More Books!

So I still don't know what exactly this blog is for, but I figure since I have it I may as well use it. Since the previous post is entirely about books I hope to read or at least try to read soon, I'm going to continue by talking about the amazing phenomenon I participated in today: The James Prendergast Library Booksale. I ended up there by accident really; I had to return some books in between Jordan's and my wisdom teeth follow-up appointment and picking Kyle up from his allergist appointment, so when we got to the library we ended up wandering around and observing the beauty that is the booksale. Ok, so probably not everyone would call it beautiful, and to be honest I definitely had some moments of "Augh too many people all around me augh augh". But the diverse blend of people that show up there, not to mention the wide variety of books, was pretty incredible. The one other thing that was incredible? The prices. Seriously, where else can you get a hardcover book for $1.25 (or $1.00 if you buy 10 or more) and a paperback for $1.00 ( $.75 if you buy 10 or more)? If you know of that place, send me there and I will never leave.

Basically what I am trying to say is that I walked out of the library with 7 books for which I paid a whopping $5.75 total. Several of those books are on the previously posted "106 books of pretension" (or mind-broadening, in my case) list. So to update my reading list, I now have (in addition to Catch 22, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility) Jane Eyre, The Count of Monte Cristo, Brave New World, The Prophet, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Canterbury Tales, The Poisonwood Bible, (which Kyle actually bought) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which Kyle also bought). So basically I have my reading list for the summer, and we got other books that aren't on the list if I finish all of those. In all the free time that I always have. Ha. Ha.

Anyways, if you've never bought 7 books for less than six dollars total, I would definitely recommend it...it's a pretty sweet feeling.

In an effort to broaden my horizons

I decided to do this list of "106 books of pretension" that Kyle has been talking about almost nonstop since we've been home. In a recent expedition to a used bookstore in Mayville, I realized that my literary horizons are rather narrow (as in, I read way too much fantasy and science fiction and I read the same books over and over again) In other words, I do not want to do this list in order to seem pretentious, I merely want to use it as a suggested list of books to read.

A key to the formatting is: *books I've never even heard of*, books I've heard of but never read, books I've read, books I've started but never finished or read only part of, and books I've read, but in a dumbed-down version for kids or abridged version. A ! indicates that I own the book and/or plan to read it soon.

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell !
   
2. Anna Karenina
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Catch-22
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude
6. Wuthering Heights
7. The Silmarillion
8. Life of Pi : a novel
9. *The Name of the Rose*
10. Don Quixote
11. Moby Dick
12. Ulysses
13. *Madame Bovary*
14. The Odyssey
15. Pride and Prejudice
    
16. Jane Eyre
17. The Tale of Two Cities
18. The Brothers Karamazov
19. *Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies*
20. War and Peace
21. Vanity Fair
    
22. The Time Traveler’s Wife
23. The Iliad
24. Emma
25. *The Blind Assassin*
26. The Kite Runner
27. *Mrs. Dalloway*
28. Great Expectations (stupid 9th grade English)
    
29. American Gods
30. *A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*
31. Atlas Shrugged
32. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books !
    
33. Memoirs of a Geisha
    
34. Middlesex
35. *Quicksilver*
36. Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
37. The Canterbury tales !
38. *The Historian : a novel*
39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. Love in the Time of Cholera (I have actually read the whole thing, but blogger is being dumb and not letting me get rid of the italics.
    
41. Brave New world
42. The Fountainhead
43. Foucault’s Pendulum
44. *Middlemarch*
45. Frankenstein
46. The Count of Monte Cristo
47. Dracula
48. A Clockwork Orange
49. Anansi Boys
50. The Once and Future King
51. The Grapes of Wrath
52. The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
53. 1984
    
54. Angels & Demons
55. The Inferno
56. The Satanic Verses
57. Sense and Sensibility
    
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. Mansfield Park
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. *To the Lighthouse*
62. *Tess of the D’Urbervilles*
63. Oliver Twist
64. Gulliver’s Travels
65. Les Misérables
    
66. *The Corrections*
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
69. Dune
70. The Prince
71. The Sound and the Fury
72. Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
    
73. *The God of Small Things*
74. *A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present*
75. *Cryptonomicon*
    
76. Neverwhere
77. *A Confederacy of Dunces*
78. A Short History of Nearly Everything
79. Dubliners
80. *The Unbearable Lightness of Being*
81. Beloved
82. Slaughterhouse-five
83. The Scarlet Letter
84. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
85. The Mists of Avalon
    
86. *Oryx and Crake : a novel*
87. *Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed*
88. *Cloud Atlas*
89. *The Confusion*
90. *Lolita*
91. Persuasion
92. Northanger Abbey
93. The Catcher in the Rye
94. On the Road
95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
96. *Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything*
97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
98. The Aeneid
99. Watership Down
100. *Gravity’s Rainbow*
101. The Hobbit
102. *In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences*
103. *White Teeth*
104. Treasure Island
105. David Copperfield
106. The Three Musketeers

In case you're wondering, I didn't start this blog just for this list, but I did start it because I needed to put this list somewhere and I didn't have the heart to make any changes to my Ecuador blog...it's too sentimental. If I use this blog for anything, it will probably be for rambling.

Edit: 12/11/08 I updated some of the books I've read since starting this...I sort of forgot about this whole blog, but I felt that my excursions into literary variety should be made known.
Edit: 5/13/09 Updated again...a couple of these by Neil Gaiman I read without even knowing they were on here. And I have now read every Jane Austen novel except Northanger Abbey. Oh, and also...a book that isn't on here but should be is Corelli's Mandolin. I just read it and it is excellent.
Edit: 12/24/10 Updated once more.  I have definitely started more books since the last time I updated, but most of the ones I started got left hanging...hmm...