A Baker's Dozen

My library-borrowed, want-to-read book list is a bit overwhelming at the moment (again).  I have thirteen books that must be returned by the month's end, only one of which is renewable (the other dozen are in demand by other library patrons).

(Note: In case any of you smart-pants out there count the books...there are only eleven books pictured here, not thirteen...one book is in the van and I'm too lazy to go get it for the sake of this picture, and the other one I took to Matthew's swimming lessons last week and I have yet to pick it up)

The problem is one that I've experienced twice this year already:  I order books through the library system and, although most of them have long (sometimes very long) wait lists, many of them seem to become available at the same time...hence my current situation.  All of them are books that I've been waiting to read, and all of them are ones that I'd love to dig into right now.

After this same situation happened a few months ago, I decided that I was going to stop ordering books through the library for a while...let the list reduce a bit.  The maximum number that one can order at one time is 35, and I'd been continuously at the max; when one or more books would become available for me to read, I'd simply add another to the list, and so on.  When I stopped ordering books for a while, my list dropped down fairly rapidly to somewhere in the low teens.  I was happy about this, and somewhat relieved.

But then two things happened in the past week or so that wrecked my plan:  First, the 'long list' of finalists for the 2010 Booker Award came out on July 30; I felt it necessary to order these books now already because if I wait for the long list to be culled into the short list in another month or so, the line-ups for these books will be atrocious.  I'm still waiting for one more of last year's Booker short list to become available.  Second, the public library in this city ordered a whole whack of new books in the month of July, and published the incoming list on their website last week.  As a result, I have once again filled up my library order list to the max.  In addition, sadly, after running out of room on my own library card, I ordered about twenty books on Geoff's card!  So now I'm somewhere on a wait list for about fifty-five books.  Now, many of these books are on order by the library, and won't actually be entered into the library system for some time yet, but just you wait - a few months from now, my current pile of thirteen books will seem dwarfed in comparison to the pile that's undoubtedly coming!  I'm not sure how I'll work that one out!

I'm in the middle of reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's second memoir-type book, Nomad.  So far, it's been quite interesting in parts, but I've also found it a bit repetitive (in content as well as style) of her first book, Infidel which I read some time in the past year.  She has quite the story, though, and it's definitely worth reading.

Anyway, I'd better sign off - I've got some serious reading to get to before Matthew's up for the day!