Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Reading Deliberately 2011

Last January I decided to try and read more deliberately. I believe the quality of the books that I read in 2010 was much higher than in 2009. I think this is in part due to my leaving my real world book club (and therefore cutting out books I didn't really want to read) but also reading some great books that I have intended to read for a long time but never seemed to get to. I therefore am going to try it again this year.

Books I intended to read in 2010 and still intend to read in 2011:

Gold Bug Variation by Richard Powers
The Castle by Franz Kafka
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Lost City of Z by David Grann (nonfiction)

There are also books that I have that would be perfect for challenges that I intend to participate in:

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer - Once Upon a Time
The City and the City by China Mieville - Once Upon a Time
Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - RIP

In addition I would like to read a book about Art, a book about Food, a book about Books or Reading, a nonfiction book as well as something from the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels List which I am extremely slowly working through (The Sound and the Fury is on it).

This is a shorter list than last year but perhaps I can complete it this year and I reserve the right to add to it as I am sure I am leaving something important out.

2 comments:

Bellezza said...

I've been intrigued about Satanic Verses after hearing it was banned, or attempted to be; I read something about that in Hirsi's novel Infidel, and ever since I've wanted to pick up Rushdie's famous novel.

Moo said...

I bought Satanic Verses when it was in the news because of the Fatwa (indeed it seemed to be flying off the shelf at the time). I have moved it around with me for all these years (since 1989) and have never read it, although I have read other Rushdie that I enjoyed. I am looking forward to it.