Reading Lists

Books to Read Before You Die

The British librarian’s organization — “Museum, Libraries and Archives Council” — has put together a List of Books to Read Before You Die.

I have a pretty good start on the list. Of the ones I haven’t read yet, I have four on my bookshelves at home, so I’ll probably get to them someday.

  1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  2. The Bible
  3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
  4. 1984 by George Orwell
  5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  8. All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
  9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
  10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
  11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  14. Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
  15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
  16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
  18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  20. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
  23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
Continue ReadingBooks to Read Before You Die

Superhero Reading List

To my Amazon Wish List, I just added:
How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
by Daniel H. Wilson
The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
by Max Brooks
Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book
by Robert Hamburger
The Government Manual for New Superheroes
by Jacob Sager Weinstein
The Action Hero’s Handbook
by David Borgenicht
The Action Heroine’s Handbook
by Jennifer Worick
How to Be a Superhero
by Barry Neville
The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual
by Chuck Dixon
How to Be a Villain
by Neil Zawacki
How to Rule the World: A Handbook for the Aspiring Dictator
by Andre de Guillaume
The Science of Supervillains
by Lois H. Gresh
So, I should be in good shape. yep.

Continue ReadingSuperhero Reading List

100 Best First Lines from Novels

According to the American Book Review:
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

Continue Reading100 Best First Lines from Novels

Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Bil asked the question: how many of Time’s list of 100 Best Novels have you read?
41 of them. Most of them in high school or college English classes. When I read the list I was disappointed at what was missing and some of the crap they included. These people can’t tell me they actually read Infinite Jest. I don’t believe it. And what the hell is “Are you there God, It’s me Margaret” doing on this list? If they needed to pick a teen novel, there are 30 better than that. I also wonder why they picked the year 1923 as the starting point. What’s significant about that year?

  1. The Adventures of Augie March
  2. Animal Farm
  3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (what the hell?)
  4. Beloved
  5. The Blind Assassin
  6. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  7. Catch-22
  8. The Catcher in the Rye
  9. A Clockwork Orange
  10. The Corrections
  11. Death Comes for the Archbishop
  12. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (TOTAL SUCKAGE!)
  13. Go Tell it on the Mountain
  14. Gone With the Wind
  15. The Grapes of Wrath
  16. The Great Gatsby
  17. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  18. Herzog
  19. Invisible Man
  20. Light in August
  21. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
  22. Lolita
  23. Lord of the Flies
  24. The Lord of the Rings
  25. Midnight’s Children
  26. Mrs. Dalloway
  27. Neuromancer
  28. 1984
  29. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  30. Portnoy’s Complaint (SUCKED!)
  31. Possession
  32. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  33. Rabbit, Run
  34. Slaughterhouse-Five
  35. Snow Crash
  36. The Sound and the Fury (Two Faulkners listed, but not “As I Lay Dying?” Shame.)
  37. The Sun Also Rises
  38. To Kill a Mockingbird
  39. To the Lighthouse
  40. Tropic of Cancer
  41. White Noise
Continue ReadingTime’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

A list of Post-Modern novels

A MetaFilter list of suggested “sprawling post-modern novels”.
Off the top of my head, I have these that are on their list.
delillo’s underworld
infinite jest
house of leaves
Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Ground Beneath Her Feet
Death on the Installment Plan by Celine
Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
The Tin Drum

Continue ReadingA list of Post-Modern novels

Village Voice: Our 25 Favorite Books of 2003

The Village Voice

Actress in the House

By Joseph McElroy

OVER

OK, 432 PP., $26.95

Buy this book

It begins with a stage-slap, witnessed by a man named Daley, then spirals into cul-de-sacs of memory, ruminations on love and aging, ever returning to the linear narrative–the coupling of the actress and the man–before setting out again. Imbued with the peripatetic rhythms of consciousness, Actress‘s dazzling syntax configures language as the tension between repression and discovery, coaxed forward by McElroy’s tantalizingly patient hand.

Continue ReadingVillage Voice: Our 25 Favorite Books of 2003

Newbery Medal Winners

The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

2005 — Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

2004 — The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering.

2003 — Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
Hardcover

2002 — A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
Audio Cassette

2001 — A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
Audio Cassette

2000 — Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
Audio Cassette |
Microsoft e-book

1999 — Holes by Louis Sachar
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
Audio Cassette |
Audio CD

1998 — Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1997 — The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1996 — The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1995 — Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
Audio Cassette

1994 — The Giver by Lois Lowry
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Audio CD

1993 — Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1992 — Shilohby Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print |
DVD |
VHS

1991 — Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1990 — Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Large Print

1989 — Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
Hardcover |
Paperback

1988 — Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
Hardcover |
Paperback

1987 — The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
Hardcover |
Paperback

1986 — Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio CD |
Audio Cassette |
DVD |
VHS |
Study Guide

1985 — The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Hardcover |
Paperback

1984 — Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
Hardcover |
Paperback

1983 — Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Microsoft e-book |
Adobe e-book |
Lesson Plans on CD

1982 — A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard
Hardcover |
Paperback

1981 — Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Lesson Plans on CD

1980 — A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal, 1830-1832 by Joan W. Blos
Hardcover |
Paperback

1979 — The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Hardcover |
Paperback

1978 — Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Lesson Plans on CD

1977 — Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Lesson Plans on CD

1976 — The Grey King by Susan Cooper
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Microsoft e-book |
Adobe e-book

1975 — M. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Microsoft e-book |
Adobe e-book

1974 — The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Lesson Plans on CD |
Study Guides

1973 — Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

1972 — Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien

1971 — Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars

1970 — Sounder by William H. Armstrong

1969 — The High King by Lloyd Alexander

1968 — From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1967 — Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt
Out of Print

1966 — I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1965 — Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1964 — It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1963 — A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Hardcover |
Paperback

1962 — The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1961 — Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1960 — Onion John by Joseph Krumgold
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1959 — The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1958 — Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
Hardcover |
Paperback

1957 — Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1956 — Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
Hardcover |
Paperback

1955 — The Wheel on The School by Meindert DeJong
Hardcover |
Paperback; illustrated by Maurice Sendak

1954 — And Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold
Hardcover |
Paperback

1953 — Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark
Hardcover |
Paperback

1952 — Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
Hardcover |
Paperback

1951 — Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
Hardcover |
Paperback

1950 — The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1949 — King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1948 — The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois
Hardcover |
Paperback

1947 — Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
Hardcover |
Paperback

1946 — Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
Hardcover |
Paperback

1945 — Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Hardcover |
Paperback

1944 — Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Audio CD

1943 — Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
Hardcover |
Paperback

1942 — The Matchlock Gun by Walter Edmonds
Hardcover |
Paperback

1941 — Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1940 — Daniel Boone by James Daugherty
Out of Print

1939 — Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1938 — The White Stag by Kate Seredy
Paperback

1937 — Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer
Hardcover |
Paperback

1936 — Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
Hardcover |
Paperback

1935 — Dobry by Monica Shannon
Out of Print

1934 — Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women by Cornelia Meigs
Hardcover |
Paperback

1933 — Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Lewis
Hardcover |
Paperback

1932 — Waterless Mountain by Laura Adams Armer
Out of Print

1931 — The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Hardcover |
Paperback

1930 — Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field
Hardcover |
Paperback

1929 — The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly
Hardcover |
Paperback

1928 — Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Hardcover

1927 — Smoky, the Cowhorse by Will James
Hardcover |
Paperback

1926 — Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman
Hardcover

1925 — Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger
Out of Print

1924 — The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette

1923 — The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Hardcover |
Paperback |
Audio Cassette |
Audio CD |
e-book Microsoft |
DVD |
VHS

1922 — The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon
Hardcover |
Paperback

Continue ReadingNewbery Medal Winners