This list does not include reference books, my Bible, textbooks, or any book that isn't meant to be read comprehensively. I've also included a short note on why I bought the book, or what it's about, or some junk like that, where applicable.
1. Don't Look Now--Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is one of my favorite books ever. This was a by the lb blind buy. I didn't even bother to read the book flap.
2. Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic--Terry Jones
3. Gods, Demons, and Others--compiled by R.K. Narayan. The blurb on the front of this book says, "Great tales from Indian myth and legend retold in English by India's leading novelist." I pulled this book out of the trash can when we moved into our current abode, along with an INSCRIBED copy of Franny and Zooey. Whomever lived here before us is a heartless bastard.
4. Montana, 1949--Larry Watson. I bought this because the cover and the blurb reminded me of an Annie Proulx book.
5. The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas--translated by James F. Anderson. I took a class on early church literature while I was at UNL and it was very interesting. I wish I'd paid more attention but I was busy drinking a lot, which leads to a somewhat gappy memory. This is another book I pulled out of the trash. Its previous owner seems to be "Mary Jeannette Dorcey," who lived in Apt. 23 and bought it for $2.
6. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution--by John H. Watson, M.D., ed. Nicholas Meyer. Glorified fan fiction. I don't anticipate liking this book. YOU DON'T FUCK WITH CANON.
7. Eleanor Rigby--Douglas Coupland
8. Adverbs--Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler. I started this book in high school and remember liking it, but it was overdue at the library or something.
9. Fathers and Sons--Ivan Turgenev. My roommate's boyfriend left it here and said I could keep it.
10. All Quiet on the Western Front--Erich Maria Remarque
11. Voices of a People's History--comp. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. A companion piece to one of my favorite books, A People's History of the United States by Zinn, and apparently a documentary called "The People Speak." This was a Christmas present from my friend Lia, along with Breaking Dawn. Hell yes.
12. Black Elk Speaks--John G. Neihardt
13. The Road to Wounded Knee--Robert Burnette and John Koster. This has "flavor of the month" written all over it, but it looks pretty interesting. Also Koster's interests apparently include "history of the West and parapsychology." I wonder if he does ghost town excursions.
14. Lewis and Clark Among the Indians--James P. Ronda
15. Black Hills, White Justice--Edward Lazarus. This is about Sioux Nation v. the United States, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest?) settlements against the US ever brought about by the Supreme Court. I read about 3/4 of this and then got bogged down in somewhat tedious legalese. I know how it ends, anyway.
16. Indian Fights and Fighters--Cyrus Townsend Brady. Both the title and the author of this book are very catchy.
17. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto--Vine DeLoria Jr.
18. Born Rich: A Historical Book of Omaha--Margaret Patricia Killian. I bought this at a book sale at a synagogue, which are seriously the best book sales. Go to one, if you get the chance. It's some woman's recollections about being wealthy at the time Omaha was founded as a dirty little river town. It also kind of looks like someone spilled mashed potatoes on the cover.
19. The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid--Pat F. Garrett. The tagline is "A faithful and interesting narrative by Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., by whom he was finally hunted down & captured by killing him." Leaving aside the obvious syntax problems, this is what we learned in school is called an "unreliable narrator."
20. The Stranger--Albert Camus. I don't remember why I never finished this. It turns out that angst and despair are kind of boring.
21. "The Possessed"--Albert Camus
22. Steppenwolf--Hermann Hesse
23. Gone Baby Gone--Dennis Lehane
24. King Solomon's Mines--H. Rider Haggard. I bought this solely because I'm gay for Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Don't judge me. At least not for this.
25. The Plot--Irving Wallace. Again, book by the lb, no idea what this was about. But The People's Almanac was a perennial favorite of mine and my brother's when we were children. It was snappy, weird, and informative.
26. Utopia--Thomas More. Trashcan book.
27. A Death in the Family--James Agee
28. Vanity Fair--William Makepeace Thackeray. I might have actually read this in high school; I didn't have a life in HS so all I did was read classic European novels. But I might be confusing it with "Pilgrim's Progress", which I also sometimes get confused with "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."
29. The Story of the Western Railroads--Robert Edgar Riegel. Hahah why did I buy this. It's like something an autistic kid would own.
30. The Reader--Bernhard Schlink. I also own the movie of this, and I've read the first 20 pages, so I sometimes lie and tell peole that I've read this book. I have not. It feels nice to get that off my chest.
31. A Moveable Feast--Ernest Hemingway
32. For Whom the Bell Tolls--Hemingway
33. The Autumn of the Patriarch--Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think I bought this at the same time as 100 Years of Solitude but was so scarred by the former that I never gave this one a shot.
34. Empire--Gore Vidal
35. Speaker for the Dead--Earlier in the year I was attempting to mack on a boy whose favorite book was Ender's Game. My friend Alecia gave me both books. The macking subsequently failed and, never having been a huge fan of sci-fi, I gve up on this book about 1/3 of the way through.
36. The Thirty-Nine Steps--Abandoned by the roommate's boyfriend, again.
37. Tender is the Night--F. Scott Fitzgerald. I might have actually read this. But all Fitzgerald's books tend to bleed together in my brain.
38. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--Mark Twain. Trashcan book.
39. Empire of the Sun--J.G. Ballard. I remember this moving being awesome/frightening.
40. The French Revolution--Thomas Carlyle. I want to read this but I'm scared of it. It's over 500 pages long.
41. The Return of the Native--Thomas Hardy
42. "The Cherry Orchard," "The Sea Gull," "The Three Sisters," "Uncle Vanya."--Anton Chekov. I think I've seen a stage version of "Uncle Vanya" but I've never read any of these.
43. Postcards--Annie Proulx. Love her. Love you. Probably will love this, once I get around to reading it.
44. The French and Indian War--Francis Russell. This is the type of book that uses the word "savages." Enough said.
45. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. My brother gave me this for Christmas. Also, Doris Lessing kind of looks like Golda Meier. Check it out:
I bought and read A Death in the Family because I thought you'd read it and liked it! Am I going insane over here?
ReplyDeleteI've had For Whom the Bells Tolls for about 8 years. I've had two false starts on it and if I couldn't read it back then I won't be able to read it now. I've lost all patience for this kind of ish now that I'm starting to feel my mortality.
A Death in the Family is one of the rare books that I've started twice and can't get off the first 5 pages or so. If I recall correctly, it seems to have an excessive amount of italicized exposition. Ew.
ReplyDeleteI remember mentioning that I was reading it once and someone else said they thought I'd love it. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?