Read 100 classic novels

Ima dun.

100 books, 2 years, 38632 pages.

WORTH IT, oh so worth it.

Number of books by author:
Saul Bellow (4)
William Faulkner (4)
James Joyce (4)
Graham Greene (3)
John Steinbeck (3)
Evelyn Waugh (3)
Willa Cather (2)
Joseph Conrad (2)
Theodore Dreiser (2)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2)
D.H. Lawrence (2)
Vladimir Nabokov (2)
V.S. Naipaul (2)
Philip Roth (2)
Virginia Woolf (2)

Most Enjoyable:
Something Wicked This Way Comes- by Ray Bradbury
(I felt like a kid again reading this!)

Least Liked:
Lolita
(absolutely hated the subject matter and find it very difficult to be objective about this book)

Most Difficult:
Finnegans Wake- by James Joyce
(I had to buy a reader’s guide to finish this—and I can’t say I understood most/any of it, but I feel the greatest sense of accomplishment with this one.)

I haven’t quite finished ‘Death’ yet, but the card came from the library that ‘Recognitions’ was in and so I scurried over to pick that up asap.

The last book I have to read, by the end of this month if I want to have read the list in just two years, only has a 2-week loan period and that gawdamn thing is nearly 1,000 pages long.

Better go purchase some eye drops and coffee…

ya know that antsy feeling you got as a kid, the night before christmas? Well I’ve got that feeling now, but it’s because I am just two books away from completing this list! This week I read Wise Blood– by Flannery O’connor and Ragtime- by E.L. Doctorow; and will most likely finish The Death Of The Heart-by Elizabeth Bowen sometime tomorrow afternoon. That just leaves The Recognitions- by William Gaddis.

Squee!

okay, I just purchased three of the last four titles from ebay and my library reserved copy of The Recognitions, by William Gaddis, is finally on its way.

It’s gonna be so weird not having that huge reading list to work from anymore.

I’ve now read these four—

Blood Meridian- by Cormac Mccarthy
Appointment In Samarra- by John O’hara
Log From The Sea Of Cortez, The – by John Steinbeck
Under The Net- by Iris Murdoch

and now I have just four more and I will (finally) have finished this list. It’s still a little weird to think that nearly two years have passed so quickly!

I have 3 of the 8 titles on Reserve with the library, still, since August 26. Does this mean it’s a good read and so the list was long, or that they are difficult reads and you need more than two months to get thru them?

Since I made a sale on ebay I considered that “free money” and used it to purchase another 3 of the remaining titles. Figure I can turn around and re-sell them…

only 8 titles left and I’ll have completed THE LIST. While on hiatus I managed to consume the following:

Portnoy’s Complaint- by Philip Roth
A Dance To The Music Of Time #8- by Anthony Powell
Loving – by Henry Green
Moviegoer, The – by Walker Percy
Red Harvest- by Dashiell Hammett
A House For Mr Biswas- by V.S. Naipaul
Tropic Of Cancer- by Henry Miller
Pale Fire- by Vladimir Nabokov

*updated: The Soldier’s Art was in at the library, so that’s the chosen one :<)

On my list is “A Dance To The Music Of Time” by Anthony Powell—but I’ve just discovered that this is a TWELVE PART series and I don’t know which I should choose. I suppose it makes sense to start with the first, in case I like it and want to read the others… unless someone in 43Thingsland can recommend a particular volume?

A Question of Upbringing – (1951)
A Buyer’s Market – (1952),
The Acceptance World – (1955)
At Lady Molly’s – (1957)
Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant – (1960)
The Kindly Ones – (1962)
The Valley of Bones – (1964)
The Soldier’s Art – (1966)
The Military Philosophers – (1968)
Books Do Furnish a Room – (1971)
Temporary Kings – (1973)
Hearing Secret Harmonies – (1975)

Another 3, but at this rate it’ll be a mightly close race to finish this by year’s end.

Native Son- by Richard Wright
I, Claudius- by Robert Graves
Magus, The – by John Fowles

Three more:

Brothers Karamazov, The – by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky [fun read]
Day Of The Locust, The – by Nathanael West [awesome!]
Faust- by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

And now just nineteen books to go.