The weather has changed here in the Northeast, big surprise. For the last few days it has been sunny and cool signaling back to school. I always found this very annoying when I was young, JUST when the weather got good we were herded into classrooms with big plate glass windows that didn't open. Except for the odd time one of the 'special' students hurled himself through one just for fun. Ah, those were the days. Lugging twenty pounds of propagandist text books back and forth everyday for a nine months even after having read them all cover to cover after the first week. I took this weekend's weather as a sign from the book gods to play with my own collection, or what was left of it. It's necessary, no, mandatory to throw the windows open wide when I do this as there is a ridiculous layer of dust residing over everything.

When treading through our own books, (those of us who have more than our fair share of them) we come across unread books we bought with the intention of reading them one day and we must spend a few seconds deciding if we still have that intention. They are never our 'A' list items, those we would have read the moment they tumbled out of their packaging. These are usually books someone else recommended to us, or books that 'go with' other books, or books that just looked tasty at the time. Personally I think I own more unread books than read books. As Schopenhauer said " Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." If I have the time to read them all I will live forever.

Some books I intend to read or finish reading before I turn toes up:

Alighieri, Dante. Divine Comedy. I know a LOT of modern literature is based upon it, but I keep finding myself circling first ring of hell. Perhaps I should try the audio version. 895pps  search for this book>>>

Follett, Ken. The Pillars of the Earth. Cathedral building, betrayal, revenge and love the four major food groups. 973pps.  search for this book>>>

Hooper, Edward. The River: a Journey to the Source of Hiv and Aids. A long strange trip indeed. 1168 pps.  search for this book>>>

Gillespie, Donna. The Light Bearer. An historical saga of pagans and slaves, warriors and nobles in Roman Britain, just your basic light reading. 788 pps.  search for this book>>>

Graves, Robert. I, Claudius/Claudius the God. Fun and games in Imperial rome! and you thought YOUR family was dysfunctional. 838pps.  search for this book>>>

Library of America's Writing New York: A Literary Anthology. Okay, first I would have to buy my own copy and give the local library back theirs. 1034 pps  search for this book>>>

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I couldn't feign excitement over Order of the Phoenix, I never made it out of Goblet's chapter one. 734 pps  search for this book>>>

Stephenson, Neal. Cryptonomicon. Big, busty, cybertechy, epochal, yatta, yatta, yatta, still has the book mark stuck half way into it. 928 pps.  search for this book>>>

Tolkien, J.R.R. Lord of the the Rings. So I skimmed a lot of after the movies came out. Perhaps if I actually liked epic poetry I would have slowed down. 1216 pps.  search for this book>>>

Yoshikawa, Eiji. Musashi. I wanted to read this ever since I saw young studly sword wielding Toshiro Mifune, but it's just soo...Japanese. 992 pps.  search for this book>>>