Rudimentary reading list attempt.
In recent years I've become a poor reader. I read avariciously as a child and through my studies, but while I still *think* of myself as a reader, in fact it feels like a notable event if I ever finish a book these days.
I was going to set my self to read a book a week through 2009, but in the light of my count this year (I haven't been keeping track but my hunch is it's probably not half a dozen), that seems a bit of a leap and particularly in light of the fact I have a number of other, possibly over ambitious plans for the year ahead. So I thought I'd try for 26 instead of 52. It's also to do with the fact I have huge numbers of books in my room I haven't even opened, and they're there for a reason.
I'm about to turn in for the night but wondered how far into a list of 26 if I tried to make a list of things I want to read just from what's around me. Here goes. This is my prototype reading list for 2009, it may be refined before New Year's Eve. I'm allowed to read other things too as long as I'm on track to get through the lot for the end of the year. I'll outline the reasons for them when I come to actually read them.
1. Nobel Lectures - 20 Years of the Nobel Prize for Literature Lectures
2. John Platts-Mills: Muck, Silk and Socialism - Recollections of a Left-wing Queen's Counsel
3. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
4. Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree
5. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
4. Patrick Suskind: Perfume (I appear to be so keen to read this I've actually acquired 2 copies of it)
5. Tom McCarthy: Remainder (need to get this one)
6. Paul de Filippo: The Steampunk Trilogy
7. Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
8. Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum
9. Mark Z Danielewski: Only Revolutions
10. Donna Tart: The Little Friend
11. John Fowles: The Magus
12. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
13. Alas Poor Darwin - Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology
15. Georgette Heyer - Powder and Patch
16. Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
17. Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
18. Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
19. Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
20. R.D. Blackmore - Lorna Doone
21. Gustav Flaubert - Madame Bovary
22. William Gibson - Neuromancer
23. John Fowles - The Magus
24. Eoin McNamee - The Blue Tango
25. Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
26. Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
I also really want to read Christopher Booker's "The Seven Basic Plots", but it's an enormous book so I keep putting off opening it. However, I could keep doing that for the rest of my life. And I'd prefer to have read it sooner than later. If I read 15 pages a week I can get through it before the end of the year - so that's also resolved.
Your thoughts/comments welcomed. Some books on the list may be subject to change. I realise, because I work in a library, that this will seem to some of you like a huge, even impossible number - and that others will find it scoffable that I'm even setting it as a goal because it looks like your normal reading list for a week, never mind a year... am I right?
I was going to set my self to read a book a week through 2009, but in the light of my count this year (I haven't been keeping track but my hunch is it's probably not half a dozen), that seems a bit of a leap and particularly in light of the fact I have a number of other, possibly over ambitious plans for the year ahead. So I thought I'd try for 26 instead of 52. It's also to do with the fact I have huge numbers of books in my room I haven't even opened, and they're there for a reason.
I'm about to turn in for the night but wondered how far into a list of 26 if I tried to make a list of things I want to read just from what's around me. Here goes. This is my prototype reading list for 2009, it may be refined before New Year's Eve. I'm allowed to read other things too as long as I'm on track to get through the lot for the end of the year. I'll outline the reasons for them when I come to actually read them.
1. Nobel Lectures - 20 Years of the Nobel Prize for Literature Lectures
2. John Platts-Mills: Muck, Silk and Socialism - Recollections of a Left-wing Queen's Counsel
3. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
4. Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree
5. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
4. Patrick Suskind: Perfume (I appear to be so keen to read this I've actually acquired 2 copies of it)
5. Tom McCarthy: Remainder (need to get this one)
6. Paul de Filippo: The Steampunk Trilogy
7. Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
8. Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum
9. Mark Z Danielewski: Only Revolutions
10. Donna Tart: The Little Friend
11. John Fowles: The Magus
12. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
13. Alas Poor Darwin - Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology
15. Georgette Heyer - Powder and Patch
16. Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
17. Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
18. Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
19. Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses
20. R.D. Blackmore - Lorna Doone
21. Gustav Flaubert - Madame Bovary
22. William Gibson - Neuromancer
23. John Fowles - The Magus
24. Eoin McNamee - The Blue Tango
25. Primo Levi - The Periodic Table
26. Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
I also really want to read Christopher Booker's "The Seven Basic Plots", but it's an enormous book so I keep putting off opening it. However, I could keep doing that for the rest of my life. And I'd prefer to have read it sooner than later. If I read 15 pages a week I can get through it before the end of the year - so that's also resolved.
Your thoughts/comments welcomed. Some books on the list may be subject to change. I realise, because I work in a library, that this will seem to some of you like a huge, even impossible number - and that others will find it scoffable that I'm even setting it as a goal because it looks like your normal reading list for a week, never mind a year... am I right?