'Lo thar.

Hello! Long time no post. Life's busy.

I'm currently set to graduate from UWS in April 2013. That's a good thing. I'm also doing some list checking up. Here's my stats:


Started ::  9

The Adventures of Augie March
At Swim-Two-Birds
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone With the Wind
I, Claudius
On the Road
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Deliverance
Catch-22




Own, unstarted :: 5

The French Lieutenant's Woman
Lucky Jim
A Passage to India
Under the Volcano
The Power and the Glory



Read ::

Animal Farm
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
The Assistant
The Big Sleep
Brideshead Revisited
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
The Day of the Locust
Falconer
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Gatsby
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
A Handful of Dust
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
Money
Naked Lunch
Neuromancer
1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Pale Fire
Play It As It Lays
Possession
Rabbit, Run
The Crying of Lot 49
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tropic of Cancer
Slaughterhouse Five
Watchmen



44 books looked at, read, or otherwise.


The rest, 56 remaining ::

All the King's Men
American Pastoral
An American Tragedy
Appointment in Samarra
Atonement
Beloved
The Berlin Stories
The Blind Assassin
Blood Meridian
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Call It Sleep
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Corrections
A Dance to the Music of Time
Death Comes for the Archbishop
A Death in the Family
The Death of the Heart
Dog Soldiers
The Golden Notebook
Gravity's Rainbow
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter
The Heart of the Matter
Herzog
Housekeeping
A House for Mr. Biswas
Infinite Jest
Invisible Man
Light in August
The Moviegoer
Loving
The Man Who Loved Children
Midnight's Children
Mrs. Dalloway
Native Son
Never Let Me Go
The Painted Bird
Portnoy's Complaint
Ragtime
The Recognitions
Red Harvest
Revolutionary Road
The Sheltering Sky
Snow Crash
The Sot-Weed Factor
The Sound and the Fury
The Sportswriter
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Things Fall Apart
To the Lighthouse
Ubik
Under the Net
White Noise
White Teeth
Wide Sargasso Sea

Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-

novels/slide/times-list-of-the-100-best-novels/#all#ixzz1puBwQ6ee




That's how things are for me. I've come a good way from the  original 9, don't you think? I need to write reviews, or atleast scadily clad, wish-they-were-review things of these books, but it's probably easier and simpler to write about the books I loved, and where their relevance lies to myself or whomever I imagine the target readers to be.

The latest two I finished were Possession, and the Crying of Lot 49. Both were great, but Possession was certainly lengthy (like a good Guiness) and Crying was a bit short (but felt quick and twisted, like someone who's frozen a coke n spirit, forgotten such and just had that first mouthful of never-freeze alcohol). I will be rereading Possession at some points in my life, but the Crying I'm unsure on.

I guess that makes an interesting topic. Books you'd read a second time, or repeatedly. I can already tell you I've read 1985, Clockwork Orange and Lolita many times, but none as much as 1984. I read every copy of that book that I can, usually other peoples copies, like friends or relatives. The bets copy I know of is my brothers, which was the original I read, and features the artwork or a businessman on the front, who became Winstan Smith to me.

Not only was it the first version of the book I ever held, but it was also incredible comfortable. Like new clothes that've been worn well, and worn comfortably, and now have that "your body" feeling to them. I offered to buy it off my brother for $50, and he declined.

My own copies feels too papery and new, and I imagine I'd have to wait for my nephew to get interested in reading before he's read it and it's bashed around in his school bag a bit, but that's not for some years anyway. Possibly never.

Regardless, I AM here, and the list continues to be read, albeit slowly. I think the next will be good long days with Gone with the Wind. My father is always watching Fox Classics, which loves showing Gone with the Wind, so the reminder is never far from me.

Cheers!