Decluttering my Goodreads TBR #3

Happy Valentine’s Day!! And happy Olympics!!! I personally love the Olympics and they’ve been playing non-stop in our house since they began. Unfortunately, I’m still super busy with school, so I haven’t had a ton of time to blog 😦 Sorry for the lack of original posts lately! But I’m handing in my thesis to my supervisor in about a week, so I should have more time to blog after that!

So today is round three of decluttering my Goodreads. See parts one and two! So far I have kept all the books, so this time I’m going to go based on which ones have been on my list the longest! These were all added January 5, 2012.

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The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down’s Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this story that unfolds over a quarter of a century – in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night. Norah Henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can, in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own.

I all honesty, I don’t remember adding this. And it doesn’t interest me right now, so bye! (side note: recently I did a Top Ten Tuesday post about the books that have been on my TBR the longest, and this one was on there, so I don’t think I ever deleted it lol. my bad)
Verdict: delete

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The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler’s Wife is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s marriage and their passionate love for each other as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals–steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

This sounds so interesting. I definitely am still interested enough to keep it on my TBR.
Verdict: keep

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The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realises just how much she is a pawn in her family’s ambitious plots as the king’s interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take fate into her own hands.

A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.

Verdict: delete. I watched the movie with my parents a little while ago, so I feel like now reading it would be repetitive.

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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation. 

In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna’s investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love. 

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.

This sounds super interesting! I feel like it’s one of those books everyone has read, and I really want to read it.
Verdict: keep

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Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves.

What a detailed description, thank you Goodreads. But actually, I know what this book is about. A while ago Nicole and Lisa were saying they hated it, but I think I have to read it to see why it’s so bad?
Verdict: keep

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Total

Keep: 4
Delete: 2

Total kept: 14
Total deleted: 2

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Better than last time!! I actually got rid of some!! Finally!!!!!!!!!