I have a large enough pile of unfinished books that I’ve stopped buying them. I imposed a rather impossible rule that I would discourage myself from acquiring new books till I have finished the ones I have.

That rule falls apart when it comes to authors I love.

So the moment I saw Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami Haruki on the bookstore shelf, I took it to the cash register immediately.

I have a better chance of finishing Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman because it’s a collection of short stories. I haven’t gotten around to reading Kafka on the Shore because it draws so many comparrisons to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I recognize The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a good book — I just didn’t like it.

My attention span has gotten notoriously short over the years, so a short story collection is a suitable fit.

Andrew Vachss recently published a new Burke novel, Mass Market. Haven’t picked it up yet, but I will when I get the chance, despite the fact I didn’t get more than a few pages into Two Trains Running.

Other books on my unfinished pile:

  • Rhapsody in Blood by John Morgan Wilson. I’ll be crass and admit the first thing I do when I get a new John Morgan Wilson book is to look for the sex scenes. He’s really good at writing that stuff. Didn’t really find any in Rhapsody in Blood, so I haven’t really gotten far with reading it.

  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I was enamoured of Gaiman’s prose in comic book form, but I’m rather lukewarm about it in novel form.

  • Notorious: An Unauthorized Biography of Duran Duran by Steve Malins. I’m not reading it so much as skimming it.

  • Homicide by David Simon. Damn, those chapters are long.

  • The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I thought I should read this book to help me write an Asian-American family story, but I’ve already watched the movie.

  • Merrick by Anne Rice. I thought I wanted to find out what happened to Louis, but I guess I don’t.

I’ll probably fill out this list with more titles later.