Doubles

I haven't posted in a while due to a nasty computer virus, so many apologies to those who read this blog and lots of bad vibes to whoever wiped my computer out. Anyway, I'm going to be a bit self-indulgent and make a list this post, so skip it if you don't like that sort of thing!

I'm moving to another city in January, so last weekend I thought I'd see if it is at all possible to streamline my ever-growing book collection (gasp! no!). I really couldn't stand to part with any books, however I thought that I could probably give away any that we had multiple copies of. When I met my husband, we merged our book collections and I found it fascinating to look through and see where our tastes overlapped. It was nice to see that some of my favourite books came up on the list:

1. The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx (the book I most often name as my favourite novel- anything Proulx writes is fantastic)
2. Wuthering Heights
3. The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
4. The Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolff (embarrassingly we somehow had three copies of this, I've no idea why)
5. The Monkey's Mask Dorothy Porter (an Australian novel in verse, so a fairly obscure book to have two of- I also haven't read it yet, much to my shame. Soon, soon.)
6. Oranges are not the Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson (a brilliant autobiographical novel about her childhood)
7. Oliver Twist
8. The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck (one of my favourite writers, the ending of this novel is unbearably tragic and devastates me every time)
9. Exquisite Corpse Poppy Z. Brite (two copies of this and both were my husbands, me not being big on horror)
10. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
11. The Complete Poems of Sylvia Plath
12. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy (another book that regular makes my list of favourite novels ever)

All books were happily received by people at my work. Of course, I have since bought lots more books, so my collection is really no smaller. Oh well, I think I'll just have to buy more shelves...