Non-fiction is certainly fine to use. (And if anyone says otherwise, I'll sock 'em in the mouth!)I'm planning to use poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, and comics for my list. So far I have nine of the eleven needed. Once I decide on the other two, I'll post them all so that I can easily refer back to them.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
My first will be a D.H Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover) but I can't start it for another week or so.
"...You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?..." E. A. Poe
I'm up for this challenge. My first new writer of 2011 is Gabriel Josipovici; I'm reading his short story collection 'Heart's Wings'. It's pretty good.
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My first will likely be Georges Perec
Latest Blog: An Impassioned and Immediate Response to Dan Hodges, Political Writer, Daily Telegraph.
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Okay I have my list compiled. I'm going to post my complete list here and then return to report on it as I progress. Most of these authors/books, I've pulled from my "I'll get around to reading them sometime" pile. In making this list, I've tried to get a variety of authors and genres.
The list:
1. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Paul Verlaine.
I bought this book a while ago to participate in the poetry reading group on Litnet. But work and responsibilities took me away from the thread, so I never read a word of it.
2. Fiction -- Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown. I'm planning to renew/refresh my interest in early American literature
3. Philosophy --The Sense of Beauty by George Santayana. I like reading philosophy and a colleague told me that Santayana knew his way around a sentence, so I'm all in.
4. Fiction -- The Third Man by Graham Greene. I've never read much detective fiction. It's time.
5. Non-fiction -- Beyond the Aspen Grove by Ann Zwinger. I love nature/environmental non-fiction. And Zwinger has been inexcusably absent from my reading habits. Time to amend that mistake.
6. Drama -- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Never read it or anything else by Stoppard. And this book was given to me by a friend in grad school. Eleven years ago I told him I'd read it. Better late than never.
7. Poetry -- Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. He's a great contemporary American poet. And I've never read a thing he's written.
8. Non-fiction -- Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Bought it in a used book store for $.75. It looked interesting and the Collins book (above) borrows its title.
9. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Giacomo Leopardi. See the reason posted for the Verlaine selection.
10. Fiction -- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. A friend told me I should read it. I said "sure". That was four years ago. Another one of those "it's about time" books.
11. Comics -- Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski. Sounds interesting.
That's it. I'm already off to a good start on the Verlaine poetry.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
H'okay. Eleven works by authors who's books I have neeeever read. Here goes:
1. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk.
2. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
3. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (ugh...).
4. On The Road by Jack Kerouac (double ugh...).
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
7. Moby Dick by Harman Melville (I'll finally trudge through that chapter on whale breeds).
8. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
10. Anthem by Ayn Rand.
11. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
I'll edit a line through the ones that I read throughout the year. Fun, fun fun!
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 02-05-2011 at 12:33 AM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
Just finished Paul Verlaine's Selected Poems. It was alright. Most of the poems were erotic, which after a while seemed thematically repetitive. And a lot, honestly, sounded to me like they could have been written by a 14-year old kid on hormone enhancers.Originally Posted by The Comedian
Maybe I need to read more about the Symbolist movement to better appreciate this guy's work.
Last edited by The Comedian; 01-12-2011 at 11:03 PM.
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
1. The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brienn, been on my list a few years, saw it in my local secondhand shop yesterday
I'm in.
I think my first one shall be Homer.
Looking forward to that.
I'm not sure about my list, My first will be the book club selection, China Mieville. Then perhaps Steig Larson, and JW reminded me I want to try Chuck Palahniuk. After that I'm not sure what I want to do.
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda
I just finished reading The Odyssey by Homer, so that's officially my first one. I enjoyed it immensely. I haven't read any of the other translations, but I can recommend the Fitzgerald translation. It's very accessible.
Still working through Josipovici's Heart's Wings and other stories, which will be my second. It's a lovely read. Quirky and strange and strangely compelling.
Want to know what I think about books? Check out https://biisbooks.wordpress.com/
This seems like a cool idea. Well I started reading Jane Austen for my first author. Pride and Prejudice.
Next up is Charles Dickens - Bleak House
I am so glad that so many of us will be taking this challenge.
I don't think I will be making a list before hand; I will add authors as and when I read them throughout the year.
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
I'll have a go, but I'm already amazon delivered and committed to at least the next month or two. If I get into a new author, I'll pop them in here.
Looks like I'm tackling Moby Dick first. I'm nearly done the one I'm on right now, then I'll dig in.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
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