A Peaceful Progress...

Look at me go! With my rejuvenated zeal for this project, I'm already 20% finished #77, The Golden Notebook. I'm still not really sure what to think of the book yet. Some parts are interesting, some not so much. As a result, some parts seems to be moving a little faster than others. And the way the book is written, I think I have a good idea of which parts are going to be the quicker reads. Regardless, this shouldn't be one that gets me bogged down too much.

One thing of note is a reference to another list book, something that has always interested me. In The Golden Notebook, one character calls another couple "The Gatsbys", an obvious reference to Fitzgerald's novel, to remark on their social nature.

I recall the first time a list book referred to another, when Gary from The Corrections was reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to his children. At the time I found it very interesting, and I suppose quite surprising. Having read an additional 64 list books, it isn't as surprising anymore but it is still interesting. To me anyway.

The last book to reference another, was White Teeth, which easily holds the current record for most references to other list books, with six. A Passage to India is read, Judy Blume, EM Forester, and Vladimir Nabokov are quoted, The Catcher in the Rye is burned, and Salman Rushdie is protested.

I suppose I should summarize all these references sometime...another day perhaps.

I know this; and thus I challenge it.

I'm about three quarters of the way through number 75, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and am happy to report it I'm enjoying it. I started it a couple of weeks ago, but was away at a golf tournament last week, on an annual trip that doesn't afford me much reading time. Looking back at the Victoria Day weekend the past few years, I see there is always a gap in my reading each time. But I'm back on track now, and plan to finish it before I leave on another trip this Thursday.

When I do finish it, I might be in a bit of a conundrum with regards to what to read next. Right now I'm planning on reading A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, and I do currently have it out from the library. The problem is that it is getting more and more difficult to plan my next read, simply because there are fewer books to choose from.

Only 30 Books to Go!

As I begin to read The Adventures of Augie March, I realize that I really am on the home stretch right now, with only 30 books, including Augie, to go. I'd like to say I'll be done in a year, but I'm probably going to be close to a year and a half or more.

Regardless of when I end up finishing, the fact remains that I have only 30 books to read. While I was reading American Pastoral, I did manage to amass almost all of the remaining books at one time. I'm not sure why I felt compelled to do this, maybe as a way to see exactly how much I have left to read.

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.