Jane's Bookshelf

Okay, so hi! Welcome to what will hopefully be the first of many amazing posts. You'll laugh, you'll cry, etc. etc.

But down to business. The point of this whole blog is that me and B both have unread books in our bookshelves, and we thought we could encourage (read: force) ourselves to read them if we set up a blog where we were supposed to review said books for the internet. Or something.

Anyway, this is a post about my bookshelf. I'm aiming to pin down the ones I'm going to read for this blog. I don't want to commit to too many books at once, because we'll be here forever if I get into a serious list of every book I could possibly read. But I can list a few to start with, anyway, so here's the first set of books I'm (probably) gonna read and review:

Apathy for the Devil - Nick Kent. A UK rock writer's memoirs of hanging out and doing drugs with some of the most famous rock and rollers of the 1970s, including Iggy Pop, Chrissie Hynde, the collected Rolling Stones (but mostly Keef), and more. Sounds like it'll be a good time.

Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell - Dave Thompson and All Yesterday's Parties - Clinton Heylin. Continuing on the theme of 70s rock, these two are both about Bowie-era music. The first is apparently about "the dangerous glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed" and the second is about the Velvet Underground (Lou Reed's band, for the undereducated).

The Hunger Games trilogy - Suzanne Collins. YA speculative fiction, and I'm cheating a bit here because I've already read them. But they're super, they'll be a nice contrast to all the 70s rock music going on, and they're making a movie so I'll probably want to re-read them at some point. And whoever ends up reading this blog, you'll get three books in one review! Bonus!

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak. More YA speculative fiction, this time a book that I've had forever and never read. I know I've totally missed the boat, it's been out for ages, but whatever, I need to read the damn thing! Plus I read the first few chapters and it's pretty good so far.

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk. ...er, it's about fight clubs? But no, I thought I should add something to this list that wasn't rock memoir or spec fic, and I totally loved Invisible Monsters, so Fight Club seemed like a good idea. And I promise not to cheat by just watching the movie again.

Kafka On The Shore - Haruki Murakami. I have no idea what this book is about, but I've had it on my shelves forever and I need to read it. I'll let you know how that goes...

Transition - Iain Banks. Apparently this is about an alternate world secretly run by a shadowy organisation, and featured characters apparently include an unkillable assassin, a day trader, and a torturer. So, you know, it sounds interesting. I loved The Crow Road, and I'm still a little spun out by The Wasp Factory (might have to cheat a little and re-read that one, just so I can review it), so yay for Iain Banks!

That's probably enough commitment for now - B, I can hear you laughing at me, because now I have go and read all of these books. Where's your list, huh? Huh??

In terms of the future, my bookshelf also features a lot of unread China Mieville, a lot of random spec fic books I've picked up, a lot of Henry Rollins, some Joseph Campbell, more music writing of various kinds, and I'll probably muster up the nerve to read The Road at some point, so fair warning. I may decide to include my DVD collection in this mess, by the way, just because I need to watch the stuff I've bought and it all technically lives on my bookshelf...

Ta ta for now!