That what they do delay, they not deny.

Gravity's Rainbow. What can I say? It's living up to all of my expectations; it's difficult to follow and quite a tedious read. But I have been slowly making my way through it.

I'm leaving on a trip to South East Asia today, and was hoping to have it finished before I left. Things were seemingly going well, as in I thought I'd be able to finish before today. Or at least by today. But last week, I had an accident of sorts, and found myself in the hospital for a spell, which sort of put my reading pace off track. I learned quite quickly that Gravity's Rainbow is not the book to read when you've been given several large doses of morphine.

My first attempt to read while lying in a hospital bed, stoned to the bejezus, lasted less than one sentence before dropping the book and falling asleep. My second attempt a few hours later ended after one paragraph. Although to be fair, there probably aren't any books that would be ideal for reading after the amount of morphine I'd been given!

Dear Blog, Happy 4th Birthday!

Today is a milestone of sorts for my reading through this list of 100 novels. It was four years ago today,that I began reading my first book, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. This wasn't exactly the day I started this project, as I hit a few stumbling blocks at the beginning. I remember thinking I was going to start with Nineteen Eighty-Four, but when I went to start reading my copy, I discovered the first few pages were missing. Not wanting to start the project off skipping the first eight pages, I began with a different book.

After that and a couple of other delays, it was November 21, 2009 that I actually began reading. Fast forward to today, and I've completed 68 novels, and am nearly finished my 69th; Possession.

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

As we get into the new year, I've been thinking back about the year that was, 2012. The first thing that really jumps out in my mind is the failures of the year; I only completed 13 books from the list.  This hardly keeps up with my desired pace of 24 books per year, and means I have a lot of reading to do in 2013 if I want to catch up. But I do attribute this to two books in particular (read: excuses).

First was The Recognitions by William Gaddis. Coming in at 956 pages, this was a beast that took me 66 days to read. It was my most difficult read from the list so far, and really put me behind pace, so early in the year. I didn't enjoy it, I read it while I was having a difficult time in my life, and of course, it's really long. I'll always wonder if the book was better than I gave it credit, and wonder if I had been reading it under different circumstances, might I appreciated it a little more.

The second trouble book was the on-going The Lord of the Rings. It isn't even remotely as tedious as The Recognitions, but it is twice as long. Add to this my general disinterest in the genre, and I have one difficult, long read on my hands.  I'm currently 60% through the second book, and should be able to finish it sometime in 2013 (although I can't honestly guarantee this as it's already been over 100 days since I began the first one).

But that doesn't mean the year was a total loss, I was introduced to some fantastic books, which I probably wouldn't have read if not for this little project. In no particular order, here are my favorite list reads from 2012:

The Assistant. This was just an enjoyable and interesting read, that's really in my wheel house. It was probably aided by the fact that I read it between books one and two of The Lord of the Rings, a welcome diversion.

Under the Net. One of the best hidden gems I've read from the list so far. I'd never heard of it or the author, and really had no idea what the book was about. It was enjoyable and entertaining in the style of Lucky Jim.

Revolutionary Road. Much like The Assistant,this book is my kind of book; a post-war character novel.

All the King's Men. An engrossing story and dynamic characters make this one of the best I've read so far. A real page turner.

The Sot-Weed Factor. The more I think about this book, the more I begin to think it may be my favorite book through the first 61, and one of my favorite books ever. It's interesting, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny. And I have still only met one person to date who has ever heard of the book or John Barth, the author.

Tomorrow I'll look at my favorite non-fiction reads from 2012.

#61 - "The Assistant" by Bernard Malamud

After over two months, I am again writing a review of a book from the list.  It's been so long, I sort of wonder if I remember how to do so.

The Assistant by Bernard Malamud is the story of Morris Bober who owns a failing grocery store somewhere in New York, after the War.  Bober leads a rather miserable life with his wife and adult daughter, watching his store slowly go out of business.  But things get even worse after two masked men rob the grocer of the $15 in his till and send him to the hospital.  After a few days, Frank Alpine shows up and offers to help Morris with his store, without pay, to "learn the business" of running a grocery store.  Soon, business picks up a bit, and things start to maybe look up for old Morris.  But the upswing is short-lived, and before long Frank is stealing money from the till, and falling in love with Helen, Morris' daughter, while the store continues its downward spiral.  

And for achievement offer us his ransom

Well, I have good news and bad news after my second prolonged absence from blogging.  First with the bad news; I was recently kidnapped and held for ransom. I'm not sure why, as I don't know anybody who could afford to pay any considerable ransom, nor do I hold any important information that one may wish to extract.

But kidnapped I was and it was quite an ordeal.  It all started on the evening of October 26th, which is coincidentally the last time I was able to post a blog.  Gunmen stormed my condo, blind-folded me and whisked me away in what I can only assume was some kind of late-model panel van without windows.  After driving for several hours, I was unloaded and taken into what I later would learn was some sort of abandon warehouse near the docks. For weeks, my captors tormented me with a variety of vicious techniques, but with no clear goal in mind.

And it is for this reason, that I haven't been diligent at updating my progress of reading through this list of 100 books, and it is for this reason that my progress of reading through this list has been nothing short of shameful.  But I think it's a pretty good reason.

Ironically, my captor's main torture technique was to force me to read non-fiction.  In my three weeks as hostage, they forced me to read The Fox Effect by David Brock, Follow the Money by Kevin Taft, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, Seen Reading by Julie Wilson, and Our Man in Tehran by Robert Wright.  Oh the humanity!  Forced to read so many books that happened to be on me 'to read' list.  And it did keep me from Lord of the Rings for all this time.

Now for the good news.  First off, I was freed yesterday, with no ransom paid and no reason ever given for why I had been kidnapped. Secondly, with my new found freedom, I was able to finish Lord of the Rings!  Okay, I didn't finish it, but I finished the first book.  So I've now read 531 of around 1500 pages.  And I read 250 of those 531 pages in the last 24 hours.

But instead of forcing myself back into the same situation with the next book, I've decided to read a different book between each Lord of the Rings book.  So, starting tomorrow morning I will begin reading The Assistant by Bernard Malamud.  Then I'll read book #2, read another book from the list, then read book #3.  Basically, Lord of the Rings has been shifted from being #61 to being #63.

There's more good news too; I'm currently in Hawai'i, which is awesome, and affords me a lot of time to read.  Perhaps I'll be well into the third Lord of the Rings book when I return.  Perhaps...