The end of the year is nigh. I am having a look at my want-to-read shelf, aka books that I want to reads, but do not own yet. Every now and then I kick some books off that shelf, because I am not that interested anymore. I am very, very stingy with adding titles to that list, because I do not want to be overwhelmed and I want to stand a chance to actually read those books at some point in time. So I only have 170 titles on that shelf. I own another 240 unread books, so I am not running out of reading material anytime soon. Anyway, I am currently filling my virtual shopping basket at a secondhand bookstore at the moment and going through that want-to-read, looking for some low-priced bargains… Here it goes…
Lone Wolf and Cub, Vol. 1: The Assassin’s Road (Lone Wolf and Cub, #1)
Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Okami in Japan) is acknowledged worldwide for the brilliant writing of series creator Kazuo Koike and the groundbreaking cinematic visuals of the late Goseki Kojima. Creating unforgettable imagery of stark beauty, kinetic fury, and visceral thematic power, the epic samurai adventure has influenced a generation of visual storytellers both in Japan and in the West.
I‘ve had this on my shelf for a while. I do not read a lot of Manga, I am not a huge fan of the black-and-white medium. But reviews for this are consistently good, so… bought!
Raising Stony Mayhall
by Daryl Gregory
In 1968, after the first zombie outbreak, Wanda Mayhall and her three young daughters discover the body of a teenage mother during a snowstorm. Wrapped in the woman’s arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse. But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda — and he begins to move.
This sounded really good at the time I added it. Plus I really liked Afterparty and the short story NIne Last Days on Planet Earth by the author. But I am a little oversaturated with zombies… Deleted!
Marriage of Inconvenience (Knitting in the City, #7)
by Penny Reid
Marriage of Convenience is one of my favourite romance tropes, which is why I added this to my shelf. However, I recently read the first book of that series and was utterly underwhelmed. It was ok, but generally not interesting enough to continue with the series. Deleted!
Made to Order: Robots and Revolution
by Jonathan Strahan and others
They are often among the least privileged, most unfairly used of us, and the more robots are like humans, the more interesting they become. This collection of stories is where robots stand in for us, where both we and they are disadvantaged, and where hope and optimism shines through.
I have too many short story anthologies on my shelves and robots are another topic where I reached saturation… deleted!
The Loch
by Steve Alten
Marine biologist Zachary Wallace once suffered a near-drowning experience in legendary Loch Ness, and now, long-forgotten memories of that experience have begun haunting him. The truth surrounding these memories lies with Zachary’s estranged father, Angus Wallace, a wily Highlander on trial for murder. Together the two plunge into a world where the legend of Loch Ness shows its true face.
Ugh, I think I am done with Steve Alten. Delete! And if I should find any more Meg novels on my shelf, I will boot those off as well…
Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines, #1)
by Marko Kloos
With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.
I guess I added this because I saw some good reviews and it‘s on Kindle Unlimited. But to be honest, it sounds depressing and I am not a massive MilSF fan anyway. Deleted.
The Survival of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne, #2)
by Tade Thompson
I did like the first Molly Southbourne book quite a bit, but it also made me very uncomfortable. So, delete…
Ok then, besides those 7 books above (of which I only bought one and deleted 6), I also deleted a ton on KU additions and other stuff that I remembered nothing about. I am now down to only 130 books left on that shelf. Quite a nice clean-up.
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 
That sounds like a great shelf clean-up! I’ve read some of the ones you deleted, and I don’t have any compelling reason to suggest you re-add them. 😉 I enjoyed Made To Order, but if you’re saturated on robots this is certainly not the anthology for you right now. The other two (Molly Southborne and Terms of Enlistment) I enjoyed enough to finish, but can’t really recommend unless you’re a fan of the genres.
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Lone Wolf and Cub is supposed to be really good. I hope you enjoy it. 😊
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I hope so as well! 😃
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This year I plan on doing a challenge of reading 5 books I own before I buy a new one. I rarely want to read physical books anymore and I have around 50 unread in my shelf not counting nonfiction. I plan on buying physical books as little as possible and buying audiobooks that I hear much faster instead.
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I saw that you have that challenge. I thought about setting myself a restriction like that. But it would mean one more thing I need to track, so I decided against it. I have to check, but I think I have more than 50 unread physical book and together with all my kindles I am over 200 owned books. So, yes, I want to buy as little new books as possible. It‘s one of the reasons why I haven’t committed to many buddy reads yet this year. Only if I own it already or if it‘s an ongoing series…
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i have been using the library a lot.
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Thinking about getting a library card, but I want to reduce my TBR first. New SFF book that I want to read are not available in my local libraries, at least not in English.
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Well, but if German is your first language you could read in German too. In my case my German isn’t good enough for that, but now and then I read books in Portuguese too, when they get translated.
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I could, yes. I don‘t like to read books in translation though, if I can read them in the original English. But we‘ll see, I might change my mind eventually. My local library is too small, but in the next town over they have a really nice one, plus they have Libby, so there is potential for audio as well.
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