It's always hardest to start. So here we go. I'm already two sentences in.
I'm at an intriguing point in my life right now. I just started a new family, just graduated from college, just lost a job, just applied to a new school, just turned 25. In all those 'justs', I have recently realized that I'm in a desperate need to keep learning, discovering, exploring. And what's a better way to learn, discover, and explore than reading?
These noble thoughts coincided with three other events.
1. I just married one of the most brilliant and intellectually fascinating people I have ever met in my life, who also happens to be an avid reader of everything from sci-fi to Pynchon, to Dostoyevsky.
2. I accidentally discovered an awesome forum for those not only into reading, but also into classical music and philosophy. (Check it out at www.amazon.com under Customer Discussions > Classical Music forum > What books are you reading right now?)
3. Just as accidentally, I came into possession of Penguin Classics: A Complete Annotated Listing, which is a bordering-on-perfect ultimate reading list for those of us who aspire to calling themselves intellectuals.
And this is how this project came into being.
I have decided to read my way through the Penguin Classics collection. One book at a time. Starting with the letter A, I will read one book which author's name starts with each letter of the alphabet. (I want to believe that once I reach Z, I will be so inspired and my curiosity so awakened, that without taking a break, I will jump right back to the beginning and start a second cycle. But I'm not going to hold my breath.)
The problem is, I really don't know where to start. And that's where you come in handy. I've made a preliminary selection, but I'm far from deciding on the book. Please, have a look at what follows and help me figure out what would be the most splendid of beginnings for such an undertaking.
1. Edwin A. Abbott Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
2. Andy Adams The Log of a Cowboy
3. James Agee A Death in the Family
4. Sholem Aleichem Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son
5. Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre Fantomas
6. Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim
7. Mulk Raj Anand Untouchable
8. Sherwood Anderson Winesburg, Ohio
I am currently finishing Gogol's Dead Souls, so I still have a couple of days to make up my mind as to what to read next. I'm also waiting for two books I have just ordered on Amazon (Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain and the biography of Johannes Brahms) that might distract me from immediately starting on the Classics. But I'm determined not to postpone it for too long (I'm definitely not waiting till I finish Magic Mountain, which I already read once years ago).
Knowing me, this blog (by the way, I just hate the word 'blog') will soon turn into a more general rambling on books, music, movies, culture, and politics. But for now, please have a look at the list above and let me know what you think. All contributions to my little project (criticism, both constructive and not, included) are welcome.
And by the way, what books are you reading right now?
I've decided to share this comment I got on Facebook from my friend Josh. Just as an example of the best possible response I could wish for.
ReplyDelete"Sholem Aleichem: Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son.
It is only fitting to start a great journey in literature with a classic piece of Yiddish storytelling. You will be delighted by it's wit, and awed by the richness of the craf...t of its author. In the list you made, this stands out as a no-brainer. I'm not sure about the Penguin Classic, but the version I read was entitled: Adventures of Mottel: The Cantor's Son, and was translated from Yiddish by Tamara Kahana, Aleichem's grand-daughter. The other great thing about this selection is that it is a collection of short stories, and so it would not be difficult to wax philosophical about each one as you go along. That would help you get into the habit of writing regularly, and also give you a little head start by creating more content initially, more quickly."
I agree with this Josh. I've never heard of this book, but I like Jews and books about Jews. I just started the Orientalist by Tom Reiss, oddly enough about a Jew.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck Ania.
Oh, and when you're done with Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son I want to borrow it.
Hm... I assume you have that list because those are the books at your immediate disposal. So I'd go with Flatland from that.
ReplyDeleteI recommend these. Most I've read, many I'm interest in:
If you haven't already read Heart of Darkness, do so ASAP.
Otherwise, from my own personal taste I'd pick up Alice in Wonderland first.
The Dream of the Red Chamber is also great. A classic Chinese tale.
Winston Churchill's Great Speechs (Blood, Toil, etc).
Pinnochio.
A Room with a View (then watch the movie)
Jane Eyre.
The Divine Comedy
Don Quixote
The Descent of Man
The Idiot
The Portable Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes a Great Nation
Bel-Ami
The Crucible (then watch the movie)
Death of a Salesman (movie= optional)
The Fall of the House of Usher
All of Rousseau including Les Confesiones
The Jungle
East f Eden
The Pearl
STAY AWAY FROM GRAPES OF WRATH!!!!!!! Perhaps the worst book I have ever been forced to read in my entire adolescence.
Madame Bovary
Dracula (its good)
Vanity Fair
Democracy in America
Anna Keranina
Everything written by Voltaire (how I spent the better part of my 10th grade year) Read Micromegas and then go hiking. Climb to the top of mountain. Think about Micromegas. Candide is not worth much time. His dictionary is hysterical. Read the parts about the Catholic Church and the priests and clerics for a good laugh. He basically says giver yourself a handjob in old, polite language.
Leaves of Grass
Oh, and right now I'm reading Nixon and KIssinger by Dallek (soooo good, but then again I have a love affair with any Nixon biographies), Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era, and Chou En-Lai. The last two I found in a tiny book used book shop here in Taiwan :D They have interviews and everything :D
ReplyDelete@Jordan: so far Sholem Aleichem is leading by far, so there is a significant possibility I'll be reading 'Tevye'. And sure, you can have it once I'm done.
ReplyDelete@Lianna: You sure are a passionate woman! So maybe I wasn't clear about how the final selection is to be made. The ten books on the list right now are the ten books I really want to read, all of them from the Penguin Classics collection (which, by the way, has over 1000 volumes). I don't actually own any of them, but I'll get the one I settle on reading. I've read many books from your list above and I did love some of them. This challenge is precisely to push me to read things I wouldn't necessarily read in any other circumstances. And, so far, I'm as excited as a 5-year-old in a candy shop!
Right now I am trying to get through My Past and Thoughts, Alexander Herzen's autobiography. It is brilliant and essentially inspired the Bolshevik revolution. (I know he's Russian but brilliance knows no bound)
ReplyDelete