Book hoarding: what’s been on my backlist the longest?

I know I’ve had this conversation with many of my fellow bloggers and book lovers before, but I am the WORST at buying books with grand intentions of reading them right away…and then letting them sit on my shelf for months years. So today, I decided to go through my Goodreads “to read” shelf and sort them by date. Below, I’ll show you the 10 books that have been on my list the longest, regardless of how embarrassing my choices were! This will also help me with my Beat the Backlist challenge, because if I can get through some of these this year, it will help me reach my BTB goal!

I’m going to go in reverse order, so #10 will end up being the book that’s been on my Goodreads “to read” shelf for the absolute longest. Let the countdown commence!

#1. The Affair by Colette Freedman – so this one is one I still want to read! I should hurry up and get to it!

After eighteen years of marriage, Kathy Walker has settled into a pattern of comfortable routines—ferrying her two teenagers between soccer practice and piano lessons, running a film production business with her husband, Robert, and taking care of the beautiful Boston home they share. Then one day, Kathy discovers a suspicious number on her husband’s phone. Six years before, Kathy accused Robert of infidelity—a charge he vehemently denied—and almost destroyed their marriage in the process.
Now Kathy must decide whether to follow her suspicions at the risk of losing everything, or trust the man with whom she’s entwined her past, present, and future. As she grapples with that choice, she is confronted with surprising truths not just about her relationship, but about her friends, family, and her own motivations.

#2. Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Ishiguro – I’ve heard such great things about this book so I know I still want to read it, but for some reason it’s just not high on my list.

As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

 

 

#3. The Secret History by Donna Tartt – this is another one that’s gotten rave reviews, and I’ve actually been thinking I should pick this one up soon. Maybe I’ll make it my next book club read!

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last – inexorably – into evil.

 

 

 

#4. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman – okay, so this is one I was really excited to read because I thought it would be light and funny, BUT then it got not great reviews on Goodreads, and as much as I wish I could be the type of person who didn’t let low ratings of a book affect whether or not I read them, I totally am! Since I already own the book, I’ve left it on my TBR list, but it’s down toward the bottom.

Writer Nate Piven’s star is rising. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; and Hannah, “almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice,” who holds her own in conversation with his friends. When one relationship grows more serious, Nate is forced to consider what it is he really wants.

In Nate’s 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Novelist Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a flawed, sometimes infuriating modern man–one who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety, who is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down in ways that may just make him an emblem of our times. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is a tale of one young man’s search for happiness–and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex and love.

#5. Dear Girls Above Me by Charlie McDowell – okay, this one still sounds good, but honestly, I kind of forgot about it. I think I’ll save this one for when I’m in the mood to read something light and funny and not a thriller!

Based on the wildly popular Twitter feed Dear Girls Above Me, a roman à clef about how thinking like a couple of girls turned one single guy into a better man.
 
When Charlie McDowell began sharing his open letters to his noisy upstairs neighbors—two impossibly ditzy female roommates in their mid-twenties—on Twitter, his feed quickly went viral. His followers multiplied and he got the attention of everyone from celebrities to production studios to major media outlets such as Time and Glamour.  Now Dear Girls breaks out of the 140-character limit as Charlie imagines what would happen if he put the wisdom of the girls to the test.
 
After being unceremoniously dumped by the girl he was certain was “the one,” Charlie realized his neighbors’ conversations were not only amusing, but also offered him access to a completely uncensored woman’s perspective on the world. From the importance of effectively Facebook-stalking potential girlfriends and effortlessly pulling off pastel, to learning when in the early stages of dating is too presumptuous to bring a condom and how to turn food poisoning into a dieting advantage, the girls get Charlie into trouble, but they also get him out of it—without ever having a clue of their impact on him.

#6. I Heart New York by Lindsey Kelk – I’m pretty sure this is one I got really cheaply from Amazon that sounded like it might be cute. I’m not always in the mood for chick lit, but every now and then I feel like reading them, so this will be on the list for the next time the urge strikes!

Get ready to meet Angela Clark as she flees the world’s worst wedding for a new life…
It’s official. Angela Clarke is in love – with the most fabulous city in the world.
Fleeing her cheating boyfriend and clutching little more than a crumpled bridesmaid dress, a pair of Louboutins and her passport, Angela jumps on a plane, destination – NYC.
Holed up in a cute hotel room, Angela gets a New York makeover from her NBFJenny and a whirlwind tour of the city that never sleeps. Before she knows it, Angela is dating two sexy guys. And, best of all, she gets to write about it in her new blog (Carrie Bradshaw eat your heart out). But it’s one thing telling readers about your romantic dilemmas, it’s another figuring them out for yourself …
Angela has fallen head over heels for the big apple, but does she heart New York more than home?

#7. Beneath the Glitter by Elle Fowler – this one sounds like it could either be really cute or really cheesy, and right now I’m leaning toward cheesy. It’s another one that I’ve already purchased, so it shall stay on the list, but will probably be one I’ll pick up when I want something light that I don’t have to think too much about.

Welcome to a place where dreams are made.  And where nothing—and no one—is ever what it seems.

After their make-up and fashion videos went viral on YouTube, sisters Sophia and Ava London are thrust into the exclusive life of the Los Angeles elite.  Here fabulous parties, air kisses, paparazzi and hot guys all come with the scene. Sophia finds herself torn between a gorgeous bartender and a millionaire playboy, and Ava starts dating an A-list actor.  But as they’re about to discover, the life they’ve always dreamed of comes with a cost.

Beneath the glitter of the Hollywood social scene lies a world of ruthless ambition, vicious gossip…and betrayal.  Someone close to them, someone they trust, is working in the shadows to bring the London sisters falling down. And once the betrayal is complete, Sophia and Ava find themselves knee-deep in a scandal that could take away everything they care about, including the one thing that matters most—each other.

#8. The Future of Us by Jay Asher – this is another one that has mixed reviews on Goodreads, so it’s made it’s way to the bottom of my TBR.

It’s 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They’ve been best friends almost as long—at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh’s family gets a free AOL CD in the mail, his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they’re automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn’t been invented yet. And they’re looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they’re forced to confront what they’re doing right—and wrong—in the present.

#9. A Girl Like You by Gemma Burgess – I still think this one sounds cute and it does have good reviews on Goodreads, so it will be one I’ll pick up when I’m in the mood for chick-lit!

I’ve discovered the secret to successful singledom. I’m acting like a man. And it’s working.

After breaking up with her boyfriend of, well, forever, Abigail Wood must learn how to be single from scratch. Her dating skills are abysmal, and she ricochets from disaster to disaster – until Robert, one of London’s most notorious lotharios, agrees to coach her. With his advice, she learns to navigate the bastard-infested waters of the bar scene and practices the art of being bulletproof. The new Abigail is cocky, calm, composed… but what happens when she meets her match?

 

#10. Human.4 by Mike A. Lancaster – this is the book that’s been on my Goodreads list the absolute longest, and I just re-read the blurb and it does still sound like something I want to read! I think I’ll plan to read this one soon and get it off of my backlist!

Kyle Straker volunteered to be hypnotized at the annual community talent show, expecting the same old lame amateur acts. But when he wakes up, his world will never be the same. Televisions and computers no longer work, but a strange language streams across their screens. Everyone’s behaving oddly. It’s as if Kyle doesn’t exit.

Is this nightmare a result of the hypnosis? Will Kyle wake up with a snap of fingers to roars of laughter? Or is this something much more sinister?

Narrated on a set of found cassette tapes at an unspecified point in the future, Human.4 is an absolutely chilling look at technology gone too far.

**So there we go! The 10 books (some more embarrassing than others) that have been on my TBR the longest! Have you read any of these? What are some of the books that have been on your backlist the longest? Let me know down in the comments!**