Update

So, yeah, that happened.

I'm unemployed and I'm moving to Chicago. The former makes reading a little bit easier, I suppose. The latter means that I am FREAKING OUT. Well, the former means I'm freaking out, too, but unemployment compensation and readily available alcohol tend to mitigate that particular brand of crazy.

I figure that I might not be able to read a hundred pages a day right now. But I still have to read, want to read. And I want to get through the list. Or some list, anyway. I have a plan, is what I'm saying. I'm going to go through the list, update it and publish it. And then I'm going to start reading books on the list, try to get through one or so a week. It's good, after all, to have goals.

Which means I'm back, I guess.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Book List

I've finished Scott Pilgrim. Immensely enjoyable. I'll have a review up next week. Why next week? Because I still have to finish my review of Team of Rivals. Which I've also finished.

I had wanted to include at least one graphic novel on the List, if not a few. Scott Pilgrim presented itself as an opportunity. My old friend Ted Butler recommended it to me. I'm going to have to listen to him more often. The List should have at least one other graphic novel or piece of sequential art. I've read Watchmen, several times, loving it more each time. With that and V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I believe I've got my Alan Moore bases covered. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is another all-time favorite; Sin City, too, as Frank was well on his way to becoming a caricature. The Authority and Transmetropolitan, Road to Perdition and A History of Violence (a rare instance where the movie is a million times better), We3, too.

What other graphic novels/manga/comic book collections do I need to read?

Done with Whores, in the midst of Rivals

I finished Parliament of Whores over the weekend. Expect a review midweek. Actually, I've written the review, but it needs a polish. I am, as of this writing, 130-odd pages into Team of Rivals, with another 40 or so due tonight.

I'm debating what to read next. My primary criterion is fiction. For this project, I've read one non-fiction book and am well into a second. Looking back over my library records, the last five books I've read are non-fiction. Surely, I need to escape from all this reality. Yet indecision grips me. Historically, either Roughing It or Moby-Dick would make sense depending on which direction I choose. Why not follow either of these with Leaves of Grass? Journeying backwards, I could follow Whitman with Emerson and pummel anyone left with American Lion. Fears of descending into the morass of nineteenth century history and culture plague me. Moderation in all things is called for.

I think I shall choose among these:
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Corrections
Or maybe something by Cormac McCarthy.

Recommendations?

The Book List - Initial Take

Here's the book list, in no particular order. I'm also open to suggestions, via either comment or e-mail:

Definite:
King Lear
Macbeth
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
Travels with Charley
Leaves of Grass
Eat, Pray, Love
Hamlet
Roughing It
Christian Community Bible, OT
Christian Community Bible, NT
The Life of Thomas More
Emerson: Selected Essays
Godel, Escher, Bach
American Lion
Notes of a Native Son
Moby-Dick
The Great Gatsby
Parliament of Whores
Team of Rivals
Catch-22
Heart of Darkness
Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?
Uncle Vanya
The Three Sisters
The Peloponnesian War
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Corrections
Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me
Loser Goes First
Infinite Jest
Army at Dawn
The Post-American World
A Tale of Two Cities

Maybes (These are under consideration but may be cut for space, time, lack of interest...):
Practical Ethics
Plato's Republic
The Once and Future King
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
A People's History of the United States
Don Quixote
Ulysses
Dante's Inferno
The Prince
Underworld
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Parable of the Talents
Aristotle's Poetics

Authors (I want to read something by each of these authors):
Cormac McCarthy
Jonathan Lethem
José Saramago
John Updike (likely a Rabbit book)

The Manifesto

For the next year I'm going to read 100 pages a day.

I want to be a writer. To be a writer, one has to be a reader. I am a reader. I've been a reader all my life. But lately, which is to say, in my adulthood, I've let the habit slip. Reading is a pleasure I enjoy all too rarely. This is an opportunity to enjoy it a little bit more.

36,525 pages. I've already picked out almost 10,000. And I've got another 5,000 or so generally reserved, inasmuch as I know that a book or an author will be on the list, but may not know what edition of the book, or which book I'm going to read. Frankly, there are a few on the list that scare me (Ulysses, The Pelopennesian War). Some books, I've tried to read for more than 5 years, and just haven't gotten through them. The shame of public failure will, I hope, encourage my best efforts this time. I plan to hold somewhere around 5,000 pages in reserve for good books that have come out in the last five years, up to and including this year. Lastly, I'm taking suggestions. The list is fluid, with a few anchors. Someday soon, I'll publish the List So Far.

Does this effort value quantity over quality? Maybe. I've got the Bible, Hamlet and Leaves of Grass on the list. People have spent their entire lives studying these books. I might breeze through them in 3 weeks time. On the other hand, I am going to read Travels with Charley, Parliament of Whores and Can't Anybody Here Play This Game, each of which will likely take about an afternoon to read. I read Travels With Charley every few years, I've probably perused it at least ten times. It's not a crash course in Literature, Western or otherwise. I'm not trying to do the Great Books list (though I freely admit stealing from it). The point is that I want to read these books. The knowledge therein, the treasures to be found, are what I'm after. Were one to mine for gold, one could spend a lifetime exhausting a lode, or search all over, finding veins in many different places. Whether you're a poet or a financier, it pays to diversify your sources.

On completion of a book, I'll write a review. I'll probably post tidbits along the way. Don't expect something quite as wordy as what appears in the NYT Book Review. It's new media, baby. I don't want to get into a lot of tl;dr. This verges as it is. It would be a lie if I said I didn't care if anyone followed along. And I'd be a fool if I thought this would bring me fortune and glory. This is an autodidactic exercise in self-discipline. Ultimately, it's about me. But I hope that it's interesting in the execution.