Books are going to be the death of me

So, I spent the weekend reading (when I had free time), talking about reading (to my mother who can not believe how many books I have from the library), thinking about reading (because my mother kept giving me these looks about all the library books), and plotting out my reading.

Specifically, for the summer reading challenge. Pretty much immediately after posting that I was up for this challenge (please oh please oh please), I began to think about which classics (that I own) I was going to read. That in itself took an hour, as I had to think about which books I owned (did I mention I was still at work?) and which ones I thought would be interesting enough to keep me interested for a full week.

So, may I present, in the exact order I'm going to read them...

1. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
(I have to be honest, I can't remember if I've actually read this book or not)
2. Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
(This book has been on the list for a couple of years)
3. The Beautiful and the Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald
(The title grabbed me)
4. 1984 by George Orwell
(I haven't read this in several years)
5. Animal Farm by George Orwell
(I've never read this)
6. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
(I read a collection of her short stories last summer and just fell in love with her)
7. Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
(I love this novel, it was my first Russian, but I haven't read it since I was 18)
8. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
(We had to read one of her short stories back in AP English and I thought it was brilliant. So explain why I've yet to read anything else by her?)
9. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
(I've yet to make it through anything by him--Oliver Twist, I'm looking at you, but from the parts I saw on Masterpiece Theatre, well, it looks excellent)
10. The Forsythe Saga by John Galsworthy
(Someone once told me it was excellent)
11. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
(I've wanted to read this since I was 17 and no matter how many times I start it, I've yet to finish it.)
12. The Vampyre: And Other Tales of the Macabre by John Polidori, Robert Morrison, Chris Baldick, etc.
(Hee, vampires!)
13. Inferno by Dante
(Another book I've wanted to read for years, yet never have)
14. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
(I think any book that can be read over the radio to cause mass panic, should be read)

So that's the list...and it's been giving me grief ever since. I mean "Wives & Daughters" is a huge book. Do I really think I'm going to read it in a week? Or "The Forsythe Saga"? Sometimes I wonder about my subconscious.

So I've given myself four alternates, just in case.
1. Paradise Lost by John Milton
(I think knowing that this book is the first alternate will make me rethink giving up whatever book I'm planning on giving up on)
2. Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
(Hmm, can I really have two books by him on the list?)
4. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
(I know, I swore off him, but a friend asked me to give this book a chance)

Currently, all 18 books are stacked on the top row of my new "classics" book case...that's right, I spent 2 hours on Sunday reorganizing every damn book in my apartment, while my mother napped. I've now got the young adult, children's, and picture books in my bedroom (um, subconscious, what the hell?), all of my classics on the new book case, in alphabetical order.

Then, the next book case is Science Fiction (only one shelf?), Fantasy (a bit more than a shelf), the Harry Potter series (yes, it does get it's own shelf), and then a collection of History/Biography/Memoirs on the bottom.

The third book case is All Fiction. All Fiction. Lit fiction I guess the classification is. (and I think I've read MAYBE 10 of them. Dear God, how I have a problem.)

Then, in the last book case...the first shelf is travel books/guides, books on coffee and other little things (you know, the random book in the random subject). The second shelf is all Urban Fantasy (yes, I have distinctions in fantasy), and the third shelf is "Fiction that is not literature", Women's studies, Poetry, Mythology, and Philosophy. (Please, do not ask me how or why I came up with that last shelf. I think it's because I was out of room and I can double shelve things in this last book case.)

I'm a little bit dissapointed with myself, because now, I have maybe a shelf left. Maybe. If I add up all the spaces in each of the 5 bookcases.

Oh. I did finish "A Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks. I'll write up a review sometime this week, hopefully before the book club meeting. (And speaking of reviewing, Bookslut is looking for reviewers...and part of me wants to submit. The other part is looking for duct tape.)