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All the Books I Own But Have Not Read (Part 1)



As of Wednesday, June 21st, summer is officially here. Ah: summer. That season when the sun comes out and kids get off from school. And, yes, while this does sound nice, this also means that it's going to be really hot and you're going to have so much time on your hands that you won't know what to do with it. Lucky for me, however, I also happen to own a whole bunch of books that I haven't yet read.

That's reasonable, though, right? Us bookworms find it a little hard to buy just one book when going to the bookstore, and since you kinda have a reputation for loving books, there's a good chance that you'll receive two or three books around holidays and birthdays. And you don't even want to get me started about book sales. Therefore, the books just start to pile up a bit. And while you'd love to read them, school and/or work and just life in general gets in the way.

However, the school year ended quite a bit ago. Summer vacation has begun. I finally have the time to tackle my TBR stack. And while I haven't taken full advantage of my free time yet, I think I'm now also ready to do so. Or, at least, I want to start. But exactly how big is it? Haha, funny you'd mention it...um...

After looking through all of my books and determining which ones I haven't read and which ones I actually intend on reading (I have some that I don't plan on reading, like a book I got just for blackout poetry), I found out that I actually have a total of 23 or 24 (the exact number is yet to be determined!) books that I have not read. That's almost enough for me to complete my 2017 reading goal without the inclusion of graphic novels! (Explanation in my "2017 Reading Goals - Update" post.) I was actually surprised by this number. I thought that surely it would be more than three or five but under twenty. I guess I just have more reading to do than I thought!

The following is half of the the list in all it's glory in no particular order. (I had to break this post up into two parts because the list is so long! So I guess this isn't all the books I own but have not read.)



1. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I got this book for my birthday back in late spring. In fact, it was Em who bought this book for me. I actually plan on reading this one soon, because Tartt has written my favorite book, The Goldfinch, and I've heard many great things about this book as well.

2. The Ghost of Blackwood Hall by Carolyn Keene
This book is actually an old Nancy Drew book that I found at a flee market that I got for only 25 or 50 cents! It has appeared on our bookstagram before (almost a year ago, I know -- I still haven't read it!). I like collecting older Nancy Drew books now, even though I'm less interested in the stories. I have Em to thank for that -- she got me my first one!

3. There Was Once a Slave by Shirley Graham
I got this book for free from our school library. Every once in a while they would set out all these books for students to take during lunch. This particular book, which is a biography on Frederick Douglass, was left behind on a table after someone had abandoned it at the end of the period. So I decided to pick it up, at the time not even checking to see what the book is about. If I don't end up liking it all that much, I could always use it for blackout poetry.

4. Hong Kong by R. Conrad Stein
Remember how I said that Em got me an old Nancy Drew book? Well, as some of you might know already, she also got it from our school library. I think this was before they set out the books during lunch periods. Instead, they had them in the library during a book sale, and one day she went there and asked if they had any more. On that day she got several free books to give me on birthdays and holidays. One of those books was this one. She says I don't have to read it but I plan on doing so at some point. (Even though it is outdated!)

5. My Neighbor Totoro by Tsugikio Kubo; original story + art by Hayao Miyazaki; translated by Jim Hubbert
I got this book after watching and loving the movie multiple times. I have started reading the book on occasions when I didn’t have a book to read or I was bored of my current book (yes, yes: I’m admitting to it), but I never have read it all the way through or seriously. I do want to read it soon because of my love for the movie and the beautiful illustrations inside!

6. The Borrowers by Mary Norton
This book was actually the foundation for another Studio Ghibli movie called The Secret World of Arrietty. So, when I saw this book at a book sale, I decided to get it to compare it to the movie adaptation. However, I haven’t read it yet and I’ve owned it for about a month shy of a year.

7. A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab
I got this book relatively recently, considering the long amounts of time I’ve owned other books. It was given to me as a birthday gift from a friend, who is pretty much my only real life friend who I can talk about and obsess over books with. (She even made her own bookstagram, @della_frostine.) While I'm not usually that interested in fantasy books, I do have to admit that this one does look interesting!

8. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
This is another book that I got for my birthday from a different friend. (Like I said, us bookworms kinda have a reputation for loving books - it’s what we do.) I’ve heard great things about the book, although I'm not so confident in the Netflix series adaptation. Still, this is the book, and a lot of the time books are different from their on-screen adaptations, so I think I'll give it a shot.

9. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
I actually don't remember much of this book from the top of my head, but I do know that I've seen a lot of it on bookstagram. To add, a good friend a mine read the book back in what I believe was early spring and they said it was really good, so I have high expectations for this one!

10. A Cry In The Night by Mary Higgins Clark
This is another book that I got from my school for free. It's supposed to be a thrilling mystery, and after thoroughly enjoying Ruth Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood, I find that I want to try out more mysteries and thrillers.

11. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Yet another book that I've received for a gift from my bookish friend! This was last birthday's gift, and I had planned on reading it around Christmas, except I had stupidly misplaced it around then! (It turns out I had accidentally placed it with my notebooks, rather than my books!)

12. After the War by Carol Matas
Another friend of mine got this for me from our school's collection of old books that they were giving away. While I can't say I'm incredibly interested in reading it, I'll still give it a shot. Although I'm still unsure if she was kidding when she suggested I read it. :/



That's all for now! Unfortunately, due to prior commitments in terms of posting, I won't be able to publish this until a little over a week from now, on the 7th of August! I'll guess I'll see you in the new month! (Or in the two posts that'll be publishing in the meantime! 😉)


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