Over the Clover

2012 Reading List

This is the fifth year I'm making a list of books I *must* read in the coming year. While that must becomes softer each year, I'm still going to do my best to get through these this year. The theme of this year (if there was one) would be things-I-can't-seem-to-start-or-finish. Fittingly, about half of the list will be books I did not complete last year.

The 2012 Reading List:

1. Within a Budding Grove-I have spent the last three years not making time for this second volume. So this year it goes at the top where I can't so easily forget about it.
2. 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America-Dystopian choice for this year.
3. Corrections-Just as this one sat on my shelf for years, I'm now having a hard time finishing it. While I've enjoyed parts of it, the writing and the plot give me anxiety.
4. Razor's Edge-Been looking at this one on the shelf since 2006.
5. Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf-Was about halfway through this book somewhere back in 2008 but never finished.
6. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Reading the first 12 stories. Finished the first 4 last year.
7. Man's Search for Meaning-I've started this book at least 3 times. I never get halfway. But I do always lose my place and never know where I left off. Not that it matters. It's rough, rough subject matter (almost nothing is harder for me to read than things related to the Holocaust) but it's one of those I know I have to read at least once in my life.
8. Reasons to Live-Short stories from last year's list.
9. World War Z-For the obligatory October read.
10. Member of the Wedding-It's still about time I read something by McCullers.
11. Castle Rackrent-A classic read. Short and returning from last year's list.
12. Laws of Simplicity-Small nonfiction book I picked up on a trip and I often wonder why I haven't actually sat down and read it by now.

So, this year is about wrapping up loose ends, bookwise.

Reading List for 2011

So, it's a new year again and time to look over my shelf for a must-reads list.

This is what I plan to read in 2011:

1. Brave New World-Dystopian novel I started to read in high school, got distracted and never got back to it
2. Rashomon-Sort of returning from last year. I read the short story last year, but I later realized I have two books that both include it in a collection of short stories. I'm reading the more recent one with an introduction by Haruki Murakami.
3. Corrections-One that's been waiting around on my shelf for years.
4. Persepolis-A literary graphic novel about being a woman in Iran
5. Perfume-Kept hearing about it a lot a couple of years ago but never got around to reading it
6. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-After seeing the movie "retelling" in 2010 I suddenly have a new interest in Sherlock Holmes. I'm hoping to finish all 24 stories before the sequel comes out sometime this year
7. Razor's Edge-Haven't read anything by Maugham before
8. Reasons to Live-Curiosity. People seem to love or hate it but are hard pressed to understand why
9. Vampyre-For the obligatory October read
10. Member of the Wedding-About time to read something by McCullers
11. Castle Rackrent-A classic read
12. Sound of a Wild Snail Eating-Have been fascinated by this book's concept

This year's focus is more modern than the last few years. Other than two I believe all the books are 20th or 21st century reads. Also there are a lot more short stories than I usually read in a year.

Not specifically on the list but I also hope to get to the second volume of Proust. And I'd like to start a four-volume set of classic short stories. OK, here goes...

Reaching December

It's December, and I'm still working my way through the last of my list. I am currently reading:

• The Confidence Man (yes, still)
• Wanting Seed

And I need to start

• The Professor's House
• Rashomon

But I ran into a snag when I discovered that Rashomon is actually just a short story. I have two books named Rashomon but with a variety of other stories making up the extant. (I probably should have looked into this before now, but it's a bit of a pickle.) I know I don't have time to read both books and am really (at the moment) only interested in Rashomon proper.

So, in order to fix the problem, I will read the short story and add something else to the list. I am going to read a novella from Charles Dickens called The Haunted Man. It's seasonly timely, and it saves me from trying to cram in 300-400 more pages.

Daunting November

It's November, and I'm still only halfway through my reading list for the year.

Sigh.

The list is a paltry 12 but it's just getting the better of me. I didn't read anything for six months because I was so wrapped up in school. Now I'm trying to catch up.

I hope this won't be the first year I fall short of the finish line.

Still to start:

• The Wanting Seed
• Rashoman
• Hindsight
• Professor's House

Still to finish:

• To the Wedding
• Confidence Man

Reading list for 2010

Looking forward to 2010. This is the third year I'm making a list of books I must read in the coming year. So far it's helped me to read more than I normally think I have time for. The first year I made an ambitious list of 24 books, last year it was 12. I think I'm going to stick to 12 as a rule. It's not too much pressure and it's psychologically one book per month.

This is what I'm most interested in reading in 2010:

1. Confidence Man-A less well known Dickens novel
2. Rashomon-Been on the shelf and going to see the restored movie in a few months*
3. The Catcher in the Rye-Because I should have read this one by now
4. Wanting Seed-Obligatory dystopian novel
5. Wind-Up Bird Chronicle-Because I seem to be reading one Murakami a year and this was the one I intended to start with years ago
6. Hindsight-A book that was seen/mentioned on Lost
7. Island of Dr. Moreau-Because I have to read something creepy every year in October
8. To the Wedding-I've meant to read a Berger fictional work for years
9. The Professor's Wife-I've never actually read anything by Willa Cather
10. Heart of Darkness-Another classic I never got around to reading
11. Notes from the Underground-Introducing myself to Dostoevsky
12.Body Artist-Another author I've yet to read

I think the theme this year is mostly to read people and books that I've missed or put off.

I'm also going to continue with In Search of Lost Time. I have no idea how many volumes I'll get through so I'm not going to put any pressure on myself. I might finish it or I might just read one more book. We'll see. Just really looking forward to this year's reading list.

*Since I discovered late in the year that Rashomon is a short story in a collection of short stories, I decided just to read Rashomon and to add The Haunted Man by Charles Dickens to the list as a supplement.

50 Books in 50 States

Recently I have been thinking about how some books are really good at evoking how it feels to live in particular states. I am going to add to this list as I find books that fit into each state. I hope to be able to find one for each state.

Alabama = To Kill a Mockingbird
Idaho = Housekeeping
Michigan = Middlesex
Ohio = Winesburg, Ohio

Reading list for 2009

I am not going to make a crazy list like last year. Twenty books, while not a lot to some people who read like 200 a year, was in fact, quite challenging for me. But then the real challenging part is just sticking to what I pick. So in the spirit of balance, I am giving myself a break and going with a list of 12 book this year. I am sure I will.read more than that in 2009 but I need to bring back some spontaneity. 

1.  Hedonism Handbook by Michael Flocker
2.  Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
3.  Blindness by Jose Saramago
4.  Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart
5.  Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
6.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
7.  Remembrance of Things Past* by Marcel Proust
8.  Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
9.  The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
10. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
11. On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev
12. Collection of short stories by Graham Green

*I contemplated how much of this seven volume set to try and read in one year. I am going to read the first book, Swann's Way and then see how much further I get. If I get halfway I'll be delighted, but it not, I'll just keep reading a volume or two a year until I finish.

What to read next?

I am thinking about what to put on my reading list for 2009.

I keep thinking about Proust. I keep waffling. It's hard to commit to something that's 4000 pages long and as I've been told is about sponges, insomnia, and other random thoughts. I never really thought too much about it until I watched this scene from Little Miss Sunshine.

Little Miss Sunshine

So, I think I'm going to end up trying to read all seven volumes in 2009. That means the rest of my reading list is going to be much shorter than this year's list of 20--plus extras. (Speaking of that, I really need to finish those last three books as I'm running out of time in the calendar.)

The other thing I am thinking about while trying to make my list for next year is the topic of re-reading. I have never gone back and re-read a book. I have a somewhat frenzied outlook on book reading. There doesn't seem to be enough time to re-read anything. But then I listened to a Slate podcast about The Great Gatsby. All of the people on the podcast were re-reading the book years after having read it in high school. They talked about how re-reading is a mark of your own evolution and it's like revisiting and relearning things about yourself. And then I ran across a line of text where David Sedaris wrote that he re-reads his favorite book, Revolutionary Road, every single year. Both ideas are intriguing. So, I am considering adding one book next year to re-read. That book would definitely have to be Watership Down, a book I read and loved as a teenager.

To be continued in January...

End of the year

I am getting a bit nervous about finishing up my list of books for the year. I have three more to finish but there are only 40 days until the end of the year! Two books I have already started, The Enormous Room and Winesburg, Ohio. The other is a little known book called The Day Off. Perhaps soon my fear will be sufficient to get me in gear so I stop doing some of the other things that distract me (like online scrabble.)

At least I am not doing nanowrimo this year. I am overjoyed not to be doing that actually. This year I opted for the easier challenge of nablopomo. Although it is a completely different challenge trying to post without missing a day, it's definitely not the crazy uberstress of trying to write a novel in a single month.

More books

I haven't yet finished my 2008 list of books to read. In fact, this is the first year I've ever made a list of books to read. I was always sort of against the idea because I thought it made reading too stringent and boring. I believed the list would make reading less spontaneous and fun.

What I've come to realize is that I'm actually reading a lot more. The list is keeping me on track and making me super productive. (I'm easily distracted, so perhaps I needed to learn to a tad less spontaneous with my reading.) The lessons we learn aren't always the ones we set out to learn.

With only two and a half more books to get through on the list, I'm going to challenge myself some more:

11. Winesburg, Ohio (plan to read this during my July roadtrip to Ohio)
12. Madame Bovary (reading this one with a friend)
13. Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia (biography of growing up in Connecticut)
14. Housekeeping (suggested by a friend)
15. The Lottery and other Short Stories (because Shirley Jackson is one of my favorites)
16. The Enormous Room (biography of e.e.cummings's experience in a foreign prison)
17. Kafka on the Shore (because I've yet to read anything by Murakami)
18. Looking Backward (utopian novel I've been planning on reading since high school)
19. Day Off (on the 1001 book list and haven't ever read anything by Jameson)
20. Wuthering Heights (reading with a friend)