Read intentionally instead of just randomly.

I read a lot of crap and stuff off the sale table, but I picked up some Vonnegut this weekend.

Lists of Bests

I’ve started doing so many things lately, I don’t have time to read. I just wanna get back that lovely feeling of reading something terribly good.

Agent 99 told Bookish and me about LM Montgomery’s journal. It really made me want to read this book so many young women have enjoyed. I don’t know how I missed it in the first place.

from Jenny
The 100 most influential books ever written on Seymour-Smith’s list:

Bold = read
Blue = read excerpts and/or so long ago I no longer have a clue
Green = reading
Red = own, to be read

1. The I Ching (The only one here I know very,very well)
2. The Old Testament
3. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
4. The Upanishads
5. The Way and Its Power, Lao-tzu
6. The Avesta
7. Analects, Confucius
8. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
9. Works, Hippocrates
10. Works, Aristotle
11. History, Herodotus
12. The Republic, Plato
13. Elements, Euclid
14. The Dhammapada
15. Aeneid, Virgil
16. On the Nature of Reality, Lucretius
17. Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws, Philo of Alexandria
18. The New Testament
19. Lives, Plutarch
20. Annals, from the Death of the Divine Augustus, Cornelius Tacitus
21. The Gospel of Truth
22. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
23. Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus
24. Enneads, Plotinus
25. Confessions, Augustine of Hippo
26. The Koran
27. Guide for the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides
28. The Kabbalah
29. Summa Theologicae, Thomas Aquinas
30. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
31. In Praise of Folly, Desiderius Erasmus
32. The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli
33. On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther
34. Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais
35. Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin
36. On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, Nicolaus Copernicus
37. Essays, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
38. Don Quixote, Parts I and II, Miguel de Cervantes
39. The Harmony of the World, Johannes Kepler
40. Novum Organum, Francis Bacon
41.The First Folio [Works], William Shakespeare (not sure what’s in 1st folio – might have read them all)
42. Dialogue Concerning Two New Chief World Systems, Galileo Galilei
43. Discourse on Method, René Descartes
44. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
45. Works, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
46. Pensées, Blaise Pascal
47. Ethics, Baruch de Spinoza
48. Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan
49. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Isaac Newton
50. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke
51. The Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley
52. The New Science, Giambattista Vico
53. A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume
54. The Encyclopedia, Denis Diderot, ed.
55. A Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson
56. Candide, François-Marie de Voltaire
57. Common Sense, Thomas Paine
58. An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
59. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
60. Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant
61. Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
62. Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke
63. Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft
64. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, William Godwin
65. An Essay on the Principle of Population, Thomas Robert Malthus
66. Phenomenology of Spirit, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
67. The World as Will and Idea, Arthur Schopenhauer
68. Course in the Positivist Philosophy, Auguste Comte
69. On War, Carl Marie von Clausewitz
70. Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard
71. The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
72. “Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau
73. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin
74. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
75. First Principles, Herbert Spencer
76. “Experiments with Plant Hybrids,” Gregor Mendel
77. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
78. Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, James Clerk Maxwell
79. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
80. The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
81. Pragmatism, William James
82. Relativity, Albert Einstein
83. The Mind and Society, Vilfredo Pareto
84. Psychological Types, Carl Gustav Jung
85. I and Thou, Martin Buber
86. The Trial, Franz Kafka
87. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper
88. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes
89. Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre
90. The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich von Hayek
91. The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
92. Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener
93. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
94. Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
95. Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein
96. Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky
97. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, T. S. Kuhn
98. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan
99. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung [The Little Red Book], Mao Zedong
100. Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B. F. Skinner

Fact is , I usually read randomly. Find plenty of great stuff that way. Still, it’s good to create a list of intentions. Adding Infinite Jest and House of Leaves.

Reading- A Brief History of Time – Hawking; 2 Maritimes books

Just finished (write about): Blood Meridian, Darkness at Noon, Solaris

I should read all of these:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

I was sick and slept a lot. Eventually could not sleep any more.

These are still all 20th Century. I’m removing ones previously entered. Then I will sort etc.

Read

3 Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pynchon

42 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth

59 The Golden Notebook Doris M. Lessing

63 Dubliners James Joyce

66 Ridley Walker Russell Hoban

70 Skinny Legs and All Tom Robbins

86 Yellow Back Radio Broke Down Ishmael Reed

94 Mulligan Stew Gilbert Sorrentino

Haven’t read

4 The Public Burning Robert Coover

6 Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable Samuel Beckett

7 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein

8 Nova Trilogy William Burroughs

11 Take It or Leave It Raymond Federman

13 Going Native Stephen Wright

16 In the Heart of the Heart of the Country William H. Gass

17 JR William Gaddis

19 Underworld Don DeLillo

25 60 Stories Donald Barthelme

26 The Rifles William T. Vollmann

27 The Recognitions William Gaddis

31 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

33 Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany

35 The Four Elements Tetrology Rikki Ducornet

36 Neuromancer William Gibson

39 Lookout Cartridge Joseph McElroy

40 Crash J. G. Ballard

43 Genoa Paul Metcalf

46 Double or Nothing Raymond Federman

47 at swim two birds Flann O’Brien

48 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy

49 The Cannibal John Hawkes

52 Nightwood Djuna Barnes

53 Housekeeping Marilynn Robinson

55 Libra Don DeLillo

56 Wise Blood Flannery O’Connor

57 Always Coming Home Ursula K. Le Guin

61 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett

62 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver

64 Cane Jean Toomer

67 Checkerboard Trilogy William Eastlake

68 The Franchiser Stanley Elkin

69 New York Trilogy Paul Auster

71 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace

72 The Age of Wire and String Ben Marcus

73 Tlooth Harry Mathews

74 Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover

75 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick

76 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis

78 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe

80 Albany Trilogy William Kennedy

81 The Tunnel William H. Gass

82 Omensetter’s Luck William H. Gass

84 Darconville’s Cat Alexander Theroux

85 Up Ronald Sukenick

88 You Bright and Risen Angels William T. Vollmann

90 The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Robert Coover

91 Creamy and Delicious Steve Katz

92 Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee

93 More Than Human Theodore Sturgeon

97 Easy Travels to Other Planets Ted Mooney

98 Tours of the Black Clock Steve Erickson

99 In Memorium to Identity Kathy Acker

100 Hogg Samuel R. Delany

I like this list better. Here’s a whole list of lists, some are really good.
http://listsofbests.com/lists/1/

These are only those books that were not already mentioned on that first list. I still have a long long way to go with my reading. Nonfiction is really hard for me to touch at all :(

By the time I get finished with lists, I could have written a novel. I finished reading Things Fall Apart already. My list http://kitlulu.tadalist.com/lists/public/59072 is really short because I don’t know what to put on it.

Some of the books I’ve read once but would really like to read again, or would like to read everything by the author. Some I have read but don’t understand what’s so great about them.

plus sign – want to read or re-read

two or more exclamation points – on two or more lists.

Read

4 To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee

5 The Color Purple Alice Walker

13 Charlotte’s Web E. B. White

22 Winnie-the-Pooh A. A. Milne

26 Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell

28 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey

30 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway

32 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway

37 The World According To Garp John Irving

40 The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

43 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand

45 The Jungle Upton Sinclair

46 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf

47 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum

48 Lady Chatterley’s Lover D. H. Lawrence

51 My Antonia Willa Cather

54 Franny and Zooey J.D. Salinger

!!58 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner

63 Orlando Virginia Woolf

65 The Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe

66 Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut

67 A Separate Peace John Knowles

70 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

73 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs

!!76 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe

78 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein

83 O Pioneers! Willa Cather

85 The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells

90 The Wind In The Willows Kenneth Grahame

92 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand

!!93 The French Lieutenant’s Woman John Fowles

Didn’t read but saw the movie

41 Schindler’s List Thomas Keneally

Heve not read or can’t remember (at all)

!!7 Beloved Toni Morrison

12 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck

23 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

25 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison

35 Portrait of a Lady Henry James

50 The Awakening Kate Chopin

53 In Cold Blood Truman Capote

55 The Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie

56 Jazz Toni Morrison

60 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton

61 A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O’Connor

71 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier

72 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams

77 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway

82 White Noise Don DeLillo

87 The Bostonians Henry James

91 This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald

94 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis

96 The Beautiful and the Damned F. Scott Fitzgerald

97 Rabbit, Run John Updike

98 Where Angels Fear to Tread E. M. Forster