I'm generally not one to participate in Stöckchen, as the Germans know them, from the Internet (how did a rather abstruse notion, whose name was coined by Richard Dawkins, come to mean a silly parlour game spread about online? Memology at work, of course!), but this one, courtesy of Languagehat, was a little too apropos of me and my kith to pass up: Ten books I have bought but haven't read. Narrowing it down to ten is much easier in that most of my books languish in storage; I shall confine myself to those currently on the shelf.

Three Icelandic Outlaw Sagas: The Saga of Gisli/the Saga of Grettir/the Saga of Hord Why, why have I not yet read this?

Rebecca West, The Birds Fall Down It sits right beside the marvellous Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, in which I have made a respectable dent but have yet to finish.

Libby: The Sketches, Letters & Journal of Libby Beaman, Recorded in the Pribilof Islands 1879-1880What is it about women named Libby?

Mormon America: The Power and the Promise Dirty blond, attractive, but with too prominent a forehead, too prominent a chin: the selfsame teeneage girl, genetically speaking, works the counter of every filling station in southern Utah. Proclus and Odious did not believe, until they witnessed. Surreal, somehow endlessly fascinating. My perverse curiosity may one day drive me to see The Book of Mormon Movie.

St. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks It was recommended to me on the basis of its having really, remarkably horrible queens. I look forward.

Memoirs of Hector Berlioz : From 1803 to 1865, Comprising His Travels in Germany, Italy, Russia, and England The man was a splendid writer. His Evenings With the Orchestra is one of the most witty, wonderful, bizarre things I've ever read: it contains, among much else, a 19th Century science fiction story about a utopian city founded on musical principles, complete with zeppelin transport; and a lurid romantic tale about an English sailor falling for a Maori cannibal princess. He wrote memoirs because Benvenuto Cellini did.

Jack Turner, Teewinot: Climbing and Contemplating the Teton Range Near and dear to my heart, the author and the subject.

G.K. Chesterton, The Flying Inn I have no idea what to expect.

Jennifer Brennan, Curries & Bugles: A Memoir & Cookbook of the British Raj Not just born in the wrong century, but hungry to boot. Grrrr.

Isaac Dinesen, Anecdotes of Destiny Do you know that other Stöckchen in which you are asked with what person, living or dead, you would chose to take lunch? My answer is easy: Karen Blixen.

Anyone with ten interesting, unread books on his shelf may consider himself tagged.

(This Stöckchen probably does not apply to Odious, Kate or Steve, all of whom seem successfully to have supplicated occult powers to grant them the ability to consume a book with infernal swiftness.)