Thursday, April 9, 2009

Rachel's List

Fun project, thanks for starting!

I'm more likely to participate with a 50-book list than a 100-book list. Doing so gives me more freedom to read other things on the spur of the moment, or go on movie/TV binges as I frequently do during the year, without feeling like this has the pressure of a school assignment. So here's my 50-book list, all fiction. Bold = in progress. Italics = finished.

Amis: Lucky Jim
Atwood: Oryx and Crake
Beerbohm: Zuleika Dobson
Bellow: Humboldt's Gift
Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
Burroughs: Tarzan of the Apes
Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Childers: The Riddle in the Sands
Chopin: The Awakening
Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Coetzee: Disgrace
Collins: The Moonstone
Connolly: The Book of Lost Things
Doctorow: The Book of Daniel
Dreiser: An American Tragedy
Faulks: Birdsong
Gaiman: The Graveyard Book
Gaiman: Neverwhere
Gibson & Sterling: The Difference Engine
Golding: Lord of the Flies
Gruber: The Book of Air and Shadows
Hilton: Lost Horizon
Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ishiguro: Remains of the Day
Jerome: Three Men in a Boat
Kipling: Kim
Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover
Martel: Life of Pi
Moore: Fool
Nabokov: Lolita
Nemirovsky: Suite Francaise
Orczy: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Orwell: Animal Farm
Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49
Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho
Roth: Portnoy's Complaint
Saramago: Death with Interruptions [ABANDONED]
Schlink: The Reader
Selznick: The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Stendhal: The Charterhouse of Parma
Stephenson: Anathem
Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin
Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan
Wells: The War of the Worlds
Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilson: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
Wroblewski: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
Zusak: The Book Thief

8 comments:

moonrat said...

awesome, awesome list.

i love that you have UDOLPHO on there!! i just read NORTHANGER ABBEY (for my 100) and got to read ALLLL about Udolpho.

Rachel said...

Thanks! I read The Castle of Otranto last year, it was pretty fun -- thought I'd continue the gothic novel thing with a selection or two here...

Keshalyi said...

Was it good? I've always been told those novels were really horrible, sort of the Harlequin of the day. Same with Horatio Alger. But then, RL Stevenson wrote 'penny dreadfuls' and 'shilling shockers' so it's hard to know whether that's just high-nose talk :D

Rachel said...

It was silly and ridiculous, the language was laid on thick, and it was what I was in the mood for at the time. I may return to it in a few years, for another more critical reading -- but I did enjoy it!

"Penny Dreadfuls" is what I would name my rock band...

Amanda said...

Great rock band name! I want to read either Udolpho or Otranto (sp) before reading Northanger Abbey.

Keshalyi said...

How about 'Penny and the Dreadfuls'? Just for that punky touch... ;P

Emily Cross said...

John Connolly! YES!!!!!!


That is such a brilliant book! and so is the book thief - i sooooo highly recommend both of them!!! Great List!

Rachel said...

Just finished Chatterley; it was not really what I expected. The writing wasn't very smooth, and from a technical standpoint, it didn't really make me want to read any more D.H. Lawrence. But it was thought-provoking, especially the animal vs. industrial dichotomy. And I just saw The Black Swan, which already had me thinking about mind vs. body issues, so this fits into that as well...