The Loneliest Book on Your Bookshelf

[Stevie B]

Jayan's comment that he planned to read Into Thin Air, a book he had owned for more than twenty years, made me wonder which book on my shelf had gone unread the longest. I determined it was The Furys by James Hanley. What is the loneliest book on your bookshelf? Please share the title and, perhaps, like me, move it to your 2023 reading queue.

 

[Leseratte]

That´s really difficult to say, as I mostly read e-books today. Anyway the books on the shelves are sorted out by theme, language and author. They keep each other company. One book I have been postponing since I bought it(before pandemics) is the autobiography of Brazilian actress, Fernanda Montenegro, Prólogo, ato, epílogo: Memórias (Prolog, Act, Epilog: Memories)

 

[Patrick Murtha]

How can they be lonely when I keep bringing them new companions? ?

 

[Stevie B]

How can they be lonely when I keep bringing them new companions? ?

Cuz you've neglected them while openly cuddling with their friends.

 

[Bartleby]

It's difficult to remember this, since most of the books on my shelves I've bought them a long time ago, granted, not all at once, but for some time now I haven't purchased as many books as I used to, mostly reading on Kindle, buying physical copies when they for some reason add more to the reading experience (when they have images, experimentations with the format, glosses on the page, poetry collections, when there's no ebook available etc), in some cases making exceptions to books from authors I've been collecting for some time, or, I must admit, when the cover is irresistibly gorgeous...

Having said that, one of the books from my earliest purchases that I keep thinking of reading but never do is Anna Karenina (I know, I know, I must get to that one...).

 

[Liam]

^Wow, that's a beautiful looking edition of the book, B! ?

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I am in the middle of Anna Karenina now, the Constance Garnett translation, and wow, just wow.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I have thought of “lonely books” when I…

(a) …borrowed a library book that hadn’t been out of the library in years;

(b)…bought a book that may have been languishing in a bookseller’s inventory for a long while;

(c)…read a book that I was pretty sure I was the only person on Planet Earth reading at that moment.

 

[Liam]

I am in the middle of Anna Karenina now, the Constance Garnett translation, and wow, just wow.

Incidentally, I watched a short documentary about Meryl Streep recently, and it mentioned that one of her earliest acting roles (on stage, not screen) was as Constance Garnett in The Idiots Karamazov, where she played Garnett at the end of her life, sitting in a wheelchair and (supposedly) deranged. You can read more about it here.

 

[tiganeasca]

It's difficult to remember this, since most of the books on my shelves I've bought them a long time ago, granted, not all at once, but for some time now I haven't purchased as many books as I used to, mostly reading on Kindle, buying physical copies when they for some reason add more to the reading experience (when they have images, experimentations with the format, glosses on the page, poetry collections, when there's no ebook available etc), in some cases making exceptions to books from authors I've been collecting for some time, or, I must admit, when the cover is irresistibly gorgeous...

Having said that, one of the books from my earliest purchases that I keep thinking of reading but never do is Anna Karenina (I know, I know, I must get to that one...).

View attachment 1438

alik-vit or Liam (or anyone else who knows): what city is that pictured on the cover in Bartleby's edition of Anna Karenina? The cathedral in the background reminds me very much of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood. I don't think it is, though--it's somehow not "right." Besides, pictures of that Cathedral always show the canal. I'm baffled. On the other hand, if it's Moscow instead...I can't place it. Maybe it was destroyed in the '30s?

 

[Ben Jackson]

It's difficult to remember this, since most of the books on my shelves I've bought them a long time ago, granted, not all at once, but for some time now I haven't purchased as many books as I used to, mostly reading on Kindle, buying physical copies when they for some reason add more to the reading experience (when they have images, experimentations with the format, glosses on the page, poetry collections, when there's no ebook available etc), in some cases making exceptions to books from authors I've been collecting for some time, or, I must admit, when the cover is irresistibly gorgeous...

Having said that, one of the books from my earliest purchases that I keep thinking of reading but never do is Anna Karenina (I know, I know, I must get to that one...).

View attachment 1438

You edition of Anna Karenina is very beautiful, in fact classy.

To answer the question Tiganeasca posted, I would have thought of the city as early 20th Century Munich, but seeing the dome, I had no choice but to choose Moscow (one of those cities I hope to visit).

As for me, the books are Ivanhoe, Bleak House,100 Years of Solitude and Middlemarch, length of these books are just discouraging me.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

You edition of Anna Karenina is very beautiful, in fact classy.

To answer the question Tiganeasca posted, I would have thought of the city as early 20th Century Munich, but seeing the dome, I had no choice but to choose Moscow (one of those cities I hope to visit).

As for me, the books are Ivanhoe, Bleak House,100 Years of Solitude and Middlemarch, length of these books are just discouraging me.

One strategy for reading intimidatingly long books: Read one chapter PER DAY, then go back to whatever else you’re reading. If this method works for you, the long book will eventially be completed quite painlessly.

 

[Bartleby]

alik-vit or Liam (or anyone else who knows): what city is that pictured on the cover in Bartleby's edition of Anna Karenina? The cathedral in the background reminds me very much of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood. I don't think it is, though--it's somehow not "right." Besides, pictures of that Cathedral always show the canal. I'm baffled. On the other hand, if it's Moscow instead...I can't place it. Maybe it was destroyed in the '30s?

It says in the book's credits the two superimposed images are of the The Kremlin, and Nevsky prospect (c. 1900).

 

[Liam]

^That's brill! So they combine two cities, Moscow and Petersburg, into one! ?

 

[alik-vit]

Yes, it's mix of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. The cathedral on the background is St Basil, I think. It situated on the Red Square in Moscow. But photographer's point of view is spot of contemporary underpass near the metro station Gostiny dvor on Nevsky prospect.

 

[tiganeasca]

Thank you all! I know precisely where Gostiny dvor is (two minutes walk to Dom Knigi...but it moved, didn't it?), but am not certain about the location of that metro station.... But St. Basil's? I thought about that possibility for a moment but it was too far away to be certain. No wonder I was confused! I never imagined they would use two images from two different cities together.