Sunday Salon | Nose in a book

Sunday Salon: Short stories

March 17, 2013March 16, 2013 3 Comments

The Sunday Salon

I know, I know, it’s been months since I posted in the Sunday Salon. How are you all? What have you been up to? Me? I’ve been busy, but not with as much reading as I’d like. This week I have been thinking about short stories.

Every so often Tim has to go to America for work, usually at the last minute. One of the few advantages of this (besides getting complete control of the TV while he’s away) is that he brings me back the New Yorker, which I really love but can’t quite justify paying the international subscription price when what I’m really after is the weekly short story. They get the greatest writers in the world. Every week.

On the back of my recent treat of not one but two New Yorkers, I was browsing the website and spotted the fiction podcast. Oh man, this is the most amazing discovery. Once a month a writer picks a short story from the New Yorker archives, reads it aloud and discusses it a little. It’s an amazing resource. This week I have listened to “Symbols and signs” by Vladimir Nabokov, “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Playing with dynamite” by John Updike.

I am not normally great at listening to audio books but a 20-minute story fits nicely into my commute and it’s a really good way to try some of the many authors I have heard praised but not read myself yet.

Do you read short stories outside of book compilations of them? Where do you read them? Do you subscribe to any fiction magazines?

Sunday Salon: Making a list

January 20, 2013January 20, 2013 5 Comments

This weekend my love of lists reached obsessive proportions.

I realised while rewatching The Gilmore Girls that the “Rory Gilmore Reading List” that I had was of every book title mentioned on the show, rather than of books specifically owned by/read by Rory. For instance, there’s a scene where Rory is getting into a state about all the great books out there and how she won’t be able to read them all in her lifetime, and her mother tells her that she needn’t bother with Tuesdays With Morrie or Who Moved My Cheese?, yet those two titles were both on the list.

And this bothers me because apparently I am obsessive about such things. So I am editing the list as I rewatch the show, making sure it only includes Rory books and adding in ones previously missed. The updated list is here, one of my new challenge pages.

What is it about lists that are so appealing? And I don’t just mean giant long book lists (though they do appeal, obviously). I have always enjoyed making lists (particularly if I get to cross things off them, though that isn’t compulsory).

Perhaps all the snow is sending me a bit doolally.

Today I might try to read a little more in-between list updating. What have you been up to this weekend?

Sunday Salon: Keeping track

January 13, 2013January 13, 2013 6 Comments

I spotted an open invite recently to complete a survey about book blogging and it highlighted something that had already begun to concern me – I don’t keep track of where my books come from.

I would guess that the majority (or at least a large proportion) of my books were given to me as presents but if the giver didn’t write a note on the inside cover (which they rarely do), I have no record of this and when I come to read the book a year or more later I have invariably forgotten whose kind present it was. This is sad both in terms of me being able to show full appreciation and in terms of the lost memory.

So I have decided to tackle this in two ways. One, all new books added to the TBR shelves get a little note written in them about where they came from. And all my reviews this year will include a mention of the source of the book.

If I can, that is. Where I have happened to blog about book buying I should have a reminder of when I bought books for myself, so with a little bit of memory power more recent additions should be easy to identify, but what about those books that have sat unread for four, five or more years? I’ll have to get delving through all the old photographs of birthdays and Christmases to see what I can deduce!

Do you keep note of where your books came from? Do you write anything in the books themselves? What about when you’re the one giving books as presents?

Sunday Salon: New year, new books

January 6, 2013January 6, 2013 11 Comments

Every year when my family asks what I want for Christmas and my birthday (they’re pretty close together) I give them a wishlist that is 90% books and every time I have to reassure them that yes, books really really are what I want. You’d think they’d learn. Thankfully, they know me well enough to buy me said books, in addition to a few useful things.

Even though I already own 120 or so unread books and a couple of thousand read books that I have kept because I want to re-read them some day, it makes me super happy to see this stack of new books.

If you can’t quite read those spines, the books are:

Cairo: My City, Our Revolution by Ahdaf Soueif
The Wine of Solitude by Irène Némirovsky
The Birds and other stories by Daphne du Maurier
The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
The Most Remarkable Woman in England by John Carter Wood
No Surrender by Constance Maud (that’s the pretty Persephone edition)
Burmese Days by George Orwell
The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami

And despite already having all of those lovely new books, I tripped and bought a book yesterday – the first trade paperback volume of Sandman by Neil Gaiman (and if I like it there’s 11 further volumes to buy!) – while Tim was picking up his latest comics and earlier this week I ordered a book from Abe Books to complete my collection of the Claudine series by Colette. Can I help wanting to give a loving home to all the books?

Oh, and I also received a belated Christmas card via the Book Bloggers Holiday Card Exchange. This one is from Vasilly and came in a very pretty shiny envelope and contains a great quote about reading.

Yay, I love Christmas and birthdays! Just eleven and a half months to go to the next time. Did you get any great books lately?

Sunday Salon: Do you re-read?

November 18, 2012 16 Comments

Re-reading is one of those subjects that comes up every now and again and every time I say wish I did, I just never get round to it. But that’s a rubbish excuse. I mean, if I don’t re-read, then what’s the point of my beautiful library (except as a repository for the ever-expanding TBR)? I have friends who re-read all the time, who return to certain books over and over again, and I can definitely see the appeal.

I was listening to an old episode of Books on the Nightstand in which Ann and Michael discussed how they don’t re-read and I recognised some of their excuses: too many new books – both in terms of the excitement of new books and the pressure to keep up – but also the fear that a book that was a perfect read the first time round won’t live up to the memory of it on re-reading. But I must also admit that blogging is another reason I don’t do it. Because it’s a lot harder to review a book on a re-read. Or at least, it can be.

For instance, I just read The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for, I think, the third time. Not only have I read it before, and all of its sequels, and watched the TV series and the film (though sadly never heard the radio show) but it’s also become a firm part of our culture, from the Babel Fish online translation tool to our local secondhand bookshop Beware of the Leopard to everyone’s favourite number being 42. There’s even a Towel Day every year to celebrate the work of the late Douglas Adams. This weekend, while going round our neighbourhood arts trail (here’s my post about the 2010 trail) I spotted that the sign next to the Norwegian waffle window included a joke about Slartibartfast, which made me grin like a loon.

How do you review a book like that? It’s not far off when I read a book for book group and on my way to the meeting I’m desperately trying to think of something more clever to say than “I liked it”. But then, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is exceptional, surely. Not every book I want to re-read is going to be quite so…well, brilliant.

Of course, when I was a child and even as a teenager I re-read all the time. My copy of Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh is in pieces I read it so often, and I’m frankly amazed my other most-read favourites The Wickedest Witch in the World by Beverley Nichols and The Ghosts of Motley Hall by Richard Carpenter (yes yes, I loved a book based on a TV series) didn’t end up in the same state. I think I did buy new copies of a couple of Roald Dahl books that were getting tatty. But then I hit 16 or so and stopped re-reading as often. And the books I have re-read as an adult – most of which were for book groups – I have still only read two or three times, as compared with the at least 50 times I must have read the three titles listed above.

Of course, I do have less free time now. And I do challenge myself more (sometimes, at least) with my reading choices. And I am aware of the limited time I have versus all of the beautiful books out there that I have yet to read. But still, it is both comforting and rewarding to re-read and once again I conclude that I should do it more.

What about you? Do you re-read?

Sunday Salon: Speed reading

November 4, 2012November 5, 2012 6 Comments

I have had wildly varying reading speeds lately, and this has set me thinking. Are the better books the ones that slow you down, that make you re-read sentences or even paragraphs? Or are the books that you read in one or two settings in an engrossed daze actually better?

In September I started reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon. It took me more than a month to finish. I worried that I had lost my reading mojo. And admittedly I did find it hard, but I thought the language wonderful. And so clever. I feel enriched for having read it.

In the past few days I read Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson (review here). I was absorbed and raced through it, eager to get to the end. And once I did I felt satisfaction with the story. But the language had at no point caught my eye and I’m already beginning to forget the book.

In some respects I enjoyed Before I Go to Sleep more. And as a thriller it did for me exactly what it set out to do. But I would absolutely state that The Yiddish Policeman’s Union is the better book, without question.

So I’m trying to work out if this is a general rule or just these two books. Is there always more value in the books that slow you down, encourage you to notice the language and savour it, or can quick reads be equally good? I certainly know I like to read some of both. How about you?

Sunday Salon: Celebrating 10 years

September 2, 2012 2 Comments

Not 10 years of the blog; I’m not that with it! No, this week Tim and I celebrated 10 years together with a holiday in Cambridge. I’d not been before, though I felt like I knew it well from books, films and TV, but it was a real treat to go and soak up the centuries of learning. So much great architecture, culture, science and art. Far too much for a week in fact! At least, it is when you take frequent breaks for pleasant walks, reading books and eating delicious food.

The classic view of the River Cam, complete with punts and bridges, and I think that’s the back of King’s College.

Plenty of narrow cobbled streets and a little less plenty of sunshine.

Some seriously impressive architecture and interior décor at these colleges, for instance this hall at Queens’ College.

Plus lots of bookshops, lots of green spaces and bikes everywhere (though not that many actually being ridden while we were there; not sure if that’s because it’s outside of term time or because my expectations were skewed by living in the Cycling City that is Bristol). I took approximately a bajillion photos, a lot of which were on film, so my Flickr photo set will grow, if you’re interested.

Sunday Salon: British summertime

August 12, 2012August 12, 2012 5 Comments

Many years ago, my sister won a fancy dress competition dressed as British summertime. She wore a swimsuit, kagoule and wellies and carried a bucket, spade and umbrella. And most summers that’s pretty accurate: we’re hopeful but ultimately disappointed. But this year, well it’s been a bit special.

After a month of what felt like solid rain, the sun came out in time for the school summer holidays and, of course, the Olympics. The whole country suddenly found its national pride and got excited about…sport. I’m a little sad that it’s ending today. The Olympics, that is. I’m hoping the summer carries on a little longer.

In-between watching far too much TV we have been enjoying the sunshine with a bit of gardening:

and a trip to a city farm:

All of which means I have done very little reading. I have finally started reading Evelyn Waugh for the first time, and am greatly enjoying Vile Bodies. What have you been up to? Are you squeezing any reading into your summer activities (assuming it’s summer where you are)?

Sunday Salon: Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

July 29, 2012August 4, 2012 15 Comments

So, this one’s just for fun. The challenge has been around for a while but then it’s a long list to get through! I love the TV show Gilmore Girls and wish I could be half as smart and frankly lucky as Rory, or have half of Lorelai’s style and wit.

To borrow the intro from It’s Time to Read: With some wonderful people on the Book Club Forum we are reading through some of the books that Rory Gilmore read in the TV show Gilmore Girls. Here is the list of books she has read (taken from this forum – thanks!).

I have annotated the ones I have read and the ones that are already on my TBR.

1984 by George Orwell – read multiple times, originally in my teens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – read in 2003, but I also half remember my Dad reading it to me and my sister many years earlier
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll – read multiple times, originally when at primary school
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon – read in 2010
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt – read in my teens
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank – read multiple times, originally in my teens
Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
The Art of Fiction by Henry James
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner – read in 2010
Atonement by Ian McEwan – read
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Awakening by Kate Chopin – read for my degree
Babe by Dick King-Smith – read (under its original title of The Sheep-Pig) when at primary school
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie – read 2009-ish
Bambi by Felix Salten
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – read in 2010
Beloved by Toni Morrison – read
Beowulf A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney – TBR
The Bhagava Gita
The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy
Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – read in 2009
Brick Lane by Monica Ali – read, I think, almost certain
Brigadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
Candide by Voltaire – read in 2011
The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer – I’ve read the odd extract but not enough to strike this off
Carrie by Stephen King – read in my teens
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller – started and gave up. I know, I know, I must try again sometime
The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger – read
Charlotte’s Web by E B White – read when I was at school
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
Christine by Stephen King
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – read multiple times
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess – started and gave up. Another one I intend to try again
The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse
The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare – TBR
Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – read in 2012
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe – I’ve read several but certainly not all
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père – read
Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – TBR
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Cujo by Stephen King
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – read in 2003
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – read
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Deenie by Judy Blume
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Don Quixote by Cervantes – started and gave up
Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson – read in my teens
Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
Emma by Jane Austen
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J Sobol
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethics by Spinoza
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extravagance by Gary Krist
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – read
Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson – read 2002-ish
Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom – read
Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – read 2008-ish
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – read 2008-ish
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – read multiple times, originally for my A levels in 1998
Franny and Zooey by J D Salinger – read
Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
George W Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford – read for my degree
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom by Judy Bloom
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – TBR
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald – read
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – read multiple times, originally in my teens
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Hamlet by William Shakespeare – read
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J K Rowling – read
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J K Rowling – read
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers – read
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare – TBR
Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare – TBR
Henry V by William Shakespeare – TBR
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby – read
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss
How the Light Gets in by M J Hyland
Howl by Allen Ginsberg – read 2004
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
The Iliad by Homer – TBR
I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote – read
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee
Iron Weed by William J Kennedy
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – read multiple times
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare – read for my degree
The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – read
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D H Lawrence – read
The Last Empire: Essays 1992–2000 by Gore Vidal
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman – read for my degree
The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis – I started this and ended up giving it away because I really didn’t like it
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
Life of Pi by Yann Martel – read
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen – read
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott – read multiple times
Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Lord of the Fliesby William Golding – read
The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien – read
The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – read
The Love Story by Erich Segal
Macbeth by William Shakespeare – read
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – read
The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Marathon Man by William Goldman
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov – TBR
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
Memoirs of General W T Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
A Mencken Chrestomathy by H R Mencken
The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare – read for my degree
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka – read
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides – read in 2011
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
Moby Dick by Herman Melville – started, did not finish
The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
A Month of Sundays: Searching for the Spirit and My Sister by Julie Mars
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – read (for A levels, I think)
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath by Seymour M Hersh
My Life as Author and Editor by H R Mencken
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult – I’m actually not sure whether I’ve read this…
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco – read 2004-ish
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson – read some of them, not all
The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Night by Elie Wiesel
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen – read for my degree
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E Cain, Laurie A Finke, Barbara E Johnson, John P McGowan
Novels 1930–1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – read in my teens
Old School by Tobias Wolff – read
On the Road by Jack Kerouac – TBR
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – read in 2011
The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
Oracle Night by Paul Auster
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Othello by Shakespeare – read for my degree
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – read for my degree
The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
The Outsiders by S E Hinton
A Passage to India by E M Forster – TBR
The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – TBR
Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi – read
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – read in 2011
Property by Valerie Martin – read
Pushkin: A Biography by T J Binyon
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw – read in 2012
Quattrocento by James Mckean
A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
Rapunzel by the Grimm Brothers – read
The Razor’s Edge by W Somerset Maugham
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi – read
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – read multiple times
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
R is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare – read multiple times, originally for school in 1994
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf – read in 2011
A Room with a View by E M Forster
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L Baum – read
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – read for my degree
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913–1965 by Dawn Powell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Sexus by Henry Miller
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon – read
Shane by Jack Shaefer
The Shining by Stephen King
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
S is for Silence by Sue Grafton
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – read in 2011
Small Island by Andrea Levy – read
The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway – read in 2010
Snow White and Rose Red by the Grimm Brothers – read
Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems by Julia de Burgos
The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
Songbook by Nick Hornby [31 Songs in the UK]
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare – read
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – read some of, but not all
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron – read
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Stuart Little by E B White
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – read
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald – read
Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
Time and Again by Jack Finney
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – read 2005-ish
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway – TBR
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – read
The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare – read for my degree
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Trial by Franz Kafka – read
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Ulysses by James Joyce – read for my degree
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950–1962 by Sylvia Plath – TBR
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera – read
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe – read for my degree
Unless by Carol Shields
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray – TBR
The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett – I’ve seen the play. I know that doesn’t count, but it was excellent.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau – read for my degree
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
What Colour is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
The Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum – read
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë – read
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

So that’s 336 titles, I think, of which I have read 96. (I wasn’t sure how to count the “complete novels of” collections.) I have edited the list a little, removing duplicates for example. And I don’t know whether the TV series actually showed Rory reading all of these. I suspect a lot of the titles just came up in conversation or can be read when she packs her book bag. If you think you see any errors in the list, let me know.

The ones I own but have not yet read make up a bit of a heavy list, which may be why they have all sat on the TBR pile for a while. But perhaps having this challenge in the background will be a good way to finally get round to them! In addition, I would really like to read these:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Songbook by Nick Hornby
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

I have half a plan to come back to this list every six months or so and see how I’m doing. I may have to transfer it all to a spreadsheet of some kind 🙂 And I’ll be keeping a close eye on book titles when I watch Gilmore Girls repeats!

I have been meaning to do something with this challenge for a while, so thank you to Reading in Winter for reminding me!

Are you taking part in this challenge? What do you think of the list?

Sunday Salon: Here and there

July 15, 2012November 23, 2012 6 Comments

We keep on doing lots of stuff with our weekends. Mostly of the fun variety, which is good, but it isn’t half cutting into my reading time!

Last weekend we went to visit my family. As my Nan has been ill we dropped by to see her and my Grandad, which was lovely as she is now doing well. We saw my Mum’s new house that she moved into a few weeks ago. I got to spend time with my little brother who I hardly ever see. I showed Tim a few more sights from my younger days. And we enjoyed being in the countryside. Even if it was raining almost constantly.

Before we came home, my Dad had the brilliant idea to take me and Tim fossil hunting. That was so much fun! We were on the Severn Estuary and it was hideously muddy but we found loads of real actual fossils, which was amazing. And the dog had a whale of a time.

This weekend I went to London to see my friend H while our menfolk did their man thing at Farnborough Airshow. I finally got to go to Persephone Books, which is just as wonderful as I had imagined. Huge thanks to H for taking me there and buying me one of their beautiful books. We also talked endlessly and painted our nails and had a generally brilliant time.

It’s all been great. But I’m still a teeny bit glad that we don’t have much planned for the next few weekends. What have you been up to lately?