52 Books in 52 Weeks

Like most university students, there was a great disparity between the academic reading list I was set and the list of books I actually managed to read. Ashamed as I am to admit it, there were days when catching up with Orange is the New Black took priority over devouring William Faulkner’s Light In August. But worry not, I am seeking to rectify this literary laziness.

I am constantly acquiring new additions to my ‘to-read list’ and pick up perused paperbacks in charity shops like the Kindle has issued an exile order of its print foes. And yet very rarely do I sit down and make time for reading. By the time I roll in to bed I can barely keep my eyes open and the only time I read consistently is when I’ve had the fortune of discovering a real page-turner. Or when the Wi-Fi is down.

So I’ve set myself a challenge. I’m never going to run the London Marathon, so this is my literary equivalent. Something that feels momentous and worthy, and won’t damage but knees, but nevertheless looks nigh on impossible. The risk of failing runs high, and no doubt there will be weekends when curling up with a box-set, or remembering what it feels like to have sun on my skin and frolic in the grass will usurp the quest to quench 52 pieces of literature.

But I’m setting myself the task nevertheless (to be honest I’ve never done much frolicking anyway). I may encounter perilous paper-cuts, magical-realist induced migraines and waves of self-doubt, yet power through I shall.

I’ve compiled the list below and will strike-through the ones I manage to complete. This is made up of the astonishing number of novels, memoirs and non-fiction fancies that I already own, but have stockpiled to be enjoyed at a later date. Some are titles I have claimed to have already read (three of which I already have, but would like to revisit), a couple are ones I’ve started but failed to finish and the rest are journeys I have yet to begin with charaters I have yet to encounter. I also own War and Peace, but that’s going to remain on the shelf in a decorative capacity only.

I’m aiming to jot a few thoughts down on each entry. The game-plan is to start a book each Monday and by Sunday be able to give a snippet review. This post is a bit belated as I’ve read the first five, but I wanted some assurance this was a project worth investing in/blogging about, before diving straight in, realising it was all too overwhelming (like this year’s journal-keeping aspiration – last entry dated January 24th) and retreating back to Netflix with my high-minded tail between my legs. That being said, I’m already lagging behind, as I finished no.5 on Tuesday and only picked up no.6 on Thursday, but hey, everyone loves an underdog. Here goes nothing…

1. How To Be Alone – Jonathan Franzen
2. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
3. Wild – Cheryl Strayed
4. How Should A Person Be? – Sheila Heti
5. The Colossus of New York – Colson Whitehead
6. The Light Between Oceans – M.L. Steadman
7. Pure – Andrew Miller
8. This Changes Everything – Naomi Klein
9. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
10. One Hundred Years Of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. In The Lake In The Woods – Tim O’Brien
12. Into The Wild – Jon Krakauer
13. How The French Invented Love – Marilyn Yalom
14. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson
15. I Am Malala – Malala Yousafzai
16. Of Mice And Men – John Steinbeck
17. The Engagements – J Courtney Sullivan
18. American Tabloid – James Ellroy
19. L.A. Confidential – James Ellroy
20. Jazz – Toni Morrison
21. Beloved – Toni Morrison
22. American Rust – Phillip Meyer
23. Americana – Don DeLillo
24. Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
25. Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
26. The Wolf of Wall Street – Jordan Belfort
27. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
28. The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson
29. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
30. Restless – William Boyd
31. Not That Kind Of Girl – Lena Dunham
32. Wild Swans – Jung Chang
33. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
34. Jude The Obscure – Thomas Hardy
35. Wikileaks and The Age of Transparency – Micah L. Sifry
36. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
37. The Crossing – Cormac McCarthy
38. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
39. All The King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
40. The Good German – Joseph Kanon
41. The Last Tycoon – F. Scott Fitzgerald
42. Why Nations Fail -Daron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson
43. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
44. The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
45. Runaway Jury – John Grisham
46. 1984 – George Orwell
47. The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
48. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
49. The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
50. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
51. Mrs Dalloway – Virgina Woolf
52. Yes Please – Amy Poehler