The concept behind this blog is pretty simple. I’m reading Time magazine’s “All-Time 100 Novels” and writing about each novel. Being a sane person, you are probably asking yourself why I would actively choose to do this. The short answer to this question is that I love books and I love writing. The long answer requires some background.
My earliest memory is reading with my grandmother. As long as I have been able to read, I have been devouring books. I asked my father to buy me a copy of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist when I was 12. I tried to use Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea for a fifth grade book report. I have a BA in English. I’m a huge book junkie, and just an overall dork. Since graduating, I’ve been searching for something to write about. I stumbled across Time’s “All-Time 100 Novels” list (literally, the list came up while I was wasting time on Stumbleupon.com) and I read through and counted how many of the books I had read.
13. I was mildly surprised that I hadn’t read more of the books on the list. I recognized many of the titles of the books on the list, but there were some that I did not. I thought about how many different books I have read over my 23 years. 700? 1000? I don’t have a realistic guess. I love this about books, though. No matter how well read you think you are, there is always more to read. You are never, ever done reading. This is just one list of thousands like it. There are millions of books out there. Google says that the number of published books in the world is 129,864,880. Though that is more than I can hope to read, I plan on trying to enjoy and learn from as many of those books as I can.
So, here’s the plan. I’m going to read every book on the list, even if I’ve read it in the past. I’m going to write about each one of them. I don’t know how long this will take me. I don’t know what exactly I’m going to write about. It will probably be different for each novel. It will definitely include my reaction, and something I’ve learned from each one. I don’t know in what order I will read the books. I would like to read them alphabetically, but it will probably depend on each one’s availability. I would like to start reading this week.
The books on the list that I’ve read in the past are:
- All the King’s Men
- Beloved
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Go Tell it on the Mountain
- The Great Gatsby
- Light in August
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- Lord of the Flies
- 1984
- Revolutionary Road
- The Sound and the Fury
- The Sun Also Rises
- To Kill a Mockingbird
Well, that’s all for now. If you’re interested in checking out the list for yourself, here is the link: http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/
All-Time 100 Novels Challenge! 