I am so underread. (And only someone underread would even dare use an expression as ‘underread’.) It’s true, I don’t know a lick of contemporary literature. Except for the names you can’t escape, like Dan Brown, Rowling, or Tolkien, the rest of the authors’ names stir no recall to me. You might as well be reading off the batting order of the ’87 Cubs for all I know– and it would indeed produce the same dumb look in my expression.
So in effort to combat my own literary ignorance, I’ve taken on a new campaign for the new year. My goal is to read all 100 books from the Modern Library Best 100 Reader’s list. Firstly, I refuse to call it a “New Year’s Resolution”, and thereby nominate it for failure. Instead, I’m going to stick to using the word “goal”. Sounds silly and irrelevant, I imagine. But you see, with the word “goal”, you don’t feel like such a loser when you fail– like when use the word “resolution”. Actually, I would even suggest that with a goal, no one really expects you to succeed, and when you do, your accomplishment is met with nothing but lavish praise and incredulity.
So there you have it: my 100 book reading list. And I extend to you the same challenge. Let’s make it a goal.
I am amazed at how many science fiction books are on that list. And smug over how many I’ve already read. Take that Mr. I can name any classic author!
Try some Latin American literature:
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Jorge Luis Borges – Ficciones (English Translation)
Jorge Luis Borges – The Aleph and Other Stories
Mario Vargas Llosa – The Green House
Mario Vargas Llosa – Death in the Andes
Carlos Fuentes – The Death of Artemio Cruz
Augusto Roa Bastos – I, the Supreme
Laura Restrepo – Isle of Passion
Julio Cortázar – Blow Up: And Other Stories
Julio Cortázar – Bestiary
José Donoso – Hell Has No Limits
Manuel Puig – Kiss of the Spider Woman
Adolfo Bioy Casares – The Invention of Morel
Juan Carlos Onetti – Let the Wind Speak
Juan Rulfo – Pedro Paramo (English Translation)
Alan Pauls – The Past
Manuel Puig – Kiss of the spider woman
Tips:
* Don’t waste your valuable time reading L.Ron Hubbard’s books.
* Why so many works of Charles de Lint? He is not so relevant! Select only one or two and discard the others.
* SciFi is great, but Hemingway & Faulkner are waaay better, read them first (& Joyce, Steinbeck, Woolf, Kerouak, Burroughs, Lowry, Miller, Bowles, McCullers)
* Beguin the SciFi books with Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.
* You are doing well with the green ones (the “read after list”)
*Post some comments about the books you have already read, it’s a good exercise!
Good luck and happy reading!
Wow! Excellent advice. I will take it! You’re right, I going to replace the Hubbard book … not only do I NOT want to seduced into anything, they are also quite hard to find. Again, awesome advice!