My goal: read at least 50 books over the next 12 months
I started with the chronicles of Narnia - too much sugar. Really not my thing, but it counts as seven books!
I have an old print out of the top 150 novels of the 20th Century*. I've only read 38 of 150. I hope I can find some of the classics second hand at Goodwill. Ones I already own, like 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Rabbit Run,' I am never in the mood to read.**
*I printed off this list at least 10 years ago
**This is normal, right?
1-7. Narnia
8. Fall of Giants
9. Franny and Zooey
10. The Color Purple
11. A Dance with Dragons
12. Madame Bovary
13. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
14. Tender is the Night
15. A History of Love
16. Birthing from Within
17. A Town Like Alice
18. Ina May Guide to Childbirth
19. To Kill a Mockingbird
20. We
21. The Red Tent
22. The Magnificent Ambersons
23. An American Tragedy
24. The Windup Girl
25. The Last Watch
26. your voice in my head
27. Heaven is for real
28. Nine Stories
29. Room
30. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
31. Before I go to Sleep
32. Anne of Green Gables
33. Anne of Avonlea
34. Perfume
35. Divergent
36. Man's Search for Meaning
37. Irma Voth
38. the sometimes daughter
39. bossypants
40. Wizard of Oz
41. Cosmopolis
42. The Hunger Games
43. Catching Fire
44. Mockingjay
45. The House of Mirth
46. The imperfectionists
47.
48.
49.
50.
June 2012: I am finishing off my 45th book of the 150 list.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourites EVER... and I read The Good Earth for a project when I was in high school. It started out slow, but won me over, even at the age of 17. So glad now that I read it... I hope you enjoy it too! :)
ReplyDeleteBy the way - I am loving that you are blogging again! :) Have missed you! ;)
Thanks for sharing the list. I didn't know it existed. I read only 18 of the books. As part of my 101 things to do in 1001, I put down to read 101 books by Nov 2013. I think I will try to read some of these classics.
ReplyDeleteYeah the schmaltzy christian messages in Narnia turn me off. (*one of the major characters* DIES just because she wears lipstick and crushes on boys, urgh.)
ReplyDeleteI just just read Ender's Game for the first time last year; it's completely CRAZY how contemporary the (inter)nets, online forums, and descriptions of video games feel for a 40ish-year old book.
I commend you for setting such a profitable goal for your mind and spirit. I too found pregnancy and the period immediatley following the births of my children, with its many sleepless nights, to be the most conducive to reading.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the titles on your list, including "The Chronicles of Narnia" were not available during my youth in the communist Eastern Europe, where I grew up, due to censorship. After finishing the Narnian series last year in just one week during my daughter's first month of life, I tend to agree with the gifted writer Neil Gaiman, that even though I would read other books after that, "in my heart I knew that I read them only because there wasn't an infinite number of Narnia books to read". Maybe you will give them a second chance when you will be " in the mood for" :). Oh, and S. the girl who wears lipstick and crushes on boys, is actually the only major character who doesn't die.
All the best, Dani
Yeah the schmaltzy christian messages in Narnia turn me off. (*one of the major characters* DIES just because she wears lipstick and crushes on boys, urgh.)
ReplyDeleteI just just read Ender's Game for the first time last year; it's completely CRAZY how contemporary the (inter)nets, online forums, and descriptions of video games feel for a 40ish-year old book.