Classic Consumption
Sunday, August 7, 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The List
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
2. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison
4. The Best Short Stories, O. Henry
5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
6. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
8. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
9. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
10. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Cry, The Beloved, Alan Paton
12. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
13. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
14. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
15. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
16. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
17. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
18. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
19. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
20. Jane Eyre 1847, Charlotte Bronte
21. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
22. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
23. My Antonia, Willa Cather
24. Native Son, Richard Wright
25. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell
26. Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
27. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
28. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
29. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
30. The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
31. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
32. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
33. A Separate Peace, John Knowles
34. Silas Marner, George Eliot
35. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
36. The Stranger, Albert Camus
37. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
38. Tales, Edgar Allan Poe
39. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
40. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
41. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
42. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
43. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
44. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
45. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
46. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Pages and Lovers
Ok, I'll stop my bawdy drivel. I'm talking about books - the classics to be precise. The kind of time-honored books that for generations have careened readers' imaginations into the unknown, that have jolted awake the hibernating corners of thoughts and souls. (Are these not the idyllic reactions we crave from a lover?)
It's settled then! This blog, to be clear, serves several purposes. 1) It holds me accountable to a goal I've long held - reading these books that, for whatever inexcusable reasons, have escaped my grasp. 2) It will remind me of the content and accompanying rapture/musings/contemplations that surfaced as a result of each (I seem to have shit for brains when it comes to long-term recollection.) And finally - this is where you come in... 3) It's a chance for me to get suggestions and feedback from friends. Read along, chime in, offer additions to the list, enjoy, grimace, disregard, whatever.
I've begun the preliminary list from a Cincinnati Library compilation I found online. Again, I assume it will be ever-expanding, and is absolutely open to recommendation. I will cross the titles off as I finish them. Those that have already been stricken have previously been read and may be revisited later now that I've (hopefully) gained at least a grain of acuity since the good 'ole high school days.
List to come...