The Book List 2008
March 11, 2008 by elizadashwood
Hi there,
In a previous post I created a list of books that I wanted to get through by the end of 2008. Although I initially created a list of 52 books (one per week) and some alternates, the book list has grown legs and I’ve added a good deal more. On this page, I’ll be keeping track of the ones I’d like to get through and the ones I’ve finished. Any recommendations would be welcomed and will be added to the list. A synopsis would also be appreciated.
Cheers!
The Book List
1. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
2. The Almost Moon - Alice Seabold
3. A Certain Slant of Light - Laura Whitcomb
4. The Road to Avalon - Joan Wolf
5. The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
6. The Land Girls - Angela Huth
7. The Light of Asia - Sir Edwin Arnold
8. Twilight - Stephanie Meyer
9. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
10. Acacia - David Anthony Durham
11. Making Money - Terry Pratchet
12. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
13. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
14. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
15. The Wings of the Dove - Henry James
16. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
17. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hoggs
18. The Trial - Franz Kafka
19. White Teeth - Zadie Smith
20. Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
21. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
22. Natural Selection - Bill Dare
23. Fury - Salem Rushdie
24. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
25. The Photograph - Penelope Lively
26. Heart Shaped Box - Joe Hill
27. The Scandal of the Season - Sophie Gee
28. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
29. The French Lieutenant’s Woman - John Fowles
30. The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
31. The History of England
32. Beloved - Toni Morrison
33. Q - Luther Blissett
34. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T. E. Lawrence
35. The Queen of Subtleties - Suzannah Dunn
36. Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
37. In the Company of the Courtesan - Sarah Dunant
38. Rope Burns - F.X. Toole
39. Smashed - Koren Zailckas
40. New Moon - Stephanie Meyer
41. Lucky - Alice Seabold
42. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
43. Intruder in the Dust - William Faulkner
44. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
45. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
46. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
47. Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
48. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
49. Middlemarch - George Eliot
50. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
51. Human Croquet - Kate Atkinson
52. Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder
Note: Completed books are in Bold.
1. We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver
2. The Samurai’s Garden - Gail Tsukiyama
3. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms - Gail Tsukiyama
4. The Dressmaker - Elizabeth Birkelund Overbeck
5. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
6. Battle Royale - Houshun Takami
7. I Haven’t Dreamt of Flying for a While - Taichi Yamada
8. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
9. Marley & Me - John Grogan
10. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
11. The White Castle - Orhan Pamuk
12. Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov
13. Rape - A Love Story - Joyce Carol Oates
14. How to Survive a Horror Movie - Seth Grahame-Smith
15. The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman
16. Breakfast At Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
17. The Book with No Name - Anonymous
18. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
19. Winkie - Clifford Chase
20. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
21. Burning Bright - Tracy Chevalier
22. Lost Girls and Love Hotels - Catherine Hanrahan
23. Nefertiti - Michelle Moran
24. Tan Lines - J.J. Salem
What an auspicious list! Glad to see Morrison and Faulkner on there as they are two of my favorites. INTRUDER IN THE DUST is one I have yet to read…still need to find a copy of it to grab! Thanks for reminding me!
If you like Faulkner, I highly recommend LIGHT IN AUGUST.
Also, from Henry James, I recommend THE TURN OF THE SCREW.
Hi Dave, Thanks for your comment. I’ve read the Turn of the Screw. Spooky! Excellent book. Did you ever see the screen adaptation, “The Innocents”?
As for Light in August, I’ll add that to the list. Thanks!
E
Eliza,
No, I haven’t seen “The Innocents” though I have heard it is a superb adaptation of the book. It’s definitely on my list of things to watch.
Many recent ghost movies seem to have been influenced by “The Turn of the Screw.” Most notable are “The Others” and the recent Spanish film, “The Orphanage.” These are two movies that I really enjoyed, and it was a review of “The Orphanage” that compared it to James’ work that prompted me to read it. It’s always great to find the source of the inspiration.
I would recommend Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire’, also Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things fall apart’. The first is a fake commentary on a fake epic poem, turning into a twisting insight into obsession, history and self delusion. The latter is the first novel written in english by an African about the life of an African - one man’s view of a violently changing world, with all the loss and subtlety that entails. Very moving.
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. I’ve read “Pale Fire” and you’re quite right, it’s brilliant. I haven’t read “Things fall apart”, so I’ll be sure to add that to the list. Thanks for the recommendation.
E
One of my favorites is by the Austrian writer, Robert Musil. The book is called “The Man without Qualities.”