August started with every ambition of continuing July’s espresso-fueled summer of writing and reading. A trip to The Roasterie here in Kensington furnished me with some delicious coffee beans and visions of spending hours outside with a few books that have languished on my shelves for far too long (most notably The English Patient and The Luminaries).

I feel particularly bad about The English Patient, given that I met Michael Ondaatje while he was on his book tour for The English Patient, even before his Booker nomination. I had wanted to read the book then, but as a poor student, could not afford a copy and in the intervening years, there are always seemed more pressing books to read. So, to be clear, The English Patient has sat on my TBR for over twenty-five years.

What book sat the longest on your TBR?