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

Twenty Down, Eighty To Go

This is a little late, but the reason I didn't post it earlier is a good one; I was reading.  I raced through my 21st book from The List last week, and have made a good dent into number 22.  My goal of finishing 25 within a year is still in reach.  Now back to my regularly scheduled twenty book re-cap...

After almost one year, I'm a fifth of my way through the list.  I have now read more books in the past eleven months, then I did in the previous eleven years.  When I think about how much I've been reading, and how much of The List I've been through, I then start to think about what it will be like to actually finish all 100 books.  Will I be relieved because I don't have any more mandatory reading, or will I miss the military-like direction it will have provided me for so long?  I suppose it'll be like eating your first KFC Double Down; you don't how you'll react until you're finished.

I've been thinking a lot recently about how to summarize twenty novels.  My first thought was to talk about which book I liked the most and which I like the least, and discuss my overall impressions of the books.  But I've decided I should leave that for the end, as I'd rather talk about my favorite book from all 100, instead of my favorite so far and then always be comparing that novel to others from the second twenty, and so on.  So instead, I'm going to go through the first twenty 'by the numbers':


Misc.:
Shortest - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - 171 pages
Longest - Midnight's Children - 589 pages
Oldest - The Great Gatsby - 1925
Newest - Atonement  - 2002
Longest Reading Time - To the Lighthouse - 56 days
Shortest Reading Time - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - 4 hours
Books Started but Not Finished - 1 (Neuromancer)
Books borrowed from Library and returned, unread - 1 (All the King's Men)

Books by Decade:                                           Books by Letter:
1920's - 3         1960's - 2                                 A - 1     H - 1     P - 1
1930's - 4         1970's - 1                                 B - 2      I  - 1     S - 2
1940's - 1         1980's - 3                                 C - 3      L - 3     T - 2
1950's - 4         1990's - 0                                 D - 1     M - 1
1970's - 1         2000's - 2                                 G - 1     N - 1

Nationality:
Books by American Authors - 11
Books by British Authors - 9
Books by American Authors but published in other country's because of oppressive US obscenity laws - 2

Source of Book:
From the library - 16
Borrowed from friends - 3
Books I own - 1

Library Fines:
Midnight's Children - $3.15
Atonement - $0.70
To The Lighthouse - $1.05
The Power and the Glory - $1.05
Total Fines: $8.05

References to The List:
The Corrections - A character is reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Atonement - One character reads a book by Virginia Woolf, author of two books from The List.
Ragtime - Theodore Dreiser, author of a book from The List, is a character

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

Only Eighty Books to Go!