Last entry I made humble reference to a minor goal I had
last year of reading eighty books. As I said such a lofty goal I did not end up
achieving falling six short of the intended. Satisfaction you think might still
would be had at getting so close, pride that I even got half-way through,
though it is perplexity mostly that overwhelms tinged with the slight uselessness
of regret.
This is explained by the simple fact that the goal
itself predisposed a decision upon
reading as-much-as-possible-as-quick-as-can-be, rather than what-you-
want-to-at-your-own-pace, a side-effect of this being that I read a lot of
smaller, no I'll not shy away from the fact, books in a great succession than
take the time pouring over great works, great signifying both depth of content
and width of pages here.
Indeed this fact did occur to me somewhere very soon
along the project and saw me pick up The
Brother Karamazov part way through against the very notion of such a pose,
coming with it a welcome respite from all the frivolous pointless ditty of a
thing works I can gobbled down in the first part of the year.
 |
| The reason I kept reading. A certain favourite out of the favourites |
Will I do it again? Not likely, or at least, not in such
a vast form, the idea of 80 essays or short-stories or poems, maybe even if I
feel ambitious one a day, yes, but novels, these things were made for time.
Which brings forth the obvious and pertinent question
here, one put to me often through the year by sceptics and admirers a like, do
I remember them all? A small yes and a small no.
Can I go through all of them and give you a sentence explanation
detailing their content, author, why I read them and what I thought of it: of
course.
Can I give you vast plot details: simply, no. But this
diminishes from the experience little, as I challenge anyone to remember in
complex detail the many minor character traits, literary flourishes and plot
digressions of even their favorite work. These things are left for school
reports on books we're forced to read, and still more so are retained in the
memory only as long as the exam date requires we need to be able to recall such
on demand.
Would I recommend the adventure to others: Yes, for the
fact that I believe most people to under-estimate the fair chuck of the
literary catalog they can get through in a year if only they set their mind to
it, and also for the learning experience it offers by acutely and successfully
diagnosing what it is you gain from reading, and therefore leading you to
pinpoint what you ought to read. When such vast quantities of anything are
consumed one is able to tell very quickly what works for them and what sadly
pails.
For myself I could not articulate precisely what such is,
though I recognise it when I'm reading it and when it's lacking. The standards:
quality of expression, ingenuity in storytelling, class, style, insight, depth,
thought, a delight and sorrow that refracts and reflects back upon myself and
the world as I read further. Moments when I must place the work open facing
down upon my lap and but sigh with eyes closed as I breath through the pull of
authors literary genius. Not all of you will seek such from what you read, but
you at least ought to know that you don't.
Enough of the general sense, let us get down to
particulars; whatever the hell did I end up reading and when?! I won't bore you
with a line-by-line description of each work as I professed I could do above,
instead I'll offer a few general insights and leading categories to summarise
them as a body:
o
Interesting fact number one: though I did intend
to swap between male and female authors consecutively all my way up to eight
and naught, only twenty-eight of the books were the mind's concoction of the
more squishy of sexes
o
Again, against my initial intensions, a mere
seven of them were works of non-fiction, with less than half of that falling absolutely
into the category of hard philosophy
o
The split of works written this century and the
second half of the last to the rest of history was 32/42, quite reasonable
considering my oft sighted classics addiction, and by no small means a result
of great restraint exercised on my behalf
o
Of absolute, without a doubt-stop that damn
phone-'cause it's ringing off the hook-classics I count nine, though I won't be
detailing the choices that lead me to such a number, have some fun yourself
with the complete list
o
The most works I read by one author was three by
le Carré, purely because I read The Spy
Who Came In from the Cold, loved it and made by way through his two best
from the Smiley vs. Karla Trilogy, those
being nowhere near as good
o
Of Woolf, Hemmingway, Le Guin and Bataille I
read two each, each for various different reasons though similar in that it was
unintentional and was enjoyable/worthwhile in varying degrees
But now to the actual list, below I have composed a
colour-coded key for your reading convenience:
o
Authors I read for
the first time and that were an absolute revelation and of whom I intend to
read more of soon
o
Authors I returned to
who didn't by any means disappoint
o Books I greatly anticipated, and
had for a while, that lagged
o
The weirdest things
I read, odd things I picked up or was given or stumbled upon, some of which
were fabulous and some not very, all none the less making for a bizarre reading
experience
o
Strongly recommended
o
Favourites
o
You can assume they didn’t provoke a strong
enough reaction in me either one way or the other; wouldn’t suggest avoidance
though there’s not a lot of point either
January
1. Home
- Marilynne Robinson
2. Rage - Richard
Bachman (pseudonym of Stephen King)
3. The Circling
Song - Nawal El Saadawi
 |
| Best start I could have made to the reading year |
5. Mrs Dalloway's Party - Virgina Woolf
6. Thrist for Love -
Yukio Mishima
7. My Brillant
Career - Miles Franklin
8. The Quiet American - Graham Greene
9. Sita - Kate
Millett
10. The Leopard
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
11. Lois the Witch
- Elizabeth Gaskell
12. Death in Venice
- Thomas Mann
13. The Woman
Destroyed - Simone de Beauvoir
14. The Quantity Theory of
Insanity - Will Self
15. The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler
16. Heart of Darkness - Joesph Conrad
17. Demian - Herman Hesse
18. The Spy Who
Came in From the Cold - John le Carré
19. Nadja - André Breton
20. Tinker Tailor
Solider Spy - John le Carré
21. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
February
22. Friday, or,
The Other Island - Michel
Tournier
23. The Last Man -
Mary Shelley
24. In Cold Blood
- Truman Capote
25. A History of
Violence - John Wagner, illustrated by Vince Locke
26. The Bonfire of Vanities - Tom Wolfe
27. The Problems of
Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
28. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
29. On Liberty
- John Stuart Mill
March
30. Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson
31. Belief, Truth
and Knowledge - David Armstrong
32. Breathing
Lessons - Anne Tyler
33. A Sense of Reality
- Graham Greene
34. A Very Long Way from Anywhere
Else - Ursula Le Guin
35. Hypatia - Charles
Kingsley
36. The Dispossesed
- Ursula Le Guin
37. Sartre: A
collection of critical essays – edt. Edith Kern
38. The Fuck-Up -
Arthur Nersesian
 |
| A present that was truly a gift to read |
May
39. Serve It Forth
- M. F. K. Fisher
40. What is
History? - E. H. Carr
41. 'Raise High the
Roof Beams, Carpenters' & 'Seymour: An Introduction': J. D.
Salinger
42. L'Abbe C - Georges
Bataille
43. Bliss and Other
Stories - Katherine Mansfield
44. Giovanni's Room
- James Baldwin
45. Smiley's People
- John le Carré
46. So Bright and
Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne - John Keats
47. The Oasis - Mary McCarthy
June
48. The Dice Man -
Luke Rhinehart (George Cockcroft)
49. Story of the
Eye - Georges Bataille
July
50. Story of O
- Pauline Réage
51. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
August
52. Shades of Grey
- Jasper Fforde
53. Zen and the Art
of Motocycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
54. The Brothers
Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
September
 |
| Longingly anticipated and to be well loved for a while yet |
56. Madame
Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
57. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
October
58. In the Skin of
a Lion - Michael Ondaatje
59. Ham on Rye
- Charles Bukowski
60. The Hours -
Michael Cunningham
61. Moderato Cantabile -
Marguerite Duras
62. Of Mice and Men - John
Steinbeck
63. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
64. The Martian Way -
Isaac Asimov
November
65. Room - Emma
Donoghue
66. The Loved One -
Evelyn Waugh
67. The Philosophers Dog: Friendship with Animals
- Raimond Gita
68. Cat's Cradle - Kurt
Vonnegut
69. Jasper Jones
- Craig Silvey
70. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
December
71. The Picture of
Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
72. The Little
Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
73. Mrs Dalloway -
Virgina Woolf
74. The Torrents of Spring -
Ernest Hemingway
I would to like to end off by offering forth an odd suggestions
of six books I could have read instead of the seventy-four that I did and would, as I so arrogantly
and conceitedly assume, have been more satisfied spending all year reading***:
o
Daniel
Deronda - George Eliot
o
The Divine
Comedy - Dante Alighieri
o
Living My
Life, Volumes 1 & 2 - Emma Goldman
o
Ulysses
- James Joyce
o
Tess of
the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
o
The Book of
The City of Ladies - Christine de Pizan
* Mr J.D. being a
rare exception as I did not have high expectations for I had not previously
enjoy his work greatly on earlier readings
*** Hermann another
exception, as opposite to Salinger, I had much enjoyed his work previously and found
this one to be underwhelming, which does intrigue me to re-read Steppenwolf and
find out if it retains the glory I once bestowed on it in younger years. I
don't hesitate to believe that Journey to the East would still stand up though
*** Of course remembering
that the insight that has allowed me to collate this list could have only been gained
by going through what I did last year
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