February 26, 2011

New Reading List

So, I haven't had time to really read a book since Christmas. My schedule is calcitrating my glutimus maximus. For realsies.

But I did recently pick up a book I started a while ago, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I got it at Dollar Tree (They surprisingly have really good books.). Their book section is filled with Southern Christians trying to save you or really witty books with dry humor that the masses didn't like (Diverse, no?). Well, this is one of the most intelligent books that I have ever read. It is about a genius with a genius daughter, and she is ready to break free. It sounds cliche, but it is the most constricted breaking free ever, and it is so well written.

Well, the point to this ramble is that the author, Marisha Pessl, named all of her chapters after books that you need to know. Usually, these lists are normally too pretentious or too mainstream, but this list seems to be a good mix. There is a little theory, a few classics, and there is always room for Shakespeare. So, I will take Blue van Meer's, the protagonist, advice and try to complete her required reading:

  1. Othello- Shakespeare (Completed)
  2. A Portrait of The Artist As a Young Man- Joyce
  3. Wuthering Heights- Bronte
  4. The House of the Seven Gables- Hawthorne
  5. The Woman in White- Collins
  6. Brave New World- Huxley (In Progress)
  7. Les Liasions Dangereuses- de Laclos
  8. Madame Bovary- Flaubert
  9. Pygmalion- Shaw
  10. The Mysterious Affair at Styles- Christie
  11. Moby Dick- Melville
  12. A Moveable Feast- Hemingway
  13. Women In Love- Lawrence
  14. The Housebreaker of Shady Hill- Cheever
  15. Sweet Bird of Youth- Williams
  16. Laughter in The Dark- Nabakov
  17. The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales- Quiller-Couch
  18. A Room With a View- Forster
  19. Howl and Other Poems- Ginsberg
  20. The Taming of The Shrew- Shakespeare
  21. Deliverance- Dickey
  22. Heart of Darkness- Conrad (Completed)
  23. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest- Kesey (Completed)
  24. One Hundred Years of Solitude- Marquez
  25. Bleak House- Dickens
  26. The Big Sleep- Chandler
  27. Justine- Sade
  28. Quer Pisticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulanu- Gadda
  29. Things Fall Apart- Achebe
  30.  The Nocturnal Conspiracy- Harvey
  31. Che Guevera Talks To Young People- Serna
  32. Good Country People- O'Conner (Completed)
  33. The Trial- Kafka
  34. Paradise Lost- Milton
  35. The Secret Garden- Burnett (Completed)
  36. Metamorphoses- Ovid
Let's see how this goes...

3 comments:

  1. I have Wuthering Heights and The Taming of the Shrew if you want to borrow. Also, Things Fall Apart is really good. Really really sad, but good. I had to read it last semester.

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  2. Oh, I have One Hundred Years of Solitude as well.

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  3. Awesome... now I just need time to read them. I need May 3 to come faster.

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