Books Everyone Should Read

I found this today.

Now, like most people I know, I’m a sucker for a good list/set of ticky boxes, so I went through and crossed out all the books I’ve already read.

mmm, cloud-y

Which is maybe a little less than half the titles there, not counting the ones I’ve started but not finished or bought with the full intention of reading and have left to gather dust on my shelf for years. The latter two categories would bump it up to about 70% of the books there.

So, as I’m fond of being able to cross things off a list (I like to write “write to do list” somewhere on my to do lists, just so I can cross it out as soon as the list is done), I think I’ll try to read all the books on the cloud, including those I’ve read before as they’re some of my favourites. One a month in no particular order for now. With one exception – I’m not trying to read Blood Meridian ever again. I tried, I really truly did, and I never ever worked out what was supposed to be going on. I read the first chapter no less than four times, going back to the start to read it again each time I finished in an effort to figure out who all these people were and why they were interacting the way they were. If memory serves, a Kid arrives in a small Western town, walks around a bit, gets pushed into the mud near some toilets and then goes to set fire to a stranger’s hotel room with someone he’s just met. And at no point did any of that make any sense to me. So, no. Just… no.

I’ll need to try to look through the source data to find out exactly who some of the authors are for the more generic titles though. Which sucks.

Anyway, I’ll be starting in  April, once I’ve finished reading some of my library books and those lent to me by nice work friends who keep asking how I’m getting on with them. So my March To Read list looks like this:

• Red Plenty by Francis Spufford
• One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
• Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford
• Saturday by Ian McEwan (is the next book group book)

And then, as I have an awesome-looking copy of Don Quixote on my bookshelf, I think I’ll get started on my new project with that. Wish me luck!

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