Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Poor Unread Books!

Just one small group of books on the endangered shelf.


Some gems can be considered losers... this explains why our local thrift shop gets withdrawn books that got loads of great reviews from The Guardian and Kirkus, and are like ... unread! Very sad.





Blimey! I read bits of this in the library and thought... Geeez! Obviously inspired by Jane Austen, but a bit too much~ Filled with run-on sentences that are packed with information.


This person wrote a number of books too, is she familiar to anyone? I'd rather re-read Jane than spend time on this one. Now I feel bad for saying that, and should give it a go.

7 comments:

tut-tut said...

Georgette Heyer wrote scads; Regency romances, I believe (but I could be wrong)

R.L. Bourges said...

Never heard of Georgette Heyer; but then, I'd never heard of Regency romances either. It all depends on what attracts your reading eye, yes?

Re: feeling bad about not reading an author, I give you French author Daniel Pennac's Charter of Reader's Rights:
http://eppee.ouvaton.org/article.php3?id_article=413
They are:
1. The right not to read
2. The right to skip pages
3. The right to stop reading a book
4. The right to read over a passage
5. The right to read any old thing you please
6. The right to 'bovarysm' (i.e total identification with the characters)
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to pick and choose
9. The right to read out loud
10. The right to remain silent

Cheers, A R.

Deborah Godin said...

I have seen Heyer's name on the book racks, but it isn't a genre that calls to me, so I can't really say more.

JGH said...

I'm guilty of buying books sometimes because I feel sorry for them. Especially if the price is right. You can't just throw away a poor forgotten poet who only had this one volume published before his untimely death, etc. I'm dangerous around shelves like this.

Barbara said...

Jane Austen's characters are unforgettable. I don't know Georgette Heyer.

I love the reader's rights. It is true when there is no test after the last page, you can approach a book however you wish!

Megan said...

Oh my. Avid, I have every Heyer ever. Seriously. I've read them over and over.

Annis Wychwood is a bit of a bore until she meets Oliver Carleton.

Oh my, I could go on for days.

Yes, the run ons are incredibly incredible, but there are some comic moments beyond gold in there. You have to just get into the rhythm and go with it.

But don't start with that one. Find out if they have Frederica...

Ronda Laveen said...

Hmmm, I was w/you until I saw Megan's comment. May be to qwick on the trigger for Heyer. Time will tell...

My Classic Fiction Book List -Partial List

  • Austen, Jane: (Complete Works)
  • Balzac: Cousin Bette/ Eugenie Grandet / Cousin Pons
  • Best Russian Short Stories
  • Boyle, TC: Short Works
  • Brennan, Maeve : Short Works, 1 Novella
  • Bronte, Emily, Ann, Jane (Complete Works)
  • Brookner, Anita ( Complete Works)
  • Cather, Willa (Complete Works)
  • Chekov: Short Works
  • David Copperfield (Dickens)
  • Dickens:A Tale of Two Cities
  • Dickens:Great Expectations
  • Dickens:Nicholas Nickelby
  • Dickens:Our Mutual Friend
  • Dickens:The Old Curiosity Shop
  • Doyle, Roddy (some novels, memoir)
  • Drabble, Margaret (4 Novels)
  • Drieser, Theodore (Complete Works)
  • Fitzgerald, F.Scott (Most Novels & short works)
  • Hardy, Thomas (Complete Works)
  • Hemingway, Short stories
  • Hemingway: The Old Man in the Sea
  • Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
  • Hugo: Les Miserables/Hunchback Of ND
  • James, Henry: Daisy Miller
  • James, Henry: In The Cage
  • James, Henry: Portrait of a Lady
  • James, Henry: The Golden Bowl
  • James, Henry: What Maisy Knew
  • James, Henry: Wings of a Dove
  • James, Henry:The Ambassadors
  • James, Henry; The Bostonians
  • Kerouac: Dharma Bums
  • Kerouac: On The Road
  • Kerouac: The Subterraneans
  • Kerouac: Tristessa
  • Lardner,Ring:Short Works
  • Larsen: Quicksand
  • Lewis, Sinclair: Arrowsmith
  • Lewis, Sinclair: Free Air
  • Lewis, Sinclair: Main Street
  • Lewis, Sinclair: The Job
  • MacGill, Patrick (Complete works)
  • Mackin, Walter (novels)
  • Maupassant: Short Works, novels
  • McGahern, John (novels of)
  • McNulty, John (Short Works)
  • Norris, Frank: McTeague
  • O'Brien, Edna (3 Novels)
  • O'Donnell, Paeder : Novels of
  • O. Henry
  • Potok, Chaim (4 novels/1 non fiction)
  • Salinger, JD : Nine Stories
  • Salinger: Franny & Zooey
  • Salinger: Raise High the Roofbeams
  • Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
  • Sinclair, Lewis: Dodsworth
  • Sinclair, Lewis: Elmer Gantry
  • Sinclair, Upton: King Coal
  • Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle
  • Steinbeck, John: Sweet Thursday
  • Steinbeck: Winter of our Discontent
  • Steinbeck: Cannery Row
  • Steinbeck: East of Eden
  • Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
  • Theroux, Paul (3 Novels )
  • Toibin, Colm: (Novels of)
  • Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
  • Tolstoy: Short Works
  • Turgenev (2 novels)
  • Twain: T Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi
  • Vonnegut: Early Works (1950s-60s)
  • Wharton, Edith: Novels of/Short Stories
  • Women & Fiction (Edit. Cahill)
  • Zola, Emile ( 10 novels)