Waste of time really
Because I'm secretly totally OCD, I've kept a list of every book I've read since late 2002 (I actually started the list in early 04, but was able to reconstruct from memory that far back).
I've read 228 books in those almost eight years. Today I went through them and picked out the ones that have, I feel, hit me on a very deep level. These aren't just the books I enjoyed and admired. These are the books that have changed me in some way or other --- that rare kind of book where it feels like it lives on inside you for years after you've read it.
Emily Bronte wrote "I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind." These books are like that, is what I mean.
I've read other things (say, the Cyborg Manifesto) which come into this category, but photocopied essays or chapters in isolation are not on my list of "books I've read," so I guess I will either have to come back and tinker or admit that there's at least one basic structural flaw in my exercise.
I've grouped them by year because, well, I can. And because a bunch of little lists is easier to read and less intimidating than a big monolithic list.
2009
Ethics - Alain Badiou
The Unicorn - Iris Murdoch
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
2008
The Thin Place - Kathryn Davis
The Heather Blazing - Colm Toibin
Alligator - Lisa Moore
A Very Easy Death - Simone de Beauvoir
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Metamorphosis and other stories - Franz Kafka
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
2007
Cloud of Bone - Bernice Morgan
England, England - Julian Barnes
The Time Machine - H. G. Wells (an adult re-read of a childhood favourite)
The Whirlpool - Jane Urquhart
The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
The Giver - Lowis Lowry
Middlemarch - George Elliot
2006
The 13 Clocks - James Thurber (an adult re-read of a childhood favourite)
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
2005
A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Away - Jane Urquhart
Not Wanted on the Voyage - Timothy Findley
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Howards End - E. M. Forster
2004
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
The Wars - Timothy Findley
2003
The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
2002
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Some stats:
The gender balance is almost even. 20 of the books were written by females, 19 by males.
In terms of national literatures, I've got 13 UK, 11 Canadian (2 Newfoundland), 10 American, 2 French, 1 Irish, 1 Czech, 1 Colombian.
In terms of temporal era, we've 18 later twentieth century, 11 nineteenth century, 8 contemporary / twenty-first century, and 2 earlier twentieth century (my dislike of the modernist novel continues apace).
Trends I've noticed: Contemporary and American are categories on the rise; Nineteenth Century British Literature used to be a big thing for me but has largely fallen away.
I've read 228 books in those almost eight years. Today I went through them and picked out the ones that have, I feel, hit me on a very deep level. These aren't just the books I enjoyed and admired. These are the books that have changed me in some way or other --- that rare kind of book where it feels like it lives on inside you for years after you've read it.
Emily Bronte wrote "I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind." These books are like that, is what I mean.
I've read other things (say, the Cyborg Manifesto) which come into this category, but photocopied essays or chapters in isolation are not on my list of "books I've read," so I guess I will either have to come back and tinker or admit that there's at least one basic structural flaw in my exercise.
I've grouped them by year because, well, I can. And because a bunch of little lists is easier to read and less intimidating than a big monolithic list.
2009
Ethics - Alain Badiou
The Unicorn - Iris Murdoch
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell
2008
The Thin Place - Kathryn Davis
The Heather Blazing - Colm Toibin
Alligator - Lisa Moore
A Very Easy Death - Simone de Beauvoir
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Metamorphosis and other stories - Franz Kafka
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
2007
Cloud of Bone - Bernice Morgan
England, England - Julian Barnes
The Time Machine - H. G. Wells (an adult re-read of a childhood favourite)
The Whirlpool - Jane Urquhart
The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
The Giver - Lowis Lowry
Middlemarch - George Elliot
2006
The 13 Clocks - James Thurber (an adult re-read of a childhood favourite)
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
2005
A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Away - Jane Urquhart
Not Wanted on the Voyage - Timothy Findley
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
Howards End - E. M. Forster
2004
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
The Wars - Timothy Findley
2003
The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
2002
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Some stats:
The gender balance is almost even. 20 of the books were written by females, 19 by males.
In terms of national literatures, I've got 13 UK, 11 Canadian (2 Newfoundland), 10 American, 2 French, 1 Irish, 1 Czech, 1 Colombian.
In terms of temporal era, we've 18 later twentieth century, 11 nineteenth century, 8 contemporary / twenty-first century, and 2 earlier twentieth century (my dislike of the modernist novel continues apace).
Trends I've noticed: Contemporary and American are categories on the rise; Nineteenth Century British Literature used to be a big thing for me but has largely fallen away.