2005: The Reading List

I have some unfinished business from 2004 and a pile of stuff collected from around the house. In addition I have a bunch of audio books that I have to listen to, so I might have to crack my twenty-two book ceiling this year. The following are in no particular order.

Unfinished

Tim Parks: A Season With Verona I gave up on this because the fans he writes about were mostly nasty people and there was only so many times I could read how football is the modern day substitute for hand to hand combat, but I'm not sure I'm being fair, so I'll try again.

James Joyce: Ulysses It's really stupid to get half way through this and not finish it. TUS were reading it together, but Roisin's birth kinda interupted my rhythm and by the time I got around to it again, the group had moved on and I missed their support. There is an excellent RTE website though, and that's where I'll be getting my help from as I attempt to polish this off.

Jan Morris: A Writer's World I'm not far into this, and it's my current book, but I'll be picking up The Wedding Party (see below) when it arrives, to join in with the TUS book club.

Many Authors: Great French and Russian Short Stories Vol 2 I bought this because it has a couple of Maupassant stories in it and I remember enjoying some of his short stories in the past (and being freaked out by one of them in particular). This hasn't been a success and while I actually like the Maupassant stories, the others are a little turgid. The reader isn't great either, which isn't helping. But because it's short stories, I keep thinking that the next story will be better. Or the next. I may well abandon have abandoned this one.

Fiction

Virginia Woolf: To The Lighthouse

Ludmilla Ulitskaya: The Funeral Party (TUS January book club)

William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying (TUS March book club)

Graham Swift: Last Orders (recommended as a companion to As I Lay Dying)

Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (TUS June and July book club)

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath

Willam Trevor: The Story of Lucy Gault

Doris Lessing: The Grass is Singing

Nan and Ivan Lyons: Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe

Roddy Doyle: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

Tracy Chevalier: The Virgin Blue

Salman Rushdie: The Ground Beneath Her Feet I'd forgotten I had this, and I can't find it at the moment, but I'll read it when I do. Oh, found it!

I'm only shooting for every second book in the book club, as history has shown me that I cannot (usually) keep up.

Non-Fiction

Robert Hughes: Barcelona I bought this just before we went to Barcelona not realising that it is a six hundred page, tiny print, art history book. I'm not betting that I'll even open this one.

Jan Morris: Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

Audio

Tom Robbins: Even Cowgirls get the Blues

Terry Pratchett: The Fifth Elephant

Charles Dickens: Bleak House

Charles Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby

Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife

Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

Stephen Jay Gould: Rocks of Ages

Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Michael Cunningham: The Hours

James Fenimore Cooper: The Last of the Mohicans

I've seen the movie version of the last three, but I expect these to be different. I have cancelled my Audible subscription as I can't see myself ever catching up.