For the past two years, I’ve undertaken a Goodreads’ Reading Challenge for the year.
I failed in 2013, reading just 41 out of 52 books. I set the same goal for 2014, and succeeded! I was helped along the way with some graphic novel collections alternated with some epically long novels.
So for 2015 I wanted to try something a little different. I’ve come up with the idea of still reading 52 books in 52 weeks, I know it is doable – especially with plenty of holidays planned for the year. So of my 52 books for 2015, 12 of them, one a month, will be a “classic” book I’ve never read. I’ve drawn up a list of 24 books that I’m going to consider. And added bonus, between myself and my parents, I already have most of the books in hand. Lovely, old, well read, falling apart, taped together copies of books. Some of the from the 1950s/1960s.
Classic book challenge
Here is the list, and my public admittance that I’ve not read these books. Books in bold are ones I already own:
- Moby Dick
- Wide Sargasso Sea
- Catch 22
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- The Woman in White
- Jude the Obscure
- The Quiet American
- On the Road
- The Bell Jar
- The Plague
- Tristram Shandy
- The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor
- Tess of the d’Urbervilles
- Slaughter House 5
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
- Tortilla Flat – Steinbeck
- Neuromancer William Gibson
- Foundation – Isaac Asimov
- The Stars my Destination – Alfred Bester
- The Death of Grass – John Christopher
- The Female Man – Joanna Russ
- Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
- Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte
- Kindred – Octavia Butler
What else is on my list for 2015?
Some unread things on my Kindle:
- Hideous Creatures – SE Lister
- And Sons – David Gilbert
- J: A Novel – Howard Jacobson
- Authority – Jeff VanderMeer
- Acceptance – Jeff VanderMeer
- Countdown City – Ben H Winters (I need to re-read the previous book before reading this)
- The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
- MaddAddam – Margaret Atwood (I need to re-read the first two before finishing the series)
- The Whispering Muse – Sjon
- From the Mouth of the Whale – Sjon
- Dark Eden – Chris Beckett
A few other things on my wider list:
- American Rust – Phillip Meyer
- Silent History – Eli Horowitz, Kevin Moffett, Matthew Derby
- Decoded: A Novel – Mai Jia
- The Book of Strange New Things – Michel Faber
- Boy Snow Bird – Helen Oyeyemi
- All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld
- And a long, never ending list of science fiction of various levels of quality
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