I finished 21 books this year. In order, they were:
- To The Wedding by John Berger
- The Locked Room by Paul Auster
- Within A Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
- The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
- What Maisie Knew by Henry James
- Sodom & Gomorrah by Marcel Proust
- The Immoralist by Andre Gide
- Still Life by A.S. Byatt
- Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust
- Time Regained by Marcel Proust
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
- Snow by Orhan Pamuk
- Blue Angel by Francine Prose
- Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
- Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
- Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
- Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Some thoughts:
It's quite a relief to have Proust behind me.
I've loved Gide for years, but had never read The Immoralist. I find I often avoid reading the most well known books by authors. Like, I love Anthony Burgess, but have never read A Clockwork Orange.
I had never read Jane Austen before the fall of 2004, when we were subletting the apartment in Williamsburg and I ran out of my own reading material. I found Pride & Prejudice on the shelf and read it and loved it. (I found Swann's Way on the shelf too, which is what started me on Proust - I had never seriously considered reading him before that...). Anyway, after we saw Pride & Prejudice: The Movie I remembered how much I had liked the book and I went out and bought the 4 books listed here and read them all back to back.
Loving Jane Austen is also, kind of, what led to my reading Tom Jones (which I finished yesterday, and absolutely loved.) I got kind of hooked on comic (and romantic) English literature, though Fielding is a lot more bawdy, and funnier, really, than Jane Austen.
And now I will declare a favorite:
Tom Jones. Seriously. Though, to be fair, it also has the advantage of being very fresh in my mind.
From my list, I also recommend:
- Snow (this was so good)
- Northanger Abbey (if you didn't read it in, like, high school)
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (if you're prepared to give up your life for a couple weeks, because I couldn't stop reading it - even A. couldn't stop reading it, and he hates books that do that to you)
Happy New Year!
