The List [and ramblings about tea]

Mmm. Tea. Delicious Tea.

Actually, I am just trying to convince myself that the tea I am drinking right now is awesome – because what I really really really want is a good cup of coffee with lots of creamer. I love creamer. Probably more than I love coffee. I woke up this morning and lo and behold, there was no creamer. Silly me for forgetting to pick some up. Plus this tea is decaf… what’s that going to do for me?

Here are the books I have lying around my house right now. Some of these I have been sitting, starring at, thinking “Hey, I spent good money on you books. Why are you just sitting there?” Dust collectors, I guess. But good news, now that I have started this bloggity blog, and have taken this picture, it’s like I have to read them – right? As you can tell [or maybe you can’t, it’s not the best picture… I never said I had an awesome camera folks... there will be better ones, promise.], there is a lot of Richard Brautigan [whom I love], there is a Stephen King book that I was told that I should read [so I bought it for like, a whole two bucks, at a used book store], I’ve got some books that I’ve seen on some of those “You Must Read This Before You Die” lists, and then I just have some books that I flat out want to read. 

Speaking of those Best-Books-Ever-That-You-Have-to-Read-Or-You-Aren’t-Cool lists, I am going to make my own [because, I mean really, if EVERYONE is reading the same books from all the same lists... no one is reading anything really 'new']. Entertainment Weekly in 2008 came out with a list of "New Classics" – or rather – books they view as classics written between 1983-2008. Then there is Modern Library’s list of 100 books that the Board recommends, and 100 books that Readers recommend.

So, lets combine and make my own list of however many. I won’t include books that I have already read [although, I may read them again, just for fun].

The List:

Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead Anne Patchett, Bel Canto Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible Charles Bukowski [Anything I can find] Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers Denise Lehane, Mystic River Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius David Sedaris, Naked Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence E.M. Forster, A Room With a View F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer John Stewart, America Joyce Carol Oates, Black Water John Irving, The World According to Garp John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim John Steinbeck, The Pearl James Joyce, Finnegans Wake Jack Kerouac, On the Road James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce, Ulysses Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter House 5 Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale Mary Karr, The Liars Club

Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Rudyard Kipling, Kim Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man Robert Graves, I, Claudius Richard Brautigan, A Confederate General from Big Sur Richard Brautigan, The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 Richard Brautigan, The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn Richard Brautigan, The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House Stephen King, IT Stephen King, Duma Key Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy Toni Morrison, Beloved Thomas Pynchon, V. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark William Styron, Sophie’s Choice William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage Walker Percy, The Moviegoer William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch William Gibson, Neuromancer

So, on to reading! What to choose… what to choose…