WRITERS' HQ

Our own Lynn Neary has a unique term for her TBR pile – she calls it the “Shelf of Constant Reproach.” It’s not quite your basic TBR pile, though – the Shelf of Constant Reproach is specifically those books that you always MEANT to read, that you tell people you’ve read, that you feel embarrassed about not having read. For Lynn, that’s things like Moby Dick and Lolita, which she finally tackled as last week’s Friday Read.

Me personally, I feel terrible about my inability to make any headway on The Brothers Karamazov, which my dad jocularly calls “The Brothers K” when he’s speechifying about how it’s the best novel ever written. (Uhh, sorry, Dad, I’ll be over here with the new Garth Nix …)

How about you? What’s on your Shelf of Constant Reproach?

“Holy mother of Mary Shelley!”

“What the Tolkien?”