The Shadow of Chez

Here’s my plan: I’m going to read 25 books in 2010. I know this probably doesn’t sound like a lot, but it works out to about a book every 2 weeks. Given that I will be working, going to school, and have other ‘everyday’ obligations this may be tougher than it first appears.

The idea came to me when I read that the Booker Prize judges have to read 100 books in about 100 days, which is about a book a day. There’s no way i could do that. But I thought I could do 50 books in a year. But after compiling a book list, and seriously thinking about it, I thought that would be a tad overzealous as well. So I decided to widdle the list to 25 and this is what I have come up with:

Cloudstreet Tim Winton	The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde	The Outsider Albert Camus
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll	The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne	Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs
Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome	Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol	The Castle Franz Kafka
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov	All The Names Jose Saramago	The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Mordecai Richler
World According to Garp  John Irving	The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood	The Turn of the Screw Henry James
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes	Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe	Something Happened Joseph Heller
Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift	As I Lay Dying William Faulkner	A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
Walden Henry David Thoreau	The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith	Kangaroo D.H. Lawrence
	Briefing for a Descent into Hell Doris Lessing

(Note: Titles with a line through them,like this, have been read. Click on the title to read my exciting review.)

My criteria for choosing the list was simple. It had to be a book I’ve never read before. It had to have some sort of import in the history of literature. And it had to be something I wanted to read. I realize this one is a bit subjective, but I figured if I didn’t keep my interest up then I wouldn’t get through them.

As I go I will keep a reading journal. It will include: my progress, thoughts on the current book, and other things that may be happening at the time.

I will try to keep it interesting for those reading my entries.

Anyway, here’s to 2010. Happy reading.

*To go to the 25 in 2010 archive, click here.