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| This is what I'll look like, except with my current Lucius Malfoy hair. |
I'm talking, 100 books in 3 months.* That kind of binge. I'm going to try to avoid War-and-Peace/Infinite-Jest-length books, because even though I read fast, I'm not a superhero. I may add to that number with a few Shakespeare plays, too, just to refresh.
Why am I writing about this here?
Well... I want your help. I have 48 books I want to get through, in no particular order, all recommended by the same person. I want your knowledge to help me add to that list: the books that you loved, the books that changed you, the books you still ache about having to have finished. The books with the characters you just can't forget or let go of. Comment below with your suggestions! Once I get 100+ books suggested, I'll prune the list and come up with a final version I'll post here (this list may or may not include my original 48). I'll try to blog regularly about my adventure (thereby veering away from the science theme of this blog) - you're welcome to follow me or read along!
As a guide: I can get through approximately 300 pages of not-too-heavy writing in a day quite easily. I hated Grass' The Flounder, Twilight, and anything by Bukowski. Leonard Cohen inspires me. I'm still looking for my "Lit Crush." I love books about science. I didn't like The Pillars of the Earth. I'll be happy to pick up any fiction book, as long as it inspired you in some way.
My List So Far, in No Particular Order...
- Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon
- Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
- JM Coetzee - Age of Iron
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
- Philip Roth - American Pastoral
- Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart
- Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
- John Updike - Rabbit, Run
- James Baldwin - Go Tell it on the Mountain
- Don DeLillo - White Noise
- EL Doctorow - Ragtime
- Walker Percy - The Moviegoer
- John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
- Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
- Ford Maddox Ford - The Good Soldier
- Malcom Lowry - Under the Volcano
- Colm Toibin - The Blackwater Lightship
- Jack Kerouac - On The Road
- Katherine Dunn - Geek Love
- Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
- Katherine Ann Porter - Ship of Fools
- Graham Greene - The Power and the Glory
- Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead
- William Kennedy - Ironweed
- John Fowles - The French Lieutenant's Woman
- Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- Alice Walker - The Colour Purple
- Richard Wright - Native Son
- Zadie Smith - White Teeth
- Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke
- Colson Whitehead - The Intuitionist
- Michael Chabon - The Adventurs of Kavalier and Clay
- John Banville - The Sea
- Dave Eggers - What is What
- David Leavitt - The Indian Clerk
- Jonathan Lethem - Fortress of Solitude
- Gao Xinglian - Soul Mountain
- Ivo Andric - The Bridge on the Drina
- VS Naipaul - A House for Mr Biswas
- Christina Garcia - Dreaming in Cuban
- M Scott Mamaday - House Made of Dawn
- Alan Paton - Cry, the Beloved Country
- Julia Alvarez - In the Time of the Butterflies
- Louise Erdrich - Love Medicine
- Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and All
- Isaac Asmiov - Foundation
- Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
*Whatever I don't finish in that three-month summer period, I intend to finish before the start of 2013. Yes, I'm setting the goal crazy-high, because I'm masochistic like that - it'll help me push forward. I'll have a back-up list of up to 50 books (if I get that many suggestions) as well. What can I say - I like checklists.
You hate Bukowski? Jeez.
ReplyDeleteYou have some goodies on there. Drop White Noise though. Ok you don't have to.
Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (1984-esque dystopian themed novel & short)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
Solomon Gursky Was Here - Mordechai Richler
The Buddha or Suburbia - Hanif Kureshi
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway (If you haven't already read it)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Death in The Andes - Mario Vargas LLosa
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
I'll suggest more when I'm sober. The topic of books just necessitated my participation.
Kavalier is already on the list! I've read Midnight's Children and Fahrenheit 451 (loved both); can't recall if I've read For Whom the Bell Tolls (bad, I know :\). I've wanted to read Portnoy's Complaint for a while, along with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thank you for the recs!! xo
ReplyDeleteThe Book Thief - Marcus Zusak
ReplyDeleteThe Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Best of luck! You may have inspired me to pick up a similar (but someone less intense) goal for the summer. :)
I've already read The Poisonwood Bible - it was a decent book, though nothing awe-inspiring for me personally; I know a lot of people really loved it though.
ReplyDeleteDuly noted re: The Book Thief - I've definitely heard it mentioned a bunch! thanks! xo
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to second Abbee's suggestion of Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief, it's one of the few books that has wowed me.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a big fan of Scott Westerfeld's The Uglies trilogy. Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. But even just reading the first book, Uglies is rad on its own.
I've never heard of The Uglies - sounds like it's about high school cliques...? Details!! I'm intrigued by the titles.
ReplyDeleteI think I've heard of this before - noted!
ReplyDeleteSomeone Knows My Name by Laurence Hill - a book I recommend to everyone! Truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba - such an uplifting story
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan - short and clever
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann - a hilarious mystery starring some sheep...sounds strange but it's really witty
I may have to bookmark this post so I can come back and steal a few titles off your list! I run a bookshop in a tourist town, so I have a 'last hoorah' at the end of every summer when we have our one not-quite-a-week off when the kids have gone back to school. It's my one chance every year to get really stuck into some great books without distraction, so I end up making a stupidly ambitious list, sitting surrounded by my books trying to decide which will make the cut. Page-turners I can plough through breathlessly, books with beautiful prose that I want to savour... SO much better at home with cheesecake than sitting on the shop counter drinking bad coffee! ;)
ReplyDeleteNow, the books! I always recommend 'Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs' (or 'Time Was Soft There', if you're in the US) by Jeremy Mercer to book lovers. It's about the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris, where Mercer stayed for over a year in his twenties. It's all wine and books, storytelling by the Seine, politics before bed, onion soup and sweet tea in jars. LOVED IT! I'm due my third (?) reread anytime now, I reckon... My favourite book of ALL TIME is 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', which is gothic and witty and utterly brilliant. And 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt is totally gripping and makes me want to be a classics scholar, just a tiny bit.
I also just finished 'King Solomon's Mines' by H. Rider Haggard, which gets a mention by sheer virtue of the fact that it's just zoomed its way straight into the top spot of my reading so far in 2012. Indiana Jones in book form, basically, with some major set-piece moments worthy of LOTR....
excellent suggestions, thank you! I loved both The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Secret History - I'll keep an eye out for the other two!
ReplyDeleteI have stumbled upon your post on Zed's Learn Python the Hard Way site which led me here and ... wow!
ReplyDeleteThanks for an amazing book list!
How many books have you finished so far?
ReplyDelete-Dan
That one you're holding in your hand is a great book!;) Since you have Asimov on there I'd suggest Shikasta by Doris Lessing. I found that fascinating! And completely unrelated, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. All the little observations he makes (not necessarily the main plot) was what made it for me. Also Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms and Growth of the Soil by Hamsun. Right, I'll stop :P
ReplyDeleteI actually only finished 13 of a series and a handful of others -- I decided to re-read the Wheel of Time series slowly, in honour of the last book coming out... I ended up finishing all thirteen (each 600-1200 pages) in 30 days and ended up tuckering myself out with almost 12,000 pages of reading. My only consolation is that the volume I read equalled almost 40 'regular-length' books.
ReplyDeleteAlas, I suspect this will be a project for another time. Perhaps 2013?
I'm glad you found it useful! (yes, a slightly belated reply :) )
ReplyDeleteHow many did you manage?
ReplyDelete