Welcome to this week’s edition of Virtual Shelf. Here are the top two shelves of my second bookcase, representing Fiction G-H.
The top shelf begins, of course, with Neil Gaiman. I have two copies of Neverwhere, one of which is the Author’s Preferred Version, and is signed (thanks, Chera)! I also have Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, and Lev Grossman’s unusual Magicians. I have yet to read Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, but I’ve been told I’ll like it. Every time I see it in the store, I experience a slight pang of guilt, because I used to be desperate to own it–about two years ago–but still haven’t read it.
On the bottom shelf you’ll note The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is up for a reread. I think it should go on my Holmesiana list, although Holmes is not a character in it; but it’s too well done to overlook. I also have some Joanne Harris, some Ernest Hemingway, and some Peter Hoeg, my favorites being Gentlemen and Players, A Moveable Feast, and The Quiet Girl respectively. I shelve Beowulf under Seamus Heaney, and I’m not sorry. And there are several different translations of Homer, because you can’t have a proper bookshelf without him. And a prominent hardcover copy of Dune by Frank Herbert, which certainly makes my sci-fi top ten, if not my top five.
Someday I will make a favorite sci-fi top ten list, but today is not that day.
Mostly About Books 