Top Ten Tuesday: Books Ingrid HAD to Have ... That She Still Hasn't Read

Guess what ... it's another TOP TEN TUESDAY hosted by our good friends over at The Broke and the Bookish. This week you get to hear all about my top ten books I just HAD to buy ... but are still sitting on my shelf. And just so you know, all titles are linked to Amazon.com for your purchasing convenience. :)

1. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Two summers ago I read one of Simone de Beauvoir's novels, She Came to Stay, and didn't like it that much. I thought I'd give her another go and bought her most famous book, The Second Sex. I read about half of it ... however, I soon found out how notoriously horrible the English translation is so I decided to stop reading until I bought the new scholarly edition. Which I still sitting on my amazon wish list. 

2. Augustine by John M. Rist. Alright, so in 2009 I spent the summer in Paris. Some family friends have a really beautiful apartment near the Champs-Elysées where I stayed by myself for about a week until my other apartment was ready for me. One of the many great things about this apartment was the huge bookshelf filled with interesting books that were all in English. I admit that I "borrowed" two books from that bookshelf to take with me, one of which was an extremely old beat up edition of Napoleon by Vincent Cronin (LOVED.) The other was Augustine by John M. Rist. I'm not quite sure why I took this book, besides the fact that it is a nice Cambridge edition and I thought I should read something "smart." However, I've realized by now that I am totally uninterested in St. Augustine, so I will probably never get around to this one. 

3. L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad. So ... I kind of have a secret fascination with Lauren Conrad. I saw that she wrote a book and I was like WHAT?, so I got it on Bookmooch. 

4. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had a crush on some guy like five years ago who had this under his favorite books section on facebook. Still haven't read it. 

5. Napoleon and Josephine by Evangeline Bruce. I was going through a Napoleon fascination stage when I bought this book. I imagine I'll get around to it at some point. Did you know that Josephine's teeth were all rotten from eating too much sugar as a child, so she always smiled with her mouth closed? Interesting fact. 

6. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. I get a certain kind of pleasure from buying huge, chunky books like this one. I was inspired to read it after watching a great little short film called "The Danish Poet." Still haven't gotten around to it though. 

7. The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucalt. My husband made a big deal about how much he wanted to read this book and how crazy it was. Mehh. Too many technicalities and not enough of the good stuff.  Here's an example sentence: "... It was also faced with a theoretical and methodological paradox: the long discussions concerning the possibility of constituting a science on the subject, the validity of introspection, lived experience as evidence, or the presence of consciousness to itself were responses to this problem that is inherent in the functioning of truth in our society: can one articulate the production of truth according to the old juridico-religious model ..." blah blah blah. 

8. "Howl" Fifty Years Later by Jason Shinder. Once upon a time I read the poem "Howl" and liked it. Then I thought I'd be all cool and beatnik and read a book about it. Still haven't. 

9. Arthur Rimbaud by Enid Starkie. Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most fascinating people I've ever come across. I've heard alot of crazy stuff about this biography and the things Enid Starkie did to get her information. I still really want to read it. 

10. Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. I've read a few short stories by Annie Proulx and loved them. Haven't gotten around to reading any others, though I imagine I will at some point. 

So ... there you go. My top ten books sitting on my shelf that I haven't gotten around to reading. Maybe someday.