What is Your Title?

I'm a little over halfway through Native Son right now, and it's fantastic. Right now, it would be in my top five books from the list. But while I've been reading it, I keep finding myself thinking back to my last book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. What I keep thinking back to though, is on line I read, on the 160th of 193 pages; specifically, the line "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."

Whenever I read the title of a book, in the book, I can't help but think of the "Family Guy" episode where Peter says he "usually only gets this excited when they say the title of the movie, in the movie." We then see Peter watching "Clear and Present Danger," "As Good as it Gets," and "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace." I must admit it does excite me in some small way as well.

Reading the title of the book in the book this time, started me thinking of what other books from the list have had this happen. However, unlike references to other books on the list, I haven't been keeping track of every instance, so I'm forced to go by memory.

#72 - "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret" by Judy Blume

It was predicted it would take me longer to write a review of this book than it did to read it. I'm guessing that'll be true as the book only took a little over an hour. Mind you those last two sentences only took ten seconds to write, so we'll see. My 72nd book from the Time list was Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume, and I'm hoping this quick read was just what I needed to get back on track.

This was definitely one of the strangest books on the list; not because the book itself was strange, but that it's strange to find it on a list such as this. Much the same way it is still strange to me that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, would be on the list; children's books simply don't have the complexity and the artistic flare of adult books. Of course they don't strive for those things either, because then they wouldn't be children's books.

Less. what's next?

As I make my way through Revolutionary Road, I've started to think about what I should be planning to read for the next few months.  As you may have noticed, I've tried to space out the bigger reads a little, so as not to get bogged down by them, but also in an effort to not leave them until the end.  But really, there hasn't been any order set in stone.  Mostly I've been getting what I can from the library and going from there.  However, after having read 58 books there are simply fewer books to chose from than two years ago, so the decision over what to read next is more difficult, but also more important.

Of the final 40 books, I have already decided on the final five.  I'm ending with Nineteen-Eighty Four as I've read it several times, and if you recall, was actually going to start the list with it until I discovered my tattered copy was missing the first fifteen pages.  I've also decided to read Never Let Met Go and A Passage to India as numbers 99 and 98 respectively, as they are the newest and oldest books on the list.  Numbers 97 and 96 will be Neuromancer and A Death in the Family, as those are two books that I own a copy of.  I figure with only five novels left, it might be more difficult to get them from the library so I should be sure to read ones I can get my hands on.

So that leaves 35 other books to read (I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest next, as #60), and there are still a few behemoths left.  I've identified, Gravity's Rainbow, Lord of the Rings, Call it Sleep, The Man Who Loved Children, and A Dance to the Music of Time as the most challenging book I still have to read.  Some will be challenging because I have been told how unreadable they are by a co-author of the list (Man Who Loved Children)  while others will be difficult simply because of their length (Lord of the Rings and A Dance to the Music of Time).

Anyone for a little light reading?

I'm starting to realize that one of these five books needs to be #61 or #62, and I'm not sure which one it is going to be.  Of those five, Lord of the Rings is probably the most appealing and Gravity's Rainbow the least.  I can't keep putting the other Pynchon novel off though!  However, Call it Sleep is sitting on the shelf behind me right now, but, it's thicker than four other books combined.  Maybe it's large print.  Really large print.  Or think paper.

Of course for every long book there are shorter ones.  Looking at what I have left I'm predicting that To Kill a Mockingbird, Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, Lord of the Flies, Watchmen, and Wide Sargasso Sea, will be my easiest reads.  Don't be surprised if the books mentioned earlier are followed by one of these.

But I suppose for now, this is all like planning tomorrow's lunch when you haven't even begun to finish making today's.  Let's get back to our regularly scheduled program, Revolutionary Road.

Forty Down, Sixty to Go

I've now hit my next 'milestone', book number forty.  I am now two-fifths of the way through this list of 100 All Time Novels.  Two-fifths doesn't sound like as many books as 'forty' does, so I'll stick with that; I'm forty books into this list.

The second twenty books has had some ups and downs, and has taken me from October 2010 to today.  By far the two longest books I've read were in the last twenty, those, being, Infinite Jest and Gone With the Wind, which are both 400 pages longer than any other book I've read so far.  The shortest two books have also been since October, with The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Day of the Locust.  I had assumed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret. would be the shortest.  I suppose the latter still could be. 

I've also noticed I've changed by library borrowing habits in this past segment, having returned 19 books without reading them, including Gravity's Rainbow twice.  I also incurred more fines this go around, with 13 book, totalling $13.30 in fines.  I guess this is because I now usually have 10 to 20 books from The List borrowed from the library at any given time.  It ensures I'll always have something ready to read, but also that I'll incur more fines.

Lastly, I see I've been on an American author kick, with 17 of the past 20 books being my American authors.  This is purely by coincidence, as I haven't ever really taken the author into consideration when selecting my next title.  But, I think I'll try to make a concious effort to squeeze in a few more international talents in the next twenty reads.

Well, forty books down, only sixty more to read!


Here's the second twenty books 'by the numbers':

Misc.:
Shortest - The Bridge of San Luis Rey - 107 pages
Longest - Infinite Jest - 1,076 pages
Oldest - The Bridge of San Luis Rey - 1927 (Gatsby - 1925)
Newest - Infinite Jest  - 1996 (Atonement - 2002)
Longest Reading Time - Infinite Jest - 50 days (To the Lighthouse - 56 days)
Shortest Reading Time - Play it as it Lays - 6 hours (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - 4 hours)
Books Started but Not Finished - 0
Books borrowed from Library and returned, unread - 19

Books by Decade from this Twenty: (total)                                           
1920's - 1  (4)        1960's - 4  (6)                           
1930's - 3  (7)        1970's - 3  (4)                           
1940's - 3  (4)        1980's - 2  (5)                            
1950's - 2  (6)        1990's - 2  (2)                            
               2000's - 0  (2)                          


Nationality:
Books by American Authors - 17
Books by British Authors - 2
Books by Russian Authors - 1

Source of Book:
From the library - 19 (35 Total)
Borrowed from friends - 0 (3 Total)
Books I own - 0 (1 Total)
Book Stolen from Rural Hotels - 1

Library Fines:

Gravity's Rainbow - $2.80
Herzog - $0.70
On the Road - $0.70
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - $1.05
Play it as it Lays - $0.35
The Death of the Heart - $1.05
The Blind Assassin - $1.05
The Berlin Stories - $0.35
An American Tragedy - $1.05
Painted Bird - $0.70
Lolita - $2.10
Slaughterhouse Five - $0.70
All the King's Men - $0.70
Total Fines: $13.30


References to The List:

Infinite Jest - William Burroughs is mentioned by one of the characters

The Sportswriter  - Frank Bascombe is reading The Sun Also Rises
The Sportswriter - Bascombe refers to Tropic of Cancer
Appointment in Samarra - A character is reading Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms
Appointment in Samarra - One of the club members reportedly went to school with F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Second Twenty Books:
Ragtime
Falconer
Snow Crash
On the Road
Herzog
Play it as it Lays
The Berlin Stories
Infinite Jest
Lolita
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Day of the Locust
The Sheltering Sky
Gone With the Wind
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Sportswriter
Rabbit, Run
Blood Meridian
Appointment in Samarra

The First Twenty Books:
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Brideshead Revisited
Naked Lunch
Light in August
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Great Gatsby
Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
Beloved
Tropic of Cancer
Midnight's Children
The Corrections
Atonement
The Power and the Glory
To The Lighthouse
Lucky Jim
The Sun Also Rises
I, Claudius
Housekeeping
Deliverance