From moonrat’s blog (borrowed from Andromeda Romano-Lax) comes a reading challenge. This could fit in with my toppling TBR pile (over 60 books deep).
The challenge is to choose 100 books that you would like to read in the next five years–a selection of both classics and books you think you should have read or would like to read. The thinking being that we tend to gravitate toward books that are delightful/easy to read. The idea is to fill in gaps in our reading with classics and contemporary novels that we think we should read.
Too make it a little less daunting, she gave herself five years to complete the task with a 5% margin of error. I guess that could mean either fewer than 100 books read or longer than 5 years. Whichever works? 75 books in five years? That is only 10 more than are already on my TBR pile. Easy. Ha!
If I start now, five years is April 2014 (ooh, doesn’t that sound scary–won’t we have the zombie apocalypse by then?)
So I’ll make a list of more books to read rather than packing for my trip to Argentina.
Here is the list of books. Criteria for choosing? Mostly books I hear about and think omg, I should have (can’t believe I’ve never) read that. Bonus–some of these books are already on my current TBR pile. I’ll cross off books as I complete them.
1. Alighieri, Dante: The Divine Comedy
2. Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
3. Asimov, Isaac: I, Robot
4. Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale
5. Bank, Melissa: The Wonder Spot
6. Bernieres, Louis: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
7. Byatt, A.S.: Possession
8. Camus, Albert: The Stranger
9. Capote, Truman: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
10. Capote, Truman: In Cold Blood
11. Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There
12. Cervantes, Miguel D: Don Quixote
13. Chabon, Michael: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
14. Chandler, Raymond: The Big Sleep
15. Clarke, Arthur C.: 2001: A Space Odyssey
16. Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
17. Diamant, Anita: The Red Tent
18. Dick, Phillip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
19. Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities
20. Doctorow, Cory: Little Brother
21. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime & Punishment
22. Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers
23. Edwards, Kim: The Memory Keepers Daughter
24. Ellroy, James: The Black Dahlia
25. Esquivel, Laura: Like Water for Chocolate
26. Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
27. Faulkner, William: The Sound and the Fury
28. Fitzgerald , F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
29. Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary
30. Ford, Jamie: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
31. Forster, E.M.: A Passage to India
32. Fowles, John: The French Lieutenant’s Woman
33. Gruen, Sara: Water for Elephants
34. Hammett, Dashiell: The Thin Man
35. Hardy, Thomas: Far From the Madding Crowd
36. Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The House of the Seven Gables
37. Heller, Joseph: Catch 22
38. Hemmingway, Ernest: A Farewell to Arms
39. Hemmingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls
40. Hill, Lawrence: The Book of Negros
41. Høeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
42. Homer: The Odyssey
43. Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
44. Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
45. Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World
46. Irving, John: A Prayer for Owen Meany
47. Irving, John: The World According to Garp
48. Ishiguro, Kazuo: Remains of the Day
49. James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady
50. Joyce, James: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
51. Joyce, James: Ulysses
52. Kerouac, Jack: On the Road
53. Keyes, Daniel: Flowers for Algernon
54. Kingsolver, Barbara: The Poisonwood Bible
55. Kundera, Milan: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
56. Lawrence, D.H.: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
57. Lawrence, D.H.: Women in Love
58. Lindqvist, John A: Let the Right One In
59. Lynch, Scott: The Lies of Locke Lamora
60. MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Fall On Your Knees
61. Marquez, Gabriel Garcia: Love in the Time of Cholera
62. Matheson, Richard: I Am Legend
63. McEwan, Ian: Atonement
64. Miller, Laura: Haunting of Hill House
65. Morrison, Toni: Beloved
66. Morrison, Toni: The Bluest Eye
67. Nemirovsky, Irene: Suite Francaise
68. Ondaatje, Michael: The English Patient
69. Pasternak , Boris: Dr. Zhivago
70. Paton, Alan: Cry, the Beloved Country
71. Puzo, Mario: The Godfather
72. Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged
73. Rothfuss, Patrick: The Name of the Wind
74. Rushdie, Salman: Satanic Verses
75. Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
76. Scott, Sir Walter: Ivanhoe
77. Sebold, Alice: Lovely Bones
78. Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy
79. Setterfield, Diane: The Thirteenth Tale
80. Shields, Carol: The Stone Diaries
81. Shields, Carol: Unless
82. Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein (may have read it when young, but can’t remember) Definitely didn’t read this when younger. Did watch too many B grade horror movies, though.
83. Shillinglaw, Susa: The Winter of Our Discontent
84. Smith, Betty: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
85. Spark, Muriel: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
86. Steinbeck, John: Grapes of Wrath (I can’t believe I put this on my list)
87. Thackeray, William Makepeace: Vanity Fair
88. Tolstoy, Leo: Anna Kerenina
89. Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace
90. Verne, Jules: A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
91. Vonnegut Jr., Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five
92. Walker, Alice: The Temple of My Familiar
93. Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man
94. Wells, H.G.: The Island of Dr. Moreau
95. Welsh, Irvine: Trainspotting
96. Wharton, Edith: The Age of Innocence
97. Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
98. Wolfe, Tom: The Bonfire of the Vanities
99. Woolf, Virginia: Night and Day
100. Wroblewski, David: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
101. Leroux, Gaston: Phantom of the Opera I can’t believe I didn’t put this on my original list.
102. Wells, H.G.: The Time Machine
103. Becket, Samuel: Waiting for Godot
Great list. And the concept is exactly what any reader should do. Read some that are simply for enjoyment or entertainment, but also read some that will take you places and teach you things that you never forget.
I haven’t ready your whole list, but of the ones I have, my highest recommendation goes to In Cold Blood. I read this fastest than any other book in my life and remember it vividly even 20 years later.
Good luck with Ulysses and War & Peace, and thanks for the reminder on Grapes of Wrath. I have a box set of Steinbeck that I bought at the Steinbeck museum in Salinas CA, but it’s the thickest one of the set so I’ve been putting it off.
By: rtfoleystl on October 27, 2009
at 8:47 am
I purchased In Cold Blood in Argentina this year (in Spanish), but haven’t started it yet. Right now I’m reading Anna Karenina and enjoying it very much. I’ve read most of the British Classics and a few Russian. Compiling this list made me realize how few American authors I’ve read.
By: victanguera on October 29, 2009
at 9:36 am
I have decided to do this. Five years means I have until July 23, 2015. Yeesh.
I’m pretty much stealing your list. I’ll change a couple of the titles, but…yeah.
Wish me luck!
By: someonetookmyusername on July 23, 2010
at 5:50 am
You can do it. Now me, I’m so far behind… might have to hit the reset button and start over. :}
By: victanguera on July 23, 2010
at 8:18 am
interesting list…certainly a lot i have considered…maybe this is the push i need
By: compostingalife on September 2, 2010
at 9:43 am
It does take a push to read certain books. Hope the list helps.
By: victanguera on September 4, 2010
at 1:42 pm
[...] 100 Books in Five Years [...]
100 Books in Five Years [...]..." permalink="http://writeidea.wordpress.com/about/#comment-409"]By: 2010 in review « I Had the Write Idea on January 2, 2011
at 10:35 pm
the Hemingway stuff is good as well as “Capote, Truman: Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” While more a novella that an novel, “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway is also quite good.
By: Richard Allen on March 4, 2011
at 10:01 am
Ah, maybe I’ll read Breakfast at Tiffany’s next. I just finished one book on the list and needed to pick another.
By: victanguera on March 4, 2011
at 10:06 am
Nice idea! and a great list!
Of the 14 titles on your list which i’ve read,
16. Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
19. Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities
28. Fitzgerald , F. Scott: The Great Gatsby
41. Høeg, Peter: Smilla’s Sense of Snow
45. Huxley, Aldous: Brave New World
46. Irving, John: A Prayer for Owen Meany
52. Lindqvist, John A: Let the Right One In
56. Joyce, James: Ulysses
62. Matheson, Richard: I Am Legend
75. Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye
82. Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
91. Vonnegut Jr., Kurt: Slaughterhouse Five
97. Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
102. Wells, H.G.: The Time Machine
I think my favourite is “A Prayer for Owen Meany”.
And while I’m not sure what titles i would come up with, one of my all time favourite books is “In the Heart of the Sea” by Nathaniel Philbrick.
By: Klaus on March 7, 2011
at 1:54 pm
I hadn’t heard of In the Heart of the Sea, so read up on the book. It sounds like a great story. Will have to add that one to my list as well. Thanks.
By: victanguera on March 8, 2011
at 9:49 am
Slaughter House Five is an easy read. I have read a lot of the books on your list and this ones great as well as entertaining. I need to read catcher in the rye.I would also recommend Cider House Rules and 100 years of solitude. A personal opinion, if a books claim to fame is it’s size skip IT. I mean, Tolstoy does good with French politics and society, but who cares, the book is a literal metaphor for to long unless there is a like or as then it’s a simile. Tolstoy went on to found his own religion with himself towards the top of the hierarchy.
By: bravebluealpha on March 18, 2011
at 7:36 pm
One Hundred Years of Solitude is also one of my favourite books. It isn’t on my list as I’ve already read it (twice). And yeah, Tolstoy turned out to not be a favourite. Anna Karenina veers away from the real story too much.
By: victanguera on March 22, 2011
at 8:46 am