Top Ten Things on my Bookish Bucket List

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s topic is Top Ten Things on my Bookish Bucket List. 


I have managed to tick “Join a non-virtual book club”, “attend a book reading”, “join a library” and “read an entire book in the library in one sitting” off my list in the last couple of years. 


Here are the rest of the things in no particular order.
1. Read books from at least 30 countries. Ever since I started this blog, I have read more world literature, translated and books originally published in English as well. But it’s not enough, yet! Reading more South Asian fiction comes under this.
2. Read at least 20 books in Marathi (my mother tongue.) And more books in German (because I really need to improve it.)
3. Attend a bookish event, like a book fair or convention. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet got around to being part of a book event, some annoying exam or assignment mysteriously appears whenever there’s one I can. I’d love to rectify that. Sure, there’s the whole idea of meeting authors, and I would love to, but somehow I just think I’ll either faint with delight or find it very difficult to get coherent words out of my mouth, like a blubbering idiot. So, I’d rather just attend events and speeches and watch them from a safe distance!
4. Read every book by: Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, A. S. Byatt. It’s not really fair to call them your favourite authors when you haven’t done that, is it?
5. Work in a bookstore or a library. God, I would love that. Although they might end up firing me for paying more attention to the books that the customers. I would also love to work for a literary agency, or a publishing house.
6. Finish all the books I’ve ever started reading. I don’t usually claim “DNF” quite as soon as I put a book away halfway done. See, I put them ‘on hold’. I read first hundred pages of The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling, put it aside for an entire year, only to return and finish it in one sitting. I love the book, and I swear, I hadn’t abandoned it. So, I want to finish my “on hold” books starting with Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak..
7. Visit places from books. This list is never-ending. It includes places inspired from books (like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter) and books inspired by places (like The Stanley Hotel, which is the one The Overlook from The Shining is based on.) I would love to go on a bookish tour, visit every place I’ve ever read about and re-read it while I’m there!
8. Translate a book. Writing my own book isn’t really ‘bookish’ and it’s more a given, rather than a goal. It’d be on my ‘writing bucket list.’ But I do want to translate a book, if only for me.
9. Have my own personal library. Like an Umberto Eco-ey library, with more unread books waiting for every book I finish. Ideally it’d be a combination of The Library (without the Vashta Nerada), the Unseen Library (with the Librarian, ook!) and The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
10. Have a literary-named pet. Like a cat named Dickens, and a dog named Laska.
(Edit: Rebecca stopped by with a link to the original 50 Bookish Things bucket list, so I decided to expand my list to as many as I can
think of. You can also add your posts to the fabulous original link list, even
as they are!)
11. Visit obscure little bookshops in the world, buy one
book from each.
12. Watch all the film adaptations of every book I have read and
will. Watch the live performances of all plays I read.
13. Read every book and writer I’ve ever been recommended.
Since I don’t know many too book worms in real life, hearty recommendations are
rare and I wouldn’t want to miss out on any!
14. Buy bookish trinkets like Tiffany Aching’s horse
necklace or Luna Lovegood’s radish earrings. I’d love love those little
book-shaped lockets. I’d love to own bags and tees with my favourite quotes or
scenes from books.
15. Read an entire epic. Just the idea is intimidating, but be it a Hindu (Ramayana or Mahabharata) one or otherwise (possibly Homer) I’d love to have read an epic poem, if only to be able to openly gloat over it. “You know, when I was reading the Illiad…”
16. Sit in a café and read an entire book cover to cover.
There are so many bookstores with cafes and cafes with bookstores. Considering
how much I loved reading a book from start to end at the library, I’d like to
try this as well.
17. Read one book from every genre there is. This is aiming
high, considering there are so many cross-genres, but I’d like to attempt as
many as I can, apart from the usual fantasy-horror-historical fiction that I’m
stuck in.
18. Visit a rare book dealer. 
Now, these are all I can think of. But whenever I think of anything, I’ll be sure to add it here.
Which bookish things are you dying to do?

28 thoughts on “Top Ten Things on my Bookish Bucket List”

  3. Ooohh, #1 is really awesome! I want to attend BEA so much, though I don't live in America 😦 Visiting places from books would be really awesome, but my pockets won't ever allow me that. 🙂 Oooh, translating a book would be awesome since I know four languages, but I'm only good in english and tagalog. 🙂

    TTT: Bookish Bucket List
    Dress Up That Cover #1 – If I Stay

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  4. I definitely want to read all of Terry Pratchett's books. I think there's still four or five I haven't read. I love the idea of an Umberto Eco-type library (and Vashta Nerada also terrify me). Number 3 and number 10 are on my list too. I love any kind of author event, small or big. 🙂

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  5. Divergent Gryffindor – Hey, thanks for stopping by. I just like the idea of being the person who brings a book from another language to new readers who wouldn't have read it otherwise! I don't live in America either, so all the bookish events I could attend are pretty small scale in comparison; still wouldn't hurt! By the way, I love your blog name.

    majoringinliterature – Four or five! That's not too many at all, I have a whole stack to go through, but that's what I love about the Discworld series; with some forty books I can stretch out the reads over years so that I won't ever have to stop obsessing.

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  8. I think I, too, could go on and on with my book-ish dreams! Good luck to you with them!

    Here's my Book-ish Bucket List!

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  10. I am going to do some railway travel this summer, and pass Hogsmeade station, I believe. Not a great Harry fan myself, but will think of you there and take pictures! 🙂 (I will start the blogging up again before then.)

    As far as I´m concerned there is only book-related travel. Either you travel to book-locations you know, or you find the books related to where you´re going. Both ways are highly recommendable, I think.

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  11. I want to attend bookish events. They have quite a few where I live, I just haven't gotten the courage to go out and go to one. I'll break through and attempt it though. 🙂

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  12. I love 1, so much that I'm going to start researching books as soon as I leave this blog. I'd guess that 90% of the authors I read are American, despite me being English. I might log the country of each author I've read this year and make it into a pie chart or something at the end of the year, I think that would be fun and it people might learn a lot from it. Actually I might use my 2011 book list and do that right now, to post in a couple of weeks. Sorry for babbling on, I love getting new ideas!

    ★ Under The Mountain ★

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  13. Great list! I'm sure little by little you'll cross things off this list. I like the term "on hold" as opposed to DNF which is so final.

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  14. You have great ideas!! I would love to go on a bookish tour. I also need to finish The Casual Vacancy. I DNF'd it after less than 100 pages, so I basically need to start over on it. And I agree working in the publishing industry would be a dream job!!

    Thanks for stopping by My TTT

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  15. 10 is hilarious! I am totally in love with the idea of 7! And totally need to do number 6, I too put books "on hold". =)

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  17. I love #10! I name my kids' toys after characters. I was extra proud the day my two year old named her doll Katniss all by herself 😉

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  18. Viktoria – Wow! I'll definitely watch out for your pictures. Book travel – when I finally manage to finance my own trips, that's what I'll do. For now, I'm building a love for Indian fiction, because it's so close to home and so easy to visit and relive.

    Vickie Ramage – Glad I could be of help!

    Michelle – I can't say The Casual Vacancy is for everyone, but it is worth a do-over. I hope you do get around to finishing it.

    Nobody, honeyimreading – Doesn't "on hold" sound better? It keeps me from feeling guilty, too!

    Shannon Mizikoski – That's adorable! I'd love that for my future-kids; but pets would have to do for now. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

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  19. I love the idea of reading books from multiple countries! I might have to add that to my list myself.

    I love how this is a Top 10 Tuesday! You may also want to link up to the original Bookish Bucket List, too!

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  20. Hey Rebecca, thanks so much for stopping by! I had no idea about the original Bucket List. I'd love to participate! In fact the idea of more than ten is great, I'll edit and expand my post before linking it. 🙂

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  23. I would so love to go to The Library world, as long as I didn't see any Vashta Nerada (although I suppose not seeing them would also be a problem). So you speak Marathi, German, and English? I feel very inferior now. Stupid American education system.

    Thanks for your comment on my post. So far, I've read three of the Mary Russell novels. Books 1 and 2 were better than 3 but all are good enough that I want to continue the series. There's a ton of them. Over ten I think.

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  24. I would love to experience working in a bookstore or library too! 🙂 For me, they're some of the most beautiful places in the world 🙂 And I love the literary-named pets idea. One of my favorite authors, Gaelen Foley, has a dog named Bingley! How cute is that? 🙂

    Thanks for dropping by my TTT 🙂

    Camille @ Girl meets Books

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  25. Hey Alison, thanks for stopping by. Also Hindi!! But that is more a result of growing up in multilingual country. German is a hobby!
    I agree, them being invisible and everywhere is a problem. But for a planetful of everything ever written – I may take the risk!!
    Thanks, I didn't know there were so many. Better get re-started on the first!!

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  27. Great list! I would also love to go to a blogging event but living in South Africa makes that a little difficult! 🙂

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  28. Hey Sue – I know what you mean. I couldn't exactly attend the BEA if I wanted either, but there are small and big events here in India that I could maybe visit. 🙂

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