I'm having a small internal crisis: I'm out-classed by all my friends. They're all total book nerds. Or at least literary types. Or at least they still read, which I haven't done properly for a while. Or at least I don't think Jonestown counts as literature. Sometimes I don't even quite get to the newspaper.
That all changes from today. I feel re-invigorated thanks to the loan of Maurice by Kate.
So I'm taking up reading again. A hobby I used to love. The only thing I love more is collecting books that I would one day like to read. (I have this funny OCD thing whereby I won't inscribe my name on the inside cover until such time as I've read the book. You don't really own it until you've read it, even if you paid for it. Signing it before you read it is fraud, in my book).
Anyway, I'm starting a list of books I should have read but haven't.
I welcome all suggestions.
Books I should have read but haven't
* Maurice, EM Forster
FOOTNOTE:
Anyone interested in starting a CNG Lender's Library? I've just offered-up half my collection to different people, so I'm sure between us all we'd have most of the Lit classics covered.
The Montegiallo School of Swearing
1 week ago
8 comments:
I'm acutally a little bit ashamed: I was talking to a friend about books not long ago and she asked me about In Cold Blood and I could only say "I've seen the movie Capote" which obviously earned me a rightful slap in the face. That To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye are on my to-read list, what can I say - not much american lit was on the list at Uni.
Oh my god they are both E-ssential reads. I have copies of both if you want to borrow them. To Kill A Mockingbird is just AMAZING literature. Catcher in the Rye is an odd kind of read. It takes a bit of time to get into his head and what he's saying and what it means, but it's a fascinating read. It wouldn't inspire me to murder, but nor would the song Helter Skelter. Perhaps I'm just not a psychopath afterall?
A bit hard to believe, really. just kidding. I've got heaps of modernist lit which I did study so if anyone's interested on suffering through James Joyce's Ulyses, Italo Calvino or Virgina Woolf (complete with authentic pencilled in notes in the margins) - I'm your girl. But my lack of classical reading, well yeah, it really is shameful.
Oh Dans you've beaten me to it. I was about to blog about the same thing. In my sights I have Brideshead Revisited, Atlas Shrugged and Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
I’m not sure what you have and have not read but the following are some of my favourites: The End of the Affair (Graham Green), The Great Gatsby (F.Scott Fitzgerald), Madam Bovary (Flaubert), The Virgin Suicides (Jeffery Eugenides), Catch 22 (Joseph Heller), After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (Jean Rhys), The Talented Mr Ripley (Patricia Highsmith), Regeneration (Pat Barker) and anything by PG Wodehouse or Douglas Adams.
Phew. Oh and obviously I've already taken advantage of the lending library... and I think I own all of the above.
Ooh, Atlas Shrugged is that uber (sorry Rach) capitalist stuff that makes Thatcher look like Lenin, yeah? Interesting. Opium Eater has long been on my list but can you get a copy these days? And Catch 22 was recommended to me 2 years ago while I was in OBH as something I would love, so I must get onto it.
Way ahead of you on the Adams and PGW front.
I feel a little vindicated because I have read Gatsby and that's seriously american. Have read Catch 22 at least, so its a start, I have both of those. I have a tattered copy of Conrad's HofD at home which I loved but haven't read in ages. Roy's God of Small Things changed my life and Life of Pi is, well, one of those books. Have both of them. Seems my reading centres on the Indian subcontinent for some reason. Had a really awful feeling when i unpacked new house and found a copy of Dan Brown in a box. Quickly returned it to whatever hell hole that spewed out of and washed hands in scalding water.
er... Jonestown (I did start it
I totally love Mockingbird... Billie Piper's Autobiography - Not so much.
Also, Lenders Library? I am also trying to read more of late too, but I keep getting sidetracked by cheesey popcorn books... Damn you "Dark Materials"
I highly reccomend Brave New World
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