(Untitled)

[praetorianguard]

I have so enjoyed everyone else's end-of-year book lists that I wanted to play!

Comments

[thistleingrey]

2.43. For Joyce I'd suggest Dubliners, FWIW.

2.79. I found East of Eden way more readable than Grapes in HS, and it is similarly voluminous. (Of Mice and Men is more likely The Book You Didn't Read in School, FWIW, re: casual pop-cultural allusions. Bonus: far shorter.)

I cannot fathom putting together a gap list re: time taken to do it properly, but I approve of the idea (for myself!) in terms of thinking I ought to read certain things. (I mean, on the other hand, I've already made such lists more narrowly: quals prep.)

[praetorianguard]

A-ha! I was having trouble wading through all of the works by a lot of these authors, so all recommendations very, very welcome. :)

I'm kind of avoiding Of Mice and Men because I've read pieces and seen the movie and hated both. But maybe I'll try East of Eden instead.

I really like the idea, since my high school was generally literature deficient and I took exactly one literature class (theater lit at that!) in college. So I'm vastly under-read from a general cultural standpoint.

[thistleingrey]

Ah, then perhaps not Of Mice. Steinbeck was a CA author, so I was a bit overexposed....

:) My high school's assigned readings got me a good way through the English literature GRE, since I took nothing post-1650 in college besides a required lower division survey and had to skim a LOT when preparing for the exam. But that (HS) was just luck; the school had some very good teachers.

[anamirza]

Ooh, a gap list is a good idea. (If nothing else, I've always wanted to put Cymbeline on a list.) Of course, my gap list would probably have about as much success as Emma Woodhouse's - you seem a lot more disciplined in your reading.

Actually, I've read very little of your 2010 list, so I guess I have a YA fiction gap. Hmmm. Not the direction I was planning to go in 2011 - I've been feeling very non-fiction-y at this turn of year.

Some of my favorites on your gap list: Willis, Doomsday Book; Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; Shakespeare, King Lear; Christie, Murder on the Orient Express. Less favored: I don't foresee re-reading Call of the Wild; once was enough. Ditto most all of Hemingway; The Sun Also Rises I would re-read for the perfect ending alone.

Vanity Fair, on the other hand, I've an urge to reread soon - I absolutely detested it the last time I read it but I have a feeling I'd give it a more sympathetic read just now.

Why The Girl Who Played With FIre rather than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?

[praetorianguard]

Ha. I just like lists. Despite the appearance that my house and my office would give, I really like uber-organized things like spreadsheets and lists.

Or you have a 2010 YA fiction gap. I don't know how much of that is actually worth reading, but I was cleaning my shelf of a bunch of ARCs from past ALAs and that's what came up. If you want YA recs, I'm happy to oblige. :)

Oops. I got the Larsson books confused. It's meant to be the first one. *fixes* Thanks!

*hides* So little poetry not because it's a gap, but because I can't do it. Some really accessible stuff (Angelou, Whitman) is okay, but most of it I really, really hate. So I just skipped it. Like Faulkner. (Hey, I've tried!)

[newsboyhat]

For Julia Alvarez, I've only read In the Time of the Butterflies and really enjoyed it. Bonus: it's YA!

For V.S. Naipul, I remember enjoying A Bend in the River when I was 16.

If you must read any Ayn Rand at all, read Anthem, which is the shortest. But I think you will want to throttle the narrator.

I recommend Never Let Me Go over The Remains of the Day but I liked it too. Also, I personally loved Crime and Punishment, Brave New World and Left Hand of Darkness.

[praetorianguard]

I have...something Alvarez sitting on my shelf at home. I forget what it is, but I'll probably read that, whatever it is. :)) Duel goals of closing gaps and clearing shelves. I feel like I have a Naipul as well, but I might be making that one up.

*sigh* I don't suppose I must, but I figured I should read some Ayn Rand. I do refuse to read Catcher in the Rye all the way through, though. Bleh.

Yay! Thanks for recs!

[praetorianguard]

For some reason that I can't quite figure out, Snow Crash is one (of, like, three) SF/F books to make it on best-of lit lists. Good news: If I hate it, I can send it to unsuspecting friends, since it's already sitting on my shelf.

Thanks for the non-dystopian Cormac McCarthy rec. I am sure that The Road is brilliant, but sheesh.

*grin* How exciting that I only have to read 50 pages of anything, right? I wonder how many of these I'll actually make it through.