Who'd have thunk it, but apparently there are reading challenges all over the Internet. Apparently there are also a heck of a lot of people blogging about their reading, just like me. I had no idea. I seriously need to spend more time surfing the web.
Anyway, I came across this website, http://1morechapter.com/, that presents the challenge to read 10 books in a year from 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I've come across this hefty tome before in the library. And while I probably won't join the challenge, mostly because I've already made a list of my 30 books for this year (okay, so it's longer than 30 already, sue me), I was interested to see which of the 1001 books I've already read. The list has changed between editions, but I'll count both...I think I'm going to need all the help I can get.
Play along here: http://1morechapter.com/projects/1001-list/
Alright, so here goes:
1. The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri (hated it)
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
3. Atonement, Ian McEwan
4. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
5. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
6. Felicia's Journey, William Trevor
7. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
8. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
9. Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
10. Amongst Women, John McGahern
11. Possession, A.S. Byatt (This one has been axed from the current 1001 version. A crime against literature and the awesomeness that is Possession if you ask me...)
12. Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
13. Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
15. The Swimming-Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst
16. Beloved, Toni Morrison
17. An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
18. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marcia
19. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
20. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
21. The Handmaiden's Tale, Margaret Atwood
22. The Lover, Marguerite Duras
23. Empire of the Sun, J.G. Ballard
24. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
25. A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro
26. The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
27. The Shining, Stephen King
28. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
29. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Okay, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the 1001 and already have 30. Since I don't want this to go on forever, I'm switching format:
Slaughterhouse-Five (31); 2001: A Space Odyssey (32); God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (33); Cat's Cradle (34); One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (35); Franny and Zooey (36); To Kill a Mockingbird (37); Breakfast at Tiffany's (38); The Lord of the Rings (39); The Talented Mr. Ripley (40); The Old Man and the Sea (41); The Catcher in the Rye (42); 1984 (43); Cry, the Beloved Country (44); Animal Farm (45); The Little Prince (46); The Grapes of Wrath (47); Rebecca (48); The Hobbit (49); Tender is the Night (50); Brave New World (51); A Farewell to Arms (52); The Sound and the Fury (53); Orlando (54); The Sun Also Rises (55); The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (56); The Great Gatsby (57); A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (58); A Room with a View (59); Heart of Darkness (60); Dracula (61); The Kreutzer Sonata (62); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (63); The Death of Ivan Ilyich (64); Return of the Native (65); Little Women (66); Crime and Punishment (67); Fathers and Sons (68); The Woman in White (69); Madame Bovary (70); Villette (71); The Scarlet Letter (72); Wuthering Heights (73); Jane Eyre (74); Le Pere Goriot (75); Last of the Mohicans (76); Frankenstein (77); Northanger Abbey (78); Pride and Prejudice (79); Gulliver's Travels (80)
Huh. I'm impressed with myself. I've read most of the stories in Borges' Labyrinths but didn't count it; I know I've also read some Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but can't actually remember which ones I read and which ones I just saw the movie of. What can I say, it all happened within the same time period and it's not really my genre. But I figure if I can't remember, I can't guess-timate.
But midway through I also realized why I don't give lists like this much attention - because they're invariably filled with books you ought to read but feel like taking a bullet. There are a number on there I started and put down early, within 30 pages or so. But there were also a few that deserve a special shout-out because I stopped reading them almost at the end - and I never do that. Except when a book is killing me slowly, which is what happened with In Cold Blood, A Passage to India, Jude the Obscure, Vanity Fair, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Oh me oh my, this was fun.
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