I’m graduating from college in December, and since I’m not immediately planning to go to grad school I’m pretty much free from academia FOR-EV-ERRRRRR after Christmas. This is both scary and exciting, and to keep myself from freaking out about ~THE FUTURE~ I’ve been making plans. One of the easiest to accomplish ones is the List of Books I Will Read!
It’s an ambitious list, I’ll grant you that, but why the heck not. I won’t have impending tests and essays and homework to worry about any longer, so I have to fill my brain with SOMETHING. Here’s what I’ve thought up so far. I’m making reading these books a priority in 2011:
- Middlemarch by George Eliot.
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.
- Ulysses by James Joyce. Also why don’t I finally finish reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, too.
- an Alexandre Dumas book– Count of Monte Cristo, maybe? I said I would read that one in another post somewhere, so why not.
- a Carl Sagan book.
- some sort of giant Russian tragedy. Anna Karenina?
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Technically I’ve already read this, but I’ve been meaning to reread it for almost two years now, soooo.
I think you can spot a theme, here: big books (for the most part) that require a lot of concentration. I’m assuming that not being in school will a) free up a lot of brain-space for other stuff than memorizing dates and place names, and b) give me more time overall to read. Yay?
What other books do you think I should read in 2011? I’m a little surprised at how many classics are on here, but reading classics on my Kindle is SO awesome because it’s got the built-in Oxford dictionary so I don’t get tripped up by weird, arcane words any more (now it’s just the weird sentence structure)! Plus I’m just into classics more now than I was a few years ago. More recs for classics, please?
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GWTW is one of the very best.
Helen of Troy comes in to a close equal.
Then behind that is Mists of Avalon.
Anna Karenina is a pretty good one, pick your translation carefully, though. All translations are NOT equal.
I have Count of Monte Cristo on my to-be-read list. I’m going to also put those others on! Great suggestions.
Also, I have been on a reading frenzy since graduating. You can do ehhht!!
Middlesex is amazing, and I love The Count of Monte Cristo. (Just remember, Dumas was a serialized novelist, like Dickens–guy had to make some scratch.)
And I quite enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
I really love Gone With the Wind, and even more so I love the sequel Scarlett! I also really love War and Peace for a Russian book
Middlesex and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell are both on my list! If you want a really immense book, check out A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I’m about to start reading it with my sister (we need support!) and it clocks in just under 1500 pages. It’s set in India and is supposed to be primarily a love story, but with a lot of good history mixed in.
Congrats on almost being done!!
Have you read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins?
Yay for graduating soon!I don’t really read classics so I can’t really recommend any.
If you’re going to read Dumas, I recommend The Three Musketeers. It is very funny. The Count of Monte Cristo is funny too, but The Three Musketeers keeps it together better, in my opinion. Count of Monte Cristo is sort of all over the place.
The only book I’ve read from that list is Anna Karenina. It’s a book I’m glad I read, but it sort of felt like it was never going to end. Not to deter you – it really was a good book.