This is something fun that dorks who like reading do. It's officially hosted by Pajiba but I'm unofficially tagging along. I encourage your participation, but mostly am appealing for your recommendations.
The challenge is to read 52 books in 52 weeks (Nov 1, 2009 to Oct 31, 2010). This is my list in kind-of genre order, and note that it as of yet does not equal 52. Some I need to read for general literature purposes (ie. um, Dickens) and some I'm just super-curious about (can't. wait. for Palin's memoirs).
Notice that in terms of contemporary literature, I'm clueless. Unless Oprah recommended it. In which case, yes it is on my bookshelf already so no don't suggest it.
Anyway. Please share your favorite/most interesting/haven't-read-it-yet-so-Anne-can-read-it-for-me books! And also please read with me!
- Dickens, Bleak House
- Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
- Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
- Kafka, Metamorphosis
- Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
- Tolstoy, War and Peace
- Patterson, Cross Country
- Homer, The Iliad
- Beck, Arguing with Idiots
- Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life
- Eliot, Middlemarch
- Austen, Emma
- Austen, Northanger Abbey
- Joyce, Ulysses
- Pullman, His Dark Materials Omnibus
- Barrie, Peter Pan (yes, my favorite movie of all time; nope, never read it)
- Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
- Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms
- Hughes, Birthday Letters
- Steinhardt, Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony
- Wallace, Infinite Jest
- Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
- Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover
- Voltaire, Candide (en français, bien sûr)
- Darwin, The Origin of Species
- Marx, Communist Manifesto
- Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
- Einstein, Relativity
- James, The Bostonians
- Strachey, Eminent Victorians
- Woolf, The Waves
- Woolf, The Years
- Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction
- Woolf, Night and Day
- Woolf, Three Guineas
Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
ReplyDeletePlato, Republic
Descartes, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Card, Ender's Game
Steinbeck, Travels With Charley
Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Wilson, The Diversity of Life
Hornby, High Fidelity
I tried to get a good mix of genres... These are some of my favorite books of all time.
Also, I vote that "Our Mutual Friend" is the last book you read... in honor of Des.
ReplyDeleteErik Larson- The Devil in the White City
ReplyDeleteMartin Page- How I Became Stupid
Wilde- Picture of Dorian Gray (just in case you haven't already read it)
And I'm surprised you like Woolf so much. I read "A Room of One's Own" and never wanted to open another book of hers, maybe I did not read the right one, let me know if I should venture another try.
Good luck!
John Steinbeck-- East of Eden
ReplyDeleteJohn Steinbeck-- Cannery Row
Alice Munro-- The Moons of Jupiter (short stories)
Alice Munro-- Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage (short stories)
Richard Russo-- Empire Falls
Joan Didion-- Play It As It Lays
Jeffrey Eugenides-- The Virgin Suicides
Ian McEwan-- Enduring Love
Andy Warhol-- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again)
All of these books have had a profound effect on my life. I hope you find them equally as interesting and inspiring. xx P
Thanks so much, you guys! I'm adding the ones I haven't read and will keep you posted :) I appreciate your suggestions!
ReplyDeleteDoes a collection of short stories count? If so, F. Scott Fitzgerald has some amazing ones. http://www.amazon.com/Short-Stories-Scott-Fitzgerald-Collection/dp/068480445X#noop
ReplyDeletewith a particular emphasis on "the diamond as big as the ritz" and "winter dreams" should suit you just fine.
I also have to put in a plug for "Tender is the Night" by Fitzgerald.
If some of these are to "fill in the gaps" of your canon (believe me, that's allll next summer for me), might I suggest a couple of replacements for things on your list?
ReplyDeleteI would toss Austen's "Northanger Abbey" for "Persuasion" or "Mansfield Park" ("MP" is a chore to get through, but important, and likewise, if you haven't read "Sense and Sensibility" or "P&P" those would be good subs, too. "NA" though is pretty juvenile--funny, but not much of an Austen novel.)
Ted Hughes' "Birthday Letters" is great for the Plath connection, but keep in mind that it's not very representative of him as a poet. So if you're reading it to go further into Plath, good--if you want Hughes on his own, perhaps try "The Hawk in Rain" (his first) or "Crow."
Perhaps put a Faulkner novel in place of one of the Hemingways? I just read "Light in August" and absolutely loved it (so much so that it's one of the books I'm doing in my biggest, most important-est paper). I've also heard "Absalom, Absalom" is stunning.
Some things that I just love and think you might get into:
Angela Carter, "Wise Children" or "Nights at the Circus" or "The Bloody Chamber" (have you ever read her? I can't recall.)
Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace" or "Cat's Eye" (any Atwood is good, but these two are my faves along with "Handmaid's Tale")
Jeanette Winterson, "The Passion"
Evelyn Waugh, "Brideshead Revisited"
A.S. Byatt, "Elementals" or "Possession"
Toni Morrison, (all of it but particularly) "Sula" "Beloved" "A Mercy" and "The Bluest Eye"
Flannery O' Connon, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
Also, here's a list of books that I feel like I'm going to have to read very soon in order to keep up with everyone else:
Foucault (everything, but particularly "History of Sexuality"--which I have read and is actually quite interesting--and "Discipline and Punish")
Proust (if I hear his name one more time in class, I'm going to scream, but I did pick up "Swann's Way"--the first volume of "In Search of Lost Time"--the other day)
Melville, "Moby Dick"
Flaubert, "A Sentimental Education"
Goethe, "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and "Wilhelm Meister"
Then, for contemporary shit (which is me, but perhaps helpful for you too): Pynchon, Delillo, Roth, J.M. Coetzee, Cormac McCarthy (funny how everyone I talk to about 20th century lit really only talks about the big 'boy's club'--frustrating).
Best of luck--I think I'll be making a list myself, soon.
Oopsies, that was supposed to say "Flannery O' Connor," hehe, toot.
ReplyDelete