read 52 books in 52 weeks

i finished my MA about eight weeks ago and have snuck some personal reading into my mix of things (this list is from the last five months, NOT the last eight weeks!). It seems having an academic institution push you to read makes things go a lot faster. here goes:

*A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland by Samuel Johnson
*Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by James Boswell
*Maps by Nuruddin Farrah
*Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
*Texao by Patrick Chamoseiu
*King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
*Cuzcatlan by Manlio Argueta
*Animal Farm by George Orwell
*A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
*Saturday by Ian McEwan
*Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
*The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
*Man and Boy by Tony Parsons
*Stone Cold by Robert Swindells
*Skelling by David Almond
*Under the Tuscan Sun by France Mayes
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
*Man and Wife by Tony Parsons
*Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
*On the Way Down by Nick Hornby
*Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson
*Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
*Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood
*A Year in the Merde by Steven Clark
*The Kite Runner by Khaled Hoisenni
*Life of Pi by Yann Martel

some were better, way better, than others. i’d highly recommend Under the Tuscan Sun, A Fine Balance and Never Let Me Go. i’m thinking i should find a book club too…

i think this might total to 2ish a week? or maybe i’m wrong/crazy. but here’s what i’ve got since my last entry:

*Imaginary Maps by Mahasweta Devi
*The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
*Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
*Mrs. Ewing by Gillian Avery
*In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
*The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
*At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
*The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
*In Transit: Travel, Text, Empire by Helen Gilbert and Anna Johnston
*Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century by James Clifford
*Imperial Eyes by Mary Louise Pratt
*Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
*The Rhetoric of Empire by David Sparr
*Up the Country by Emily Eden
*Kim by Rudyard Kipling
*The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kweh Armah
*Maps of Englishness by Simon Gikandi
*An Area of Darkness by VS Naipaul
**The Man Who Walks by Alan Warner

I thought that reading for a career would be fun, and it would be. except someone else is choosing the books for me, and most of them put me to sleep. i’d sure love to get back to some “me” reading.

I do highly recommend In the Country of Men though: Matar was shortlisted for the Booker Award for this novel. Written in the eyes of an eight year old Algerian witnessing his country.

Alan Warner’s The Man Who Walks is exceptional as well. He’s a Scottish author and writes in a style crossover of Iain Banks and Irvine Welsh.

now that i’ve started my MA in Literature, i’ll probably come closer to this goal…anyway, my recently added finds:

Transgressions by Sarah Dunant
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

okay still not doing the whole 52 in 52 weeks, but i’ve got these to add:

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Franny and Zoey by JD Salinger
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks
A Disturbance in One Place by Binnie Kirshebaum
Almost by Elizabeth Benedict
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

not too shabby.

some books i’ve read this year and recommend:

Lucky by Alice Sebold
The Two Destinies by Wilkie Collins
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
In Her Shoes by Jennifer Wiener
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The English Patient by Michael Ondaajte
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Porno by Irvine Welsh

there’s no way i’m getting in a book a week, but i’m reading a lot more than i have before. must be all that free time on the subway:0)