So Many Books So Little Time

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I have so many books that I am waiting to read I can’t even count them. I have found so many treasures here and there from various book nooks. I cannot leave a book shop without buying a book. Friends and Family knowing my love for books are constantly making new suggestions. I also have my good book radar continuously on; I am always on the lookout for highly rated/reviewed books.

So here are the next 5 books in my queue, a stack waiting patiently to be read; feeling rather neglected, but in good company.

The Hiding Place – This is a non-fiction book by Corrie ten Boom taking place during the holocaust. Side note, I have a bit of an obsession/fixation on reading holocaust books (and watching documentaries.) This book is rated very well and comes highly recommended.
The Hiding Place Rated 4.9 on amazon.com.
Pretty good odds I’ll love this book.

 

 

Book Bean: For my hot beverage of  choice I think I will skip the usual cafe con leche and replace it with a big mug of steamy broth. Don’t ask me why, it just feels right.


The Kite Runner – This book is a fictional work by Khaled Hosseini and is a bestseller internationally. This book follows Amir and his interaction with his childhood friend Hassan. Betrayal, Taliban, and Legacy, these are some key words that jump out at me when hearing about the book. It has also been made into a major motion picture.
The Kite Runner Rated 4.6 on amazon.com

 


Book Beans: I will pair this book with a dark smooth cappuccino, mmm pinkies up.

No Man is an Island – This is one of Thomas Merton’s most popular books. It is a meditative and spiritual non-fiction book. I am a bit of a sucker for self-help and motivational inspired reads. I am looking forward to reading this compilation of 16 thought-provoking essays.
No Man Is an Island Rated 4.7 on amazon.com.

 

 


Book Bean: I’ll be feeling very philosophical and important while reading this book. So I think hot mulled cider will do the trick.

The Phantom Tollbooth – Well this is actually a children’s novel by Norton Juster, but there are plenty of “children’s” books that I love e.g. Chronicles of Narnia.
It is a quaint little fairytale-like story that is right up my alley.
The Phantom Tollbooth Rated 4.2 4.7 on amazon.com

 

 


Book Bean: I think I’ll grab my blankie and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa thank you very much.


North and South – A Victorian era novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. This is the novel she is most well-known for but she also wrote Wives and Daughters and Cranford. All three were adapted into TV series, so that says something about the quality of her stories. I for one am over the moon for books of this nature (and their TV and Movie counterparts,) and between Gaskell, Austin, and Bronte I more than get my fix.
North and South Rated 4.4 on amazon.com.

Book Bean: I plan on making up a good pot of tea to enjoy while reading North and South. I’m sophisticated like that 😉

Click on any of the pictures of titles for more information.
If you have read any of these books, give me your thoughts! No spoilers please!

Fun Fact: To read every single book currently cataloged, it would take 60,000 years!

What other books should I add to my ever-growing mountain of books?

I love my Genio Coffeemaker Seriously, it makes really great coffee and espresso! Plus, it’s oh so convenient 🙂

100 thoughts on “So Many Books So Little Time”

  1. Hey Cafe Book Bean
    Have you read the book thief. It’s about a girl in the time of the holocaust. Or have you read «The Good Luck Of Right Now» ? It’s about philosophical ways to see life. It’s about a Young Man who lost his mother. He’s a bit like Forrest Gump. And it’s very interesting. Enjoy reading all those books. Bye

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    • I have not read either of those. I own “The Book Thief” and it is definitely on my ever growing list 🙂 “The Good Luck Of Right Now” sounds very interesting, I will have to check it out. Thank you! 🙂

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      • I think I may do that as well. I’m always telling myself to wait to see the movie, and read it first. However, I am usually disappointed (unless I let some time pass.) The one time I watched the movie first and then read the book was much more satisfying.

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      • You’re Welcome Coffee Book Bean. Yeah they’re very good. I like «The book thief» because the story is told by Death. It really helped me to understand more of Death. Like I started to talk about it and it wasn’t an unspoken subject anymore. Bye

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  4. I’ve met a kindred soul!! I too am a book fiend–my house is overflowing with books, we’ve run out of bookshelves (even though I have many of my books on Kindle) and I have an obsession with holocaust books. I’ve been wanting to read the one in your queue so I am looking forward to hearing what you think of it. A suggestion about Thomas Merton–you might want to read his autobiography, Seven Story Mountain, before tackling No Man is an Island. I read several of his books for my MA in Theology and I love him, but I found the best way to understand his writings (and boy, was he prolific!) was to start with his autobiography, which details his conversion and subsequent entry into the Trappists, etc. You certainly don’t have to do it that way to enjoy his writings though!

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  5. I enjoyed reading The Kite Runner. It’s such a good story. I’ll look out for your thoughts on it if you decide to share them. The Phantom Tollbooth was good as well but I think I would of appreciated it more if I’d read it as a kid.
    I love how you pair them all with a warm drink. Hot cocoa with Tollbooth sounds good to me.

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  10. I’m afraid I haven’t read any of them. I do have a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, picked up after I gave a friend a heart attack by mentioning I had never read it, but I haven’t actually read it yet. Don’t tell my friend.

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  12. I’ve been checking out a few of your posts and I really like your blog! I have to agree that Kite Runner is an awesome book and that I wanted to work for Nat Geo either as a photographer or a journalist, so it’s definitely a favorite of mine also!

    One thing though I noticed your post on Reading Rainbow a few days ago and I think since you’re talking about 90’s kids shows about books that you should do a post on the show Wishbone.

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  13. Oh, I hear you on this one. I have so many books on my shelves (real and virtual shelves) waiting for my attention. But though I can never seem to get to them all, I’m grateful as readers we have such a wide selection. And I always think, maybe some day I’ll start that one…

    Thanks for visiting my site. Much appreciated!

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  19. The Hiding Place and Phantom Tollbooth are two of my favorites!

    The fantastic characters in Tollbooth still make me laugh even though I’ve read it several times and its geared towards younger readers. They have such great play on words (like “The Whether Man”…it’s better to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be.) So fun, and it makes you feel smart while reading it.

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  20. the kite runner is one of my all-time favorites. it has even inspired my travel plans to head to india in january one year to partake in the kite festival. you will learn much about culture of classes and countries; overall, it is a tale about growing up and coming to terms with our past.

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  21. I love the pairing a nice drink with a book idea you have here! I actually tried to think of some drink ideas before reading what you suggested and I was pleasantly happy that we had a lot of similar choices. Also loved that you added the Phantom Tollbooth. It’s one of my childhood favorites!

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  23. Thanks for visiting my The World’s Fare blog. I have a problem with books, too — far more than I’ll ever get to. Looks like you’ve got a good selection lined up. I loved The Hiding Place and The Phantom Toll Booth; I’ve seen the movie The Kite Runner, and it was excellent — frightening, sad, moving, and finally redemptive; and I’ve read other works by Gaskell and enjoyed them, so I’d imagine this would be good. Only one don’t know is the Merton book (though I’ve read other Merton). I’ll be interested to find out what you think. As for favorites of my of my own, I have pretty wide-ranging tastes — from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books to Near a Thousand Tables (food history — but then I’m a food historian, so I do rather like books of this nature). Thanks for sharing your list. Happy reading.

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  24. I loved “The Hiding Place”, and “The Book Thief” . “No Man Is An Island” is on my reading list. I wish I had more time, when I start reading a book and find that it is very interesting, I just want to keep reading until I finish it!

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  30. Hi Abbielu, if you like mysteries, I have a few suggestions of authors you might like to try. The first is Louise Penny. Her novels take place in the province of Quebec, the protagonist is Inspector Gamacahe. He is a very interesting and complex character. The second author is Michael Jecks, a British author whose novels take place in medieval England. The main character is Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, a former Templar knight who now acts as a King’s representative in solving crimes. The third author is Peter Treymane. HIs protagonist is Sister Fidelma who lives in seventh century Ireland. She is a lawyer in the Irish law system. She could do so because women had equal rights to men. Ireland at that time was such a beacon of light that people from all over Europe went to Ireland to attend their universities. So there you have it. These are three authors that I recommend and enjoy — Louise Penny, Michael Jecks and Peter Treymane, Charles Quail

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  31. Do you ever get your books at the Salvation Army? I used to get a lot there, and I used to love to go through the bargain bins at Barnes And Noble, and Borders when they were open.
    Do you like sci-fi? I haven’t read all your posts. It is hard to keep up with every thing
    A historical writer that I discovered when used to go the library is Mika Waltari, his novels are set in the ancient world, and revolve around real historical figures.
    I also like Farley Mowat’s work, he is Canadian, and wrote a lot about nature and wildlife.
    another favorite is by Forrest Carter,”The Education Of Little Tree”.
    As you can tell, my favorites are the older authors. I have read so many, that I can’t even remember them now.

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    • I have gotten books from the Goodwill but not Salvation Army (not that I’m opposed.) I love Sci-Fi, I don’t really have a favorite Genre, because I love diversity. Your suggestions and the books you like, all look really interesting. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

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  32. The Goodwill’s here in Michigan are not that good, The Salvation army seems to be a better choice here, but there are so many other thrift and resale stores to go treasure hunting,

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  33. For sci-fi I like almost all of Asimov, Clarke and Philip Dick. My favorite though is by Olaf Stapledon, both his “Starmaker” and “Last And First Men” , were so imaginative in breadth and scope, but they are dated now, since they were written before WW II. Some people don’t like his style of writing. It gets more interesting as it goes on. He was friends with Virginia Woolf.

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  34. The Kite Runner is a beautiful book. Make sure to have tissues on hand alongside your hot drink. I also agree with everyone who is recommending The Book Thief, it’s an excellent book too

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  35. Go to Prison!

    A few few remarks I proffer.
    No one likes Poe. You love him or you utterly fail to grasp his, ah, Tale-Tell Annabelle Raven Pendulum.
    Far from phoney Holocaust stories, I went to prison some years ago. I had no coffee and I had no cream. I would not have enjoyed a single sip nor would I have dared to dream. The Prison was the gulag in the Russian Archipelago. The Author who took me to that Prison was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I swear if One day I ever return, I will be mounted on a Steed with Tens of Thousands of Saints to avenge the Lands that Stalin flooded with the blood of man woman and child and mortared his dams with the frozen corpses of prisoners while Stalin chomped cigars with ChurchHill and bought fuel from the Jew Rockefeller and Nero fiddled to 66 million ghosts who now cry beneath the altar of God.
    Go to Prison. Let Solzhenitsyn take you there in an unforgettable and life changing sentence of Hell in Siberia.

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  38. I have read all of those except the Thomas Merton book. Hiding Place and Kite Runner are two books that in a way I wish I had not read – they bring home the sad realities of this world in a way you can never forget.
    Phantom Tollbooth I loved as a kid. Years later I was a teacher and read it aloud to my class, and it was too slow-paced for that, but I still think it is good for reading to yourself.
    North and South I loved because I am a weaver and interested in textile history. A good tie-in book to that is Home Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine, from 1862. It explains how the American Civil War was causing all kinds of economic hardship to the textile workers in Great Britain.

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    • I know what you mean about the bittersweet feelings books of that nature bring. They do make me sad and frustrated, but I feel I own it to the victims to hear their stories. It fascinates me the cruelties humans are capable while at the same time it fascinates me what humans can endure and survive.

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      • You are right, I like the way you put it about owing it to the victims to at least know their stories. It is one thing to be unaware of history and conditions, but it is another thing to willfully ignore it.

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  41. I find that one of the most enjoyable series among my friends at school is the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, Inheritance). It’s about a poor village boy, Eragon, who finds a strange stone in the woods and brings it home, hoping that it would sell for a good amount, and maybe even buy his family some meat for the winter. However, the stone turns out to be an egg that hatches into a dragon, forcing Eragon to realize that he has stumbled upon an ancient legacy that has become a legend, and he has come across one of the last three dragons left in the world.
    It’s a really good book. I hope you’ll have time to read it. Filled with magic, mystery, and thrilling adventures, I know that if you read it, you’ll never forget it. 😀

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  43. I have a button on my bag that says “Before I die, I plan to read all the books on my shelves.” So I can totally relate to how you feel. One last thing to share–the owner of a used bookstore once told me that having a lot of unread books ensures a long life, because you cannot die if you have unfinished business in this world. So far, it’s worked for me 🙂

    Cheers!

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  47. When I read that you had stumbled on to my blog , it made me smile just because my meditation and prayer time today was about finishing my book of devotionals today and sending it off for publishing. I checked out some of the books on your list and I will be following you. wyswoods.wordpress.com

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