Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Reading Challenge! 25 books before Labor Day!

A friend of mine is having a reading challenge on her blog: http://www.andilit.com/?p=640

I have answered the call.

This is the list of Books I Know I Will Love and Have Been Putting Off Reading:

1. The Great Fire - Shirley Hazzard (Assigned for a seminar, but I ran out of time.)
2. About A Boy – Nick Hornby (Loved Fever Pitch even though I don’t really like soccer, adore High Fidelity, and How to be Good was pretty okay. I know I’ll enjoy this one.)
3. The Learners - Chip Kidd (The Cheese Monkeys is close to my heart.)
4. The Story of My Life: The Restored Classic – Helen Keller (I’ve been fascinated with her life since second grade. I memorized the kids’ book version of her biography.)
5. A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39 – Nicola Beauman (The author started the beautiful Persephone book publishing company, and chose books to publish based on her research here.)
6. The Shuttle – Frances Hodges Burnett (A Persephone book about marriages spanning the Atlantic.)
7. Somehow Form a Family: Stories That Are Mostly True – Tony Earley (I’ve read one essay already, and enjoyed.)
8. When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America - Paula Giddings (I’ve been meaning to read this since I took Race, Racism and the Feminist Movement at Fairhaven.)
9. Heartburn – Nora Ephron (I can’t remember if it was Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Sara Nelson, Meghan Daum or even Sarah Vowell who wrote about having lent this book to an acquaintance, never received it back, and then hunted them down to get it back. I’ll read it on that basis alone.)
10. Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man - Susan Faludi (Adored Backlash.)
11. High Wages – Dorothy Whipple (Another Persephone book about a girl who opens her own dressmaking shop.)
12. Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson (I started this book, didn’t want it to end, didn’t finish.)
13. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (Ibid.)
14. Under the Dome – Stephen King (Just haven’t gotten there yet.)
15. Lucky – Alice Sebold (My sister loved this. That doesn’t always translate, but I think it will in this case.)
16. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby (Always assigned, never read. Time.)
17. Consider The Lobster and Other Essays – David Foster Wallace (I am loathe to read his last writings. But they’re so fun I can’t resist.)
18. Zelda: A Biography – Nancy Milford (I adored Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay.)
19. 501 Minutes to Christ: Personal Essays – Poe Ballantine (His essays are amazing.)
20. Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire – Poe Ballantine (I didn’t love his first novel as much as his essays, but I will try again for him.)
21. The White Album – Joan Didion (I read the title essay and was amazed. I had not enjoyed much of her other work. I’ll give this its own chance.)
22. The Women’s Room – Marilyn French (Been meaning to read this classic.)
23. Coraline – Neil Gaiman (Well, just duh.)
24. American Gods – Neil Gaiman (Ibid.)
25. The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination - Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar (Wanted to read this ever since I saw the title in a Fairhaven class bibliography.)
26. Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers - Daniel Ellsberg (I am fascinated with the whole Watergate truth to power thing. I have All The President’s Men (movie) memorized. I heard him speak on NPR.)