January First: goals have been spoken aloud, auto-da-fe have been handed down, and gauntlets have been thrown. The Annual Read-Whatcha-Got Challenge has begun (yes, I re-named it!).
As the ancient Mayan prophecies foretold, it is now 2012 - the End of the To Be Read Pile!!!!!!
It can be looked at as a literary housecleaning, a feng shui re-orientation of your narrative spirit. The rules are simple: from 1 January until 1 April, you will read no new books. Read my blog: No. New. Books. You can only read books you have already purchased and which, quite frankly, are beginning to lean precariously over the edge of your nightstand, threatening to topple over onto your head while you sleep (most likely dreaming of all the books you're going to buy, you insatiable bastard).
You must read only those books, and read only those books you shall. It is a challenge, it is a goal, and it is an endurance test. It will be long. It will be grueling. You will curse the day you ever agreed to do something so publicly stupid. You will go mad watching all the shiny, new books rolling by. The endless "Best Books of 2011" lists and the upcoming Tournament of Books will be especially torturous. The way is dark and lit only by the flaming bodies of those who have fallen before you, but...
Don't be discouraged! We'll get through this together and be better readers for it.
To get you started, here is my personal Ball & Chain List:
1. Joy Williams "Honored Guest"
2. Grace Paley "Enormous Changes At The Last Minute"
3. Warren Ellis "Crooked Little Vein"
4. Marcel Proust "Swann's Way" (Lydia Davis translation)
5. Tom Rachman "The Imperfectionists"
6. Diane Ackerman "A Natural History of the Senses"
7. Lisa Lutz "Curse of the Spellmans"
8. S. J. Perelman "The Most of S.J. Perelman"
9. Haruki Murakami "1Q84"
10. Kevin Brockmeier "The Brief History of the Dead"
11. Rick Bass "The Ninemile Wolves"
12. Thomas Wolfe "Look Homeward Angel"
13. Katherine Porter "The Collected Stories"
14. Lewis Thomas "The Lives of a Cell"
15. The Dalai Lama "Healing Anger"
16. John McPhee "Coming Into the Country"
17. John Steinbeck "Journal of a Novel"
18. Thomas Browne "Religio Medici" (don't ask)
19. Deborah Harkness "A Discovery of Witches"
20. Brandon Sanderson "Mistborn"
21. Rainer Maria Rilke "The Notebooks of Malte Laurid Brigge"
22. William K. Krueger "Iron Lake"
23. Mary Doria Russell "Doc"
24. Don Winslow "The Power of the Dog"
25. Josh Ritter "Bright's Passage"
26. Ellen Datlow (ed.) "Teeth"
27. Teddy Wayne "Kapitoil"
28. Virginia Woolf "The Waves"
29. Karl Marlantes "Matterhorn"
30. David W. Page "Body Trauma"
31. Stanley Fish "How To Read A Sentence"
32. F. Scott Fitzgeral "Tender Is The Night"
33. Terry Pratchett "The Color of Magic"
34. Janna Levin "How the Universe Got Its Spots"
Three months and thirty-four books? I don't know if I'll read all of these (in fact, I know I won't because the previous sentence equals a little over two books a day), but I intend to stick to this list for any and all reading pleasure. No matter what.
May God have mercy on our souls. Now go, and buy no more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I really like you and Savannah's READ EM IF YOU GOT EM challenge. A good dose of self-discipline while wearing a hair shirt can be most cleansing. I would like to participate but I am currently on a magic carpet ride and only have three books that I read within the first two weeks of the trip (The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje, IQ84 by Murakami, and The Prague Cemetary by Eco). I do have a magic carpet Kindle that I recently loaded to my MAC, but have limited my downloads to free, mostly classic, books. My current magic carpet has not yet reached any treasure troves that can be opened with Open Sesame utterances, so I remain on the cheap for now. I will, however, keep up with yours and Savannah's news of this monumental literary masochistic endeavor.
Looking at the list of books you have stacked on your obviously grand night stand, I was struck by the inclusion of Regilio Medici. I haven't thought of this since my time at Mt. Carmel High School. It was one of the works banned by the Papacy. The Carmelites who taught us took great joy in making sure that all of us knew which books had been banned, read as many as we could, and knew that in doing so we were defying the conservative and controlling dictates of the Jesuits and, as The Godfather would call them, the "pezzonovante" of the church. I did not know, at the time, how important this education would be for my future and how deeply it helped form my philosophy. I was bugged to no end at 15 years old to have to read words like pseudepigraphical. It wasn't a word you could use on the block without getting cut or shot at just on GP.
Now you, not being raised within the bosom of catholica, have come across the writings of Thomas Browne - a Baconian don't ya know. I'm just spiff balling here, but I think you arrived at Thomas Browne through Poe (Murder in the Rue Morgue) or through mystical math (Browne said in Religio: "I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers"), or through current research on witchcraft for your much anticipated trilogy (it was believed that Religio Medici was used during the Salem witch trials). Possibly you have arrived at Browne through all of the above. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me as to your A-Z path to Religio Medici.
Damn, there's new dust bunnies under my magic carpet. Where the fuck is Tarik!
RE my previous post - magic carpets and anti-malaria medication can make one dyslexic and tense challenged. Please forgive any such transgressions.
i like the new name for the "CHALLENGE" (why do i always hear harold nicholas' voice saying that?) anyway, i'll have my list up today! (i know, it was supposed top be yesterday, but it was fox nfl sunday and i had to watch CAR@NO because it was a very big game!) ;) xoxox
the list and pictures are up at my place!!! :D
Happy New Year, you elk.
And forget Rilke.
MITM: As a matter of fact, I did find "Religio Medici" through mystical magical mathematics! He was referenced in a book written by a physicist who is exploring quantum based theories of the Soul.
SAV: Great list! And I love the Mr Toad decoration. "A new mania had gripped him..."
MAGO: Yeah, the Rilke is equal parts genuine interest and verifiable nostalgia. But not the priority. Hell, that 900 page Murakami book aint gonna read itself!
Post a Comment