A producer explains how working on the Lopate Show makes managing her reading list pleasantly complicated.

One part of working on the Leonard Lopate Show is being surrounded by books. It’s great in many ways, but it can also be overwhelming because so many of them sound interesting and there’s only so much time I can spend reading. I can only speak for myself, but there are some great (or so I’m told) books that have sat on my reading list for years, even as more recent books get added to the list.

Earlier in the fall, as part of our commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the September 11^th attacks, Leonard spoke to Joseph O’Neill, Julia Glass and Colum McCann about 9/11 fiction. I had read Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland a couple of years ago, but McCann’s Let the Great World Spin had been on my reading list for well over a year, after hearing him discuss it on the show and then having it recommended to me by friends and relatives several times since.

The segment in September was one of my personal favorites from our tenth anniversary coverage and it catapulted McCann’s novel to the top of my list. I read it about 2 weeks ago, and I now see why so many people had recommended it to me. Now, if I can only tackle Middlemarch…

What book has been on your reading list for years? What book have you been wanting to read, but somehow have never picked up? Tell us in the comments section below!