Perusing my TBR list

I should not have done it. Should not. Look through my TBR list, that is. Do you ever get that paralyzing, anxiety-ridden feeling that you are just never going to read all the books you would like to in this lifetime? It happens to me just about every time I look at my TBR list.

First, I just glance through, with the aim of picking out a book or two to read in the coming weeks. So many great titles. How could I not have read The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, yet? What am I waiting for? I start dreaming to be caught up in the imagery of Moloka'i by Allan Brennert. Never mind the countless hard-to-obtain novels I have left unread by authors from other countries: Red Poppies by Alai, The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif; The Way to the Cats by Yehoshua Kenaz; Perfume by Patrick Suskind; Koolaids by Rabih Alameddine. That list goes on for about two pages.

Then there's the author's I have read once, and have yet to delve into more of their works. Authors such as Virginia Woolf; Arundhati Roy; Barbara Pym; Haruki Murakami; Jose Saramago; J.M. Coetzee; Philip Roth; and Chinua Achebe.

And the non-fiction. Oh, sometimes it feels as if you are the bane of my existence. Oh, I love you, but why do I find it so hard to pick you up? And in the meantime, the pile grows and grows. Collapse by Jared Diamond; Overcoming our Racism by Derald Wing Sue; The Abandoned Generation by Henry Giroux; Palestine in the Time of Jesus by K.C. Hansom and Douglas Oakman; The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad; Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Gelman; A Shameful Act by Taner Akcam; What Islam is All About by Yahiya Emerick; and Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser.

And that is only a sampling. Dios mios!