Today, I am moving back to college. Naturally, I’ve been concerned about packing my school things (do my folders match?) to packing my clothes (how exactly does one say military chic while despairing of the heat?), but I’ve also been concerned about my books. This year, I’m taking a course on Jane Austen, and I now own her entire canon, which feels odd, to say the least. I’m also taking a class on Shakespeare and race, which demands several volumes. And let’s not even talk about my textbook for my pre-1700s English literature course. It’s practically a weapon.
But my main concern is, which books should I take for personal reading?
Last year, I learned a very crucial lesson–don’t take books you’re not going to read. I brought along Wicked and Good Omens, two of my favorite books–but then I started The Literary Omnivore and started abusing the local library, so I never reread them. Oops. There’s also the problem of space. In my first year dorm, I had two tiny shelves attached to my desk for all of my books and my DVD binder. While I have a better room this year, I do have to share a bookshelf with my lovely roommate. (Also, there’s no air conditioning. But they filmed Scream 2 there, so hey!) So on top of my desire to be efficient, there’s the fact that between my textbooks and her textbooks, we’re not going to have a lot of room.
It’s a problem I solve by relying on the library in town (a brisk fifteen minute walk!) and always putting my library books on my dresser–at any given moment, there’s not a lot of space being taken up by books. Well, library books. (I’m seriously having concerns about how we’re going to get the tub full of textbooks up the stairs today.) I also don’t buy books unless I absolutely know I’m going to love it–this, as you can imagine, is a very rare situation. Somehow, though, I do have a small pile of books that I just have to take with me.
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
- Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- The Lost City of Z by David Grann
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
- Pegasus by Robin McKinley
1 and 2 are books I bought from my favorite independent bookstore, as I often feel guilty for spending so much time in there but never buying anything. T. J. was kind enough to give me her used copy of 3. I bought 4 at Books-a-Million and picked up 5 at a local thrift store. I won 6 and was sent 7 for review. In any case, seven’s a lucky number, right? Maybe it’ll help me find room for all my books once I settle in.
I read Stephen King’s Misery this week, and I’ve been plowing through The Way of Kings since I finished–since it’s an ARC, I want to finish and review it before the 31st, when it’s released. It’s definitely a chunkster, weighing in at 1,008 pages. And it’s the first book in a ten book cycle, so I’m guessing the completely hypothetical omnibus would have to be 10,000 pages long. Goodness!
Angela at Sci-Fi Chick is currently giving away three books; George Mann’s The Osiris Ritual, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and A Wild Light–the giveaway for A Wild Light ends on Friday! The people over at Tor/Forge are giving away one last ARC of The Way of Kings until tomorrow, so step lively, folks! SQT at Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin’ is giving away copies of The Hypnotist (which ends on Tuesday!), Shades of Milk and Honey, The Last Page, and The Truth of Valor, all found on her handy giveaways page. (A thousand apologies for the mix up last week!) As always, these are just the giveaways I ran across this week; I don’t aim to make a comprehensive list.
So, how do you pick the books that move with you, be it to college, across the country, or simply to the beach?
The Literary Omnivore 
Of course you must take these seven along! That’s not so many. And you can always give them away on your blog (hint, hint) after you read them.
Hee! Thanks for dropping by!
First of all, that class on Shakespeare and race sounds so awesome! Secondly, nice choices. I LOVED books 1 and 2, and have heard good things about several of the others.
I’m having the same packing dilemma myself as I prepare to move to grad school in 3 weeks. It’s an international move and my baggage allowance is fairly limited, so I know I can’t take more than 4-5 books at the most, and light ones at that. On the one hand I know this doesn’t matter much, as I’ll have access to awesome libraries there and will forget all about my tbr pile back home. But on the other hand there are so many books I own that I’d like to read in the near future, and right now the idea of just leaving them aside for a year is painful.
I can’t wait for it- as well as getting to the books themselves. 🙂
Jenny’s solution is quite elegant; only bring books you can’t access via the libraries and books you’ll give away at local thrift stores or book shops.
It is a difficult choice, isn’t it?
Hearing about your classes makes me pine for my college years. I was lucky enough during college to always be in apartment style dorms, so I had a five shelf bookshelf that went with me, plus smaller ones throughout the apartment. I will say though that I was pretty stupid for moving those boxes of books back and forth every year.
I try and be efficient organizing my books; it’s a side-effect of growing up in a house with lots of unorganized books everywhere.
Oh, lucky! We do have apartment style dorms, but we also have a strange lottery system that I try to avoid for them.
I went to college in the town I grew up in, so I was not much tormented by book choices. When I felt like reading different books to the ones I’d brought with me, I swung by my parents’ place and swapped out the books. But when I was packing to do my year abroad, I had a two-part strategy. The first part was to only bring books the library in England wouldn’t have, and the second part was to try to bring several long books that I wanted to read but didn’t expect I’d want to keep. Then I abandoned those books at charity shops in England when I left, and brought home new books I’d bought while in England. It worked perfectly. 🙂
I’m actually not that far, but it’s still far enough I can’t just swing by. 🙂
And that’s a brilliant solution! I’m going to pass that along to traveling bibliophiles.
So very jealous of your Way of Kings ARC! Apart from that, I’ve read most of the rest of your list, and I have to say that you’ve picked a selection of great books.
Hope the move-in went smoothly! It’s that time of year around here too, although really all that means for me is that I have to avoid Target for the next three weeks or so. 🙂
You have exactly ten minutes to go enter the last giveaway of it! It’s… interesting so far.
Ah, Target. I actually need to go with my roommate this evening to pick up some curtains (although our windows are easily twice my height).