is a very worthy goal and one to which i aspire—but at this rate it’s going to take me 86 years to achieve, which may, i fear, be a little unrealistic.
but the good news is: i am reading again! back in The Days of The Book i could only manage to read (bits of) stuff i’d already read 60 times before (primarily bridget jones, hotel oblivion, and i don’t know how she does it). in the last few weeks and months i’ve my reading turnover has increased exponentially—old books, new books, borrowed books, you name it. now i’ve joined the book group and have the added excitement of talking about books! and there are so many of them out there. i’m going to look for a goal that reflects my current reading habits a bit more closely and record/reflect on my reading under that. 4 years ago
am stretching this goal a little to include all the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. the point is to read things that aren’t just fluff. am sure léopard de neige won’t mind.
as specified in BYY G7: Culture and knowledge: [...] Identify the books in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die that I already have and read them.
embarrassingly, this is the list for the 20th and 21st century books. unless i’m mistaken, i either have them here or can get my hands on them very easily (work mediatheque, know someone who has them, etc.). plenty to read, then.
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides (mediatheque)
Atonement – Ian McEwan (P’s)
Life of Pi – Yann Martel (get back from M)
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver (E’s)
Another World – Pat Barker (? methiatheque?)
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Great Apes – Will Self
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan (? methiatheque?)
The Ghost Road – Pat Barker (? methiatheque?)
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink (think I have this s/where)
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
A Heart So White – Javier Marias
Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
Wild Swans – Jung Chang (methiatheque)
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (mediatheque)
Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco (in German somewhere?)
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Transit – Anna Seghers (?)
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque (C’s)
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf (?) 4 years ago
