Top 5 Plus 1 Unread Books on my Shelf

Here are the Top 5 books (plus 1) that I currently own and really, really, really want to read this year. (I have not read them yet.) A holiday book sale in December beefed up this list nicely.

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005). The author of "The Remains of the Day" takes us into a creepy boarding school where the students live to serve a privileged upper-class.
• Harbor by Lorraine Adams (2004). Fiction by a former Washington Post reporter; this debut novel tells the story of Arab immigrants in the U.S. and their response to Islamic extremism.
• The Ha-Ha by Dave King (2005). A mute veteran becomes the guardian of a young boy. King has been praised for his beautiful writing written from the perspective of a narrator who does not speak.
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000). Comic books, Harry Houdini and the Holocaust combine in a quasi-epic novel by the author of Wonder Boys and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2000). A literary novel of gender issues, personified by our first person narrator, a transsexual. I don't know much more and don't want to know because I've heard so many good things about this book.
  

Plus One:
(I've labeled this book "plus one" to keep my Top 5 motif going, and because the above books are novels and this is nonfiction.)
The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan. Isn't that the best title? In the author's own words:

The anarchist is a specter. It's a symbol of an imagined threat. There are powerful forces trying to close up our information worlds so they can control its flows and charge admission. To accomplish their goals, they raise fears about "anarchists in libraries," uncontrollable, dangerous forces threatening us from within. The library is a metaphor for our information ecosystems. I argue we should be as careful with our information ecosystems as we should be with our real ecosystems. Small changes can have huge effects.

Good reading, eh? This list also might be a sign that I should stop buying more books. Yes, I have a mild addiction to buying books -- worse than some but not as bad as others (hello Gerry!). Well, this list should take me through at least June, I'm thinking. And I've already started "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."