Five Favourites: To-Read

Earlier on this year, I owned up to having a Quite Ridiculous stack of books by my bed.
It hasn't got much better:

 

Just to make me feel marginally better about all this, here's a photo of Ze Husband's equivalent heap:

Counting up, I appear to have 18 books, compared to his 23... except... see that dark blue thing with the yellow rabbit-print edges in my heap? Yeah. That's my Kindle. With another... oh, quite a lot of books on it. Also, my copy of Kristin Lavransdatter is currently downstairs, which makes my heap look a lot smaller all of a suddden.

I've started making a list of things to read AFTER I finish the stack, which, quite conveniently, currently includes 5 titles.

1. Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. 
You may have noticed that this one is already in the heap. I cheated a bit and bought it early.

2. Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede. 
I've wanted to read this one since I heard about it on the Fountains of Carrots podcast. I think my brain must be wired in a similar way to theirs because you can almost guarantee I will love every. single. book they talk about.

3. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.
Ditto.

4. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. 
I hadn't read any Donna Tartt books before The Goldfinch. It was long, it was bizarre, but I got into it in a way which has rarely happened since having children (attention span? What attention sp...?)

5. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose.
I'm kind of embarassed to admit I haven't read this yet. Foucault's Pendulum has to be among the best books I've ever read. I also like Eco because of the way he works with his translators (professional bias? Well, yes). The Prague Cemetery was a bit disappointing, but I'm willing to give him another chance (possibly many other chances - see above).

I'm not going to include product links, because I think secondhand is generally the best way to go. If you're in the UK and buying through Amazon, look out for BetterWorld Books - they sell on ex-library stock and pass on the profits to literacy charities.

Linking up with Ashley for Five Favourites :-)