The past year has been a little nuts for me. Between work, family, running
, and all the good and bad that life has thrown at me, I haven't had much in the way of free time, which means I haven't had a lot of time for one of my favorite passtimes, which is reading.
I've still managed to read a bit, but only in short bursts here and there: ebooks while in line at the post office, a chapter of a graphic novel here and there, audiobooks on the drive into work. But I couldn't remember the last time I had just sat down and lost myself in a book, devouring it in a day or two the way I used to.
Well, times have changed, and I've made some adjustments in my life and my schedule that are finally allowing me to turn my life right side up again. And what's one of the first priorities I've set for myself: more time for reading.
But where to start? I have shelves full of books I want to get to, and no idea where to begin. So, I decided to do what any borderline-OCD gamer with a tendency toward indecision and an overabundance of dice would do: make a list of the top choices and pick my next book at random.
Here's the list I came up with, in obsessive, alphabetical order. It's a good mix: some old favorites I want to revisit, classics I haven't gotten to, non-fiction I've been meaning to read, and a few just for fun:
1) 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke
2) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
3) Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
4) And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
5) Better Than Sex by Hunter S. Thompson
6) Casino Royale by Ian Flemming
7) Confessions of a Dangerous Mind by Chuck Barris
8) Danse Macabre by Stephen King
9) Dracula by Bram Stoker
10) Fugitives and Refugees by Chuck Palahniuk
11) Gates of Eden by Ethan Coen
12) Ghosts of the Fireground by Peter M. Leschak
13) Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
14) How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
15) I, Claudius by Robert Graves
16) Imajica by Clive Barker
17) Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie
18) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
19) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
20) Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell
21) Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
22) My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
23) Otherland: Mountain of Black Glass by Tad Williams
24) Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell
25) Psycho by Robert Bloch
26) Roanoke by Lee Miller
27) Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman by Walter Miller, Jr.
28) Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card
29) Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock
30) Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
31) The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
32) The End of the World: A History by Otto Friedrich
33) The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez Reverte
34) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
35) The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
36) The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
37) The Hobbit (Annotated) by J.R.R. Tolkien
38) The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson
39) The Kid Stays In the Picture by Robert Evans
40) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
41) The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zambardo
42) The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar
43) The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
44) The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
45) The Sicilian by Mario Puzo
46) Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
47) Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
48) Tyrannosaurus Sue by Steve Fiffer
49) Valis by Philip K. Dick
50) Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore
It should also give an idea of how eclectic my tastes are. Hard sci-fi, historical drama, gothic horror, memoir, hard-boiled mystery, epic fantasy...I read it all. But I'm still left with the question of where to begin. Well, that's where my trusty d10s come in. A well-practiced roll of the dice, and the winner is...
2) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Not a bad, starting off with a Pulitzer Prize winner. I've had my copy of this book for about 5 years, and never cracked the binding until now. As I type this, I'm about halfway through, and enjoying it quite a bit...almost as much as I'm enjoying the fact that I finally have time to experience it.
I'll post my future choices in this blog, if for no other reason than to be able to look back on the whole process at some point and review my progress. In the meantime, if anyone out there has a suggestion for which book I should tackle next or other titles to add to my list, just drop me a note or a comment.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read.
