The Unread Book Project at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery

The Unread Book Project will be part of a group exhibition at the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery in San Francisco opening in mid-September.

I am excited to present a new iteration of the Unread Book Project for this group exhibition. To take advantage of the Adobe Books environment, I am creating an interactive component in which gallery visitors and book lovers will be able to peruse the books in Adobe Books and discover copies of books that are also in my Unread Book Project.

I will also be presenting a compilation of all the stories associated with the books in the Unread Book Project in book form. This book will be published in conjunction with the group exhibition and available for purchase during the course of the exhibition.

As usual, I am putting out a call for unread books for anyone who has yet to participate in the project. If you or anyone you know might be interested in participating in this project, please contact me at: unreadbookproject@gmail.com

Look for more details in the next few weeks!

Exchanges in The Unread Book Project

This is a list of one to one exchanges in the Unread Book Project

Stranger in a Strange Land taken for The Diamond Age

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay taken for The Great Unraveling

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men taken for Eleanor Roosevelt

Neuromancer taken for The Pillars of Hercules

I Could Do Anything taken for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Motherless Brooklyn taken for The Poetry of Robert Frost

The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way taken for S/Z

Genome taken for Quantum Computer Science: An Introduction

The Tibetan Book of the Dead taken for The Complete Idiot's Guide to Tarot

XXXXX taken for Dinosaurs Before Dark

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri taken for Stupid White Men

Forget Foucault taken for The Inscrutable Americans

The Unread Book Collection - Updated August 2009

As of November 30, 2008, this is the current composition of the Unread Book Project:

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil (personal collection)

All Gall Is Divided by E. M. Cioran

All Too Human by George Stephanopoulos

Alligators, Old Mink and New Money by Alison Houtte and Melissa Houtte

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (exchanged)

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God by Jonah Blank

The Art of the Story edited by Daniel Halpern

Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks

Beauty compiled by John Miller (personal collection)

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Bel-ami by Guy de Maupassant

The Bhagavad-Gita translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (being read)

Biomimicry by Janine M. Benyus

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace (exchanged)

The Bully of Bentonville by Anthony Bianco

Bushwhacked by Molly Ivins

Cambodia by Nick Ray

The Cold Moons by Aeron Clement

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Tarot by Arlene Tognetti and Lisa Lenard

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Daddies and Daughters by Carmen Renee Berry and Lynn Barrington

Dante edited by Mark Musa (personal collection)

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri by Dante Alighieri

Drop City by T.C. Boyle (personal collection)

The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way by Ethan Coen (exchanged)

Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume 1 by Blanche Wiesen Cook

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt (personal collection)

The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks (personal collection)

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins (personal collection)

Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger

Fire From the Mountain by Omar Cabezas

Flet: A Novel by Joyelle McSweeney

Forget Foucault by Jean Baudrillard (exchanged)

Fragments for a History of the Human Body edited by Michel Feher, Ramona Naddaff, and Nadia Tazi

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis by Sigmund Freud (personal collection)

Genome by Matt Ridley (personal collection, exchanged)

George Bush, Dark Prince of Love by Lydia Millet

Goethe's Faust by Goethe

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth

The Great Unraveling by Paul Krugman

Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw

His Father's Son: The Life of Randolph Churchill by Winston S. Churchill

The Holy Bible placed by the Gideons

Holy Smoke by G. Cabrera Infante

Human Remains by Helen MacDonald

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

I Could Do Anything by Barbara Sher (exchanged)

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

Interstate by Stephen Dixon

Introducing American Politics by Patrick Brogan and Chris Garrett

Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas (personal collection)

The Long Green by William Campbell Gault

Me So Far by Donald Jack

Meta-Capitalism by Grady Means and David Schneider

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

The Misunderstood Jew by Amy-Jill Levine

Molvania by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, and Rob Sitch

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (exchanged)

Must-Win Battles by Peter Killing, Thomas Malnight, and Tracey Keys

Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau

Neuromancer by William Gibson (personal collection, exchanged)

The Nobility of Failure by Ivan Morris

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (personal collection)

Nude in Tub by G.K. Wuori

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

On the Road with Michael by Mark Bego

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Outwitting Dogs by Terry Ryan and Kirsten Mortensen

To Paint Her Life by Mary Lowenthal Felstiner (personal collection)

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton (personal collection)

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

The Passionate Observer by Jean -Henri Fabre

A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin

Perfect Weight America by Jordan Rubin

A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown

The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux

The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost

Poker Nation by Andy Bellin

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Quantum Computer Science: An Introduction by N. David Mermin

Rachel's Tears by Beth Nimmo and Darrell Scott

The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

S: A Novel About the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic

Sahara by Clive Cussler

The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies

The Shape of a Pocket by John Berger

Slowness by Milan Kundera (personal collection)

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (personal collection, exchanged)

Stupid White Men by Michael Moore

S/Z by Roland Barthes

Tao Te Ching translated by Victor H. Mair (personal collection)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (personal collection)

The Tibetan Book of the Dead translated by Robert A.F. Thurman (personal collection, exchanged)

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis

Ulysses by James Joyce

Understanding China by John Bryan Starr (personal collection)

Unequal Treatment by Institute of Medicine

The Vintage Book of Amnesia edited by Jonathan Lethem (personal collection)

The Voyage of the Narwhat by Andrea Barrett

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Way of a Pilgrim translated by R.M. French (personal collection)

Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

The Way of Zen by Alan Watts (personal collection)

We've Got Spirit by James T. McElroy

What Did I Just Say !?! by Denis Donovan, M.D., M.Ed. and Deborah McIntyre, M.A., R.N.

What is a Jew? by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer

Wooden Fish Songs by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

XXXXX by Dana Buckley (exchanged)

Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence G. Boldt

Notes:

-personal collection denotes books from my continually growing collection of unread books
-exchanged denotes books that have left the collection through a trade

Future Shock

How did you come to acquire this book?

Either I bought it at a garage sale or thrift store, probably the latter and about fifteen years ago. I think the title struck me and the picture of the author on the back. It was so nostalgic.

Why has this book remained unread?

I put it on the shelf with many othesr that had already been waiting their turn. Time passed and I finally tried to sit down with it on a couple occasions. I started and stopped. I think the title says it. When I tried reading it I would thing about the generations before and the always distorted perception of the future and what it's going to be like . The book still interests me and maybe I'll read it someday.

S.P. 10/08

The Salterton Trilogy

How did you come to acquire this book?

I bought this book at the used bookstore.

Why has this book remained unread?

I liked this author a long time ago, but I did not remember reading this one. I guess my tastes have changed and I could not get into it. I am not sure if I am getting lazy in my old age.

M.S. 10/08

Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About

How did you come to acquire this book?

Was a gift

Why has this book remained unread?

Strongly put off by the premise of them versus you

A.F. 10/08

His Father's Son: The Life of Randolph Churchill

How did you come to acquire this book?

Accidentally, possibly as a bad joke, via Amazon...

Why has this book remained unread?

It's about Churchill's son, not Winston Churchill!

G.I. 9/08