Gloryfades.org

In 2007 I took up the To-Be-Read Challenge but ended miserably. I completed two out of the twelve that I set myself to read. How embarrassing! Part of the reason was that I actually forgot about the challenge until October. That’s right, I actually forgot about it entirely until G. mentioned it. However, I still managed to read a whopping 30 books in total last year, which is still quite a few considering I spent the first part of the year in school.

This year, I’ve decided to go with a theme with the books I’ve chosen. I’ve been interested in The Great American Novel ever since I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. So, in honor of that great book, I have picked 12 novels that have been written by American authors in the past two centuries:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
4. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
5. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
6. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
9. Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
12. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

I’ve tried to put an equal mix of male and female writers but it’s hard to be even. It looks like a pretty good list, though. Some of these have been on my master list for years and years.

Alternates include what I didn’t read last year, that is:

1. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
3. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
4. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
6. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
7. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
8. I’m Not The New Me by Wendy McClure
9. The True Account by Howard Frank Mosher
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

You know, I’ve been trying to read The Name of the Rose for about two months but someone keeps requesting it from the library and I have to keep taking it back. Maybe I should just buy it?