in the photo, since that roughly corresponds to the order in which I read them.

1. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678). I'd always wanted to read this, because Betsy & Tacy talk about it a lot. What surprised me is that it is so long (and a little dull, to be honest). I worked on it all month, here and there, and didn't finish it! So I'm keeping it, at least until I finish it, but probably permanently. (Post-note: I finally finished it on 12/29/23! Definitely keeping this.)
   
2. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1908). I was sure I'd read this before, but couldn't find it on any list. I must have started it and put it down. It's a super mystery, with so many charming period details (and some less charming racism). According to Wikipedia, this book "pioneered what became known as the "had I but known" school of mystery writing." Despite some issues, I'm keeping it.
3. Justine by Lawrence Durrell (1957). I picked this up, somewhere, thinking it was a book I "should" read, or at least should have read. It's OK but has a very 50s feel. It's trying to be so sophisticated, all about sexual deviance and drugs, but the women are all less intelligent, less worthy, than the men. That is really how many people thought in those days, and it's so hard to swallow. I plan to leave this in a little free library.
4. Gigi and Selected Writings by Colette (1905 to 1949, collected 1963). Why hadn't I ever read this? To clarify, I'd read Gigi, but none of the other stories, novellas, and selections from novels in this volume. Colette was a wonderful writer -- I didn't realize. Maybe at some point I'll read more of her work. In any case, I'll keep this.
   
5. The Davidian Report by Dorothy Hughes (1952). I picked this up after reading Hughes' In a Lonely Place, but never read it -- it's a spy novel, and spy novels aren't really my thing. My loss -- it's great. I got somewhat confused about who was working for whom, but since it was obviously intended to be confusing, I forgave myself. This was fun and I'm keeping it as part of my little Hughes collection.
   
   
6. Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler (1935 to 1941, this collection 1964). This goofy book consists of eight short stories that Chandler later cannibalized into three of his novels: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, and The Lady in the Lake. If you love Chandler, as I do, it's amusing to read these stories and see what he did with them to create the novels. Like watching the writer at work. A keeper.
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967). I decided to hold on to this and read it when I do a Latin American literature year. It's back on the shelf for now.
   
8. Messer Marco Polo by Donn Byrne (1921). I had no recollection of reading this, but it's on my master list. I read it in July 1986, apparently. I looked through it -- it seems like a sweet old book. Maybe I'll read it again sometime. Keeping it for now.
9. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (1959). I decided to save this for when I do a German literature classics challenge. Back on the shelf.
   
10. Crying Out Loud by Jacky Gillott (1976). Many years ago someone gave me Gillott's first novel, Salvage, and I liked it, so I thought I'd like to read her other novels. Gillott died by suicide in 1980, and I have to say, Crying Out Loud reads like a suicide note. I'd tried it before -- this time I forced myself to push past the gruesome first chapter, but it didn't improve. I skimmed for a while and then said: "this is horrible." Off to Goodwill it goes.
11. Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow (2008). Back in 2012 I participated in an online book group (consisting mostly of me and the person running it) where we read beach-themed mystery novels (at least I think that's what we read -- hard to remember now). This was the last book on the list and I never got to it. The organizer told me it wasn't really worth reading, but I kept it all these years. She was right about it. I mean, it was pleasant, but not my style. I'm donating it.
    
    
12. Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts by Les & Leslie Parrott (1995). Why do I have this? If I went to the trouble to buy it, why didn't I read it? Anyway, I've now read it. It's not a bad book, but it has a heavy Christian focus (e.g., it uses Mary and Joseph as an example of an engaged couple, and it claims that couples who pray together have better sex). That said, it's full of good advice, much of which I've read elsewhere. It's interesting to read a book like this many years into your marriage, to think about what you do right and what you could do better. I guess I'll keep it -- for now. It might leave the house in a later purge.
    
13. The Thief Taker by T. F. Banks (2001). This belonged to Clifford, our old next-door neighbor who died in 2009, and for that reason I've been superstitious about letting it go, even though it was an "advance reading copy" AND falling apart. I'm sure Clifford got it from a little free library. Anyway, I read it, it was mildly enjoyable, and it fell to pieces while I was reading it. So it's now in the recycling bin.
    
14. Klingsor's Last Summer by Hermann Hesse (1920). My parents gave me this when I was a teenager and I think I did read it -- it's not on my master list, but that's probably because the list began in 1980. So I set it aside to be (re)read when I do a year of German lit.
    
15. Finding Kate by Maryanne Fantalis (2017). I used to teach with the author, so I bought her book and she signed it. Thing is, I have zero interest in romance literature, even romance literature based on a Shakespeare play, so I've never gotten past the first chapter -- including this time. I put it in the Goodwill pile, but then I took it out again and put it back on the shelf. Call it superstition, call it whatever, apparently I have to keep it. For now.
    
16. The Mary Roberts Rinehart Crime Book (1957). This consists of three of her novels (The Door, The Confession, and The Red Lamp). They were fun, but not really fun enough, not as much fun as The Circular Staircase. Her style gets tiresome after a while and many of her books drag on too long. So I'm sending this off to Goodwill, giving someone else the chance to find out that "the butler did it." 
    

So that's the lot of them. I managed to read nine and get rid of five.

In June we move on to the next bookcase in my bedroom (a teak one), which has most of the rest of my fiction collection. It also has a dollhouse and lots of Barbies, but behind the Barbies there are lots of books, too. The curving teak bookcase next to it has mostly photo albums (and Barbie dolls), so I'm not going to worry about it.

Doing this project has really made me want to reorganize these shelves, so I've been working on that for the past few days (while also fighting a bad cold -- possibly the two things are related). First I decided to arrange my older books chronologically, from the 1500s to around 1950. Older books are just so different from modern books. It was a little hard to set that up, because I wanted to keep all of one author's books together, and some authors wrote for several decades (Faulkner, for example). But it works pretty well.

Then I experimented with having a Black American authors section, a Native American authors section, etc., but that didn't feel right. It felt inappropriately segregated. So I integrated them into the rest of my books, but I did set up a modern foreign authors section, divided by continent: Latin American, Asian, African, European (but not British). Then I realized the books still didn't feel right, so I pulled out modern books by Canadian authors, Australian authors, and British authors too.

I may or may not keep the new arrangement. But it's so interesting the way certain writing themes pop out when you arrange by nationality (not race). When I have just American books together, the racial themes become so strong, and also the western themes: western expansion, life in the west (of course, this may also reflect my interests). Those themes get muted when the British books are mixed in with them. The British authors have different concerns. The Canadian authors are similar to the US authors, but yet have a different feel as well. I think I'll understand my collection better, arranged like this. I don't know. I'll try it this way for a while and see if I like it.

Moving on to June, we have another month of (mostly) fiction. I found some unread books in the teak bookcase (before I reorganized), though not as many as in the Ikea bookcase. I decided to skip some partially-read collections, set a few books aside for later reading projects, and ended up with seven books in all (see photo). 

They are all novels except for Cheyenne Autumn. I don't know if I'll get through all of them, but we'll see. Some of these have been on my shelves for a LONG time. Interestingly, if I had reorganized my bookcases before I started this project, all of these books would have been in the Ikea bookcase, because they're older (or Japanese, in the case of Black Rain). 

Starting in July I'm going to read books from other parts of the house (dining room, living room, desk room, kids' room), so there will be more nonfiction. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Time to focus on this group. I've already started reading Frankenstein.