Waiting and Wanting to Read…
Someone once said, “So many books and so little time” and the phrase cannot be more applicable to anyone but me. I have hoards of books to read. There are so many of them. What I fail to understand is the urge in me to read almost every single one. Why do I have this urge? Readers please answer if you know why. I for one have no clue. I have to read every Faulkner and then there is Joyce [whose books are unusually huge], Joyce Carol Oates is no less when it comes to writing volumes, and how can I leave Proust behind in the rat-race? Remembrance of Things Past still stares at me from my bookshelf every time I reach out for something else. I hate myself more for picking up a book, losing interest in it and then moving on to another. I wish I would get over this habit. I hate it. And yes I think it has become a habit now. Nonetheless here is a list [for all the lovers of lists] of books that I plan to finish reading by July 2008. Hope I accomplish the feat
· I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
· Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke
· The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
· Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
· Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
· The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
· Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
· Justine by Lawrence Durrell
· The Kingdom By The Sea by Paul Theroux
· Before Night Falls: A Memoir by Reinaldo Arenas
· Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
· East of Eden by John Steinbeck
· City of Glass by Paul Auster
· Ghosts by Paul Auster
· Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Becher Stowe
· The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia
· The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
· The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
· The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
· Music For Chameleons by Truman Capote
· The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain
· The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
· The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
· Beloved by Toni Morrison
· What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver
· The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
· I, Claudius by Robert Graves
· Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
· Testaments Betrayed by Milan Kundera
· Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
· Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
· Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
· Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
· The Grass Harp by Truman Capote
· A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote
· In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
· Answered Prayers: An Unfinished Novel by Truman Capote
· Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
· The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
· Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
· Ulysses by James Joyce
· Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
· The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
· One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi
· Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
· Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
· Night by Elie Wiesel
· Summer Crossing by Truman Capote
· Palace Walk : The Cairo Trilogy: Book 1 by Naguib Mahfouz
· Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
· The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
· To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
· Moby Dick by Herman Melville
· Light in August by William Faulkner
· Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
· Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
· Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
· Blindness by Jose Saramago
· Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
· If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino
· The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto ‘CHE’ Guevara
· House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
· The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
· Claudius the God by Robert Graves
· Underworld by Don DeLillo
· Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates
· Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
· The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
· Terrorist by John Updike
· The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
· Everyman by Philip Roth
· Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
· Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
· Life A User’s Manual by Georges Perec
· Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec
· No One Writes To The Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· Two Lives by Vikram Seth
· The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
· The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
· The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
· The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
· Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
· Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
· Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
· A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
· The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
· The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
· The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
· Wittgenstein’s Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
· Rabbit, Run by John Updike
· Rabbit, Redux by John Updike
· Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
· Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
· The Outsider by Albert Camus
· Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Someone once said, “So many books and so little time” and the phrase cannot be more applicable to anyone but me. I have hoards of books to read. There are so many of them. What I fail to understand is the urge in me to read almost every single one. Why do I have this urge? Readers please answer if you know why. I for one have no clue. I have to read every Faulkner and then there is Joyce [whose books are unusually huge], Joyce Carol Oates is no less when it comes to writing volumes, and how can I leave Proust behind in the rat-race? Remembrance of Things Past still stares at me from my bookshelf every time I reach out for something else. I hate myself more for picking up a book, losing interest in it and then moving on to another. I wish I would get over this habit. I hate it. And yes I think it has become a habit now. Nonetheless here is a list [for all the lovers of lists] of books that I plan to finish reading by July 2008. Hope I accomplish the feat
· I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
· Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke
· The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
· Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
· Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
· The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
· Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
· Justine by Lawrence Durrell
· The Kingdom By The Sea by Paul Theroux
· Before Night Falls: A Memoir by Reinaldo Arenas
· Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
· East of Eden by John Steinbeck
· City of Glass by Paul Auster
· Ghosts by Paul Auster
· Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Becher Stowe
· The Woman of Rome by Alberto Moravia
· The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
· The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
· The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
· Music For Chameleons by Truman Capote
· The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain
· The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
· The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
· Beloved by Toni Morrison
· What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories by Raymond Carver
· The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
· I, Claudius by Robert Graves
· Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
· Testaments Betrayed by Milan Kundera
· Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
· Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
· Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
· Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
· The Grass Harp by Truman Capote
· A Tree of Night and Other Stories by Truman Capote
· In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
· Answered Prayers: An Unfinished Novel by Truman Capote
· Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
· The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
· Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
· Ulysses by James Joyce
· Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
· The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
· One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi
· Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
· Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
· Night by Elie Wiesel
· Summer Crossing by Truman Capote
· Palace Walk : The Cairo Trilogy: Book 1 by Naguib Mahfouz
· Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
· The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
· To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
· Moby Dick by Herman Melville
· Light in August by William Faulkner
· Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
· Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
· Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
· Blindness by Jose Saramago
· Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
· If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino
· The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto ‘CHE’ Guevara
· House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
· The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
· Claudius the God by Robert Graves
· Underworld by Don DeLillo
· Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates
· Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
· The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
· Terrorist by John Updike
· The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
· Everyman by Philip Roth
· Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
· Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
· Life A User’s Manual by Georges Perec
· Species of Spaces and Other Pieces by Georges Perec
· No One Writes To The Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· Two Lives by Vikram Seth
· The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
· The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
· The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
· The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
· Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
· Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
· Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
· A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
· The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
· The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
· The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
· Wittgenstein’s Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
· Rabbit, Run by John Updike
· Rabbit, Redux by John Updike
· Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
· Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
· The Outsider by Albert Camus
· Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
posted by Vivek Tejuja at 3:43 AM
2 Comments:
Whoa that's quite an incredible list! I can never compile a list of books I must read (unless I've bought them already!)...
Possession is a great read, with it's incredible attention to detail and the whole Chinese box structure narrative with the Victorian interweaved with the modern day. Have you seen the movie?
Yes and i loved the film. I have read the book. just wanted to re-read it...i love the way the past and the present mingle in it.
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