While I'm not making many plans for 2012 reading, there are far too many books that have been on my shelves for YEARS. It's just scandalous that I haven't gotten off my tookus and read these books, so they're super-priority to get off the shelves (good or bad) this year. Specifically, I've come up with a BIG THREE books to obliterate from my shelves in 2012...
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro came to my attention back in my Yahoo! Groups days. Many respected book friends and fellow bloggers impressed me with their reviews, and it's been sitting on my shelves gathering dust ever since!!!
Blurb: Set in a (barely?) alternate England in the late 1990s, Never Let Me Go is the sum of Kathy's memories. Kathy is one of many "donors" who have been brought into being for purposes that, while well-intended, can come to no good. Ishiguro's novel touches on the issues surrounding human cloning and identity and "what if." Then again, human clones are nothing new. Know any identical twins? They may be clones of one another, but that doesn't preclude them from having discrete selves. Never Let Me Go doesn't put science on trial; rather, it takes humans to task on the willful, too-prevalent misuse and misunderstanding of science to further parochial, sad ends.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is another recommendation from the Yahoo! Groups days. Les was the first blogger who really put this book on my radar, and it's ridiculous that I've yet to read it. I have a physical copy SOMEWHERE, but it's buried in boxes, so I have a feeling I'll download a copy this year.
Blurb: The Sparrow, an astonishing literary debut, takes you on a journey to a distant planet and to the center of the human soul. It is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a twenty-first-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture. Sandoz and his companions are prepared to endure isolation, hardship and death, but nothing can prepare them for the civilization they encounter, or for the tragic misunderstanding that brings the mission to a catastrophic end. Once considered a living saint, Sandoz returns alone to Earth physically and spiritually maimed, the mission's sole survivor — only to be accused of heinous crimes and blamed for the mission's failure.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is one of those books that surfaced on my radar slowly but surely over time as pretty much every group discussion participant and blogger I know loved it. And somehow I never jumped onboard aside from actually buying a copy. Oy!
Blurb: I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle" — and the heart of the reader — in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.
Do you have any long-time residents on your shelves that you're trying to evict in 2012? Share! I might have them on my shelves, too. In truth, I probably do!
