Too Many Books!

My backlog of books to be read is growing steadily larger. Here's a brief rundown of some of the more pressing titles.

There's a pile of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels about an ex-Military Policeman who keeps finding himself in the middle of guns, murder and intrigue. The first novel Killing Floor was great but I still haven't had a chance to read the rest of the series yet. Despite this I keep buying the latest books in the series whenever I see them on sale. I have no willpower.

John Connolly's latest private eye with supernatural overtones novel The Black Angel also sits upon the shelf waiting to be read.

Then there's a pile of Dennis Lehane's Kenzie and Genarro private eye series. And the Raymond Chandler novels. And the Dashiel Hammett short stories.

I want to reread Stephen Hunter's Dirty White Boys as it's a brilliant thriller with great characterization. Plus it's the first thing I ever read by him so it holds a special place in my heart.

I've not read any science fiction for ages so there's a stack of books by Nick Sagan, Neal Asher, Alistair Reynolds and others. Not to mention a Philip K Dick short story collection that's the size of a housebrick. And Amazon couldn't find me a copy of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers so I need to get a copy from a bricks and mortar bookstore.

T.E.D. Klein's The Ceremonies also needs to be started as I really enjoyed his Dark Gods collection of novellas. And I recently picked up a copy of Fritz Leiber's The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich. Which reminds me I've still got a bunch of Leiber short stories to work my way through. And I still haven't read any of the classic Lovecraft stuff such as 'The Call of Cthulhu'.

On the Fantasy front I want to reread some of Jonathan Carroll's earlier novels. Plus I should really read the more recent ones that are sitting gathering dust. I'd also like to reread Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels about a wisecracking sword and sorcery assassin.

And there's a whole bunch of books on mysticism and spirituality by authors such as Ken Wilber, Jeff Meyerhoff, Huston Smith, R. A. Gilbert, Stephen Batchelor, Robert Forman, Gary Lachman, Nevill Drury, Eckhart Tolle, Clifford A Pickover and Christian deQuincey.

And last but not least Mark Samuels's new novel The Face of Twilight has just been released by PS Publishing so that's getting added to the list as well. Damn you, Mark!