I imagine normal people buy one book at a time, read it, and then shelve it before buying another.

Not me.

My book collection is like Galadriel’s mirror in The Lord of the Rings. It contains “things that were, things that are, and some things that have not yet come to pass.”

I have library shelves filled with finished books (“things that were”).

I have too many books going at the same time (“things that are”).

And then I have way too many books waiting for me (“things that have not yet come to pass”).

Can you identify? If so, should we form a club or something? It’d be like a 12-Step meeting. We’d greet each other with, “Hi, I’m Tom, and I’m a bookaholic.”

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My three stacks contain a lot of nonfiction books that help me in my pastoral work. Most of my fiction books fire me up for my own fiction writing.

Now that my debut novel is out, I’m working on my second. I appreciate authors who’ve tactfully handled the issues of infertility, miscarriage, and children with special needs, since that’s what my main character must deal with. I also want to read writers who help me with my setting: the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially but not exclusively in Texas.

Do you have any recommendations for this kind of fiction?

I just finished a wonderful (sad) book by M. L. Stedman called The Light Between Oceans. Though it’s set in 1920s Australia and not Texas, it fired up some ideas for how to tell my story. Also helpful: Paulette Jiles, Leif Enger, Lisa Wingate, Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Strout, Cormac McCarthy, and James Wade. (Two-time Spur Award winner, James Wade, was kind enough to write an endorsement for my debut novel.)

So, what do you think? Is your collection like Galadriel’s mirror, too? Do you keep stacks of what you’ve read, what you’re now reading, and what you hope to eventually get to? And whose book(s) should I add to my “things that that have not yet come to pass” stack?

Thomas (Tom) Goodman’s debut novel is closely based on a true crime from 1920s Texas history. It’s called The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery. Tom’s next novel is about a character who appears late in his debut novel—a woman in her seventies named Vivy. In the new novel, Vivy is in her 30s in nineteenth-century Texas. To learn more about Tom visit his BRRC author profile page.