‘Mon the books!

I don’t read a lot of books. I’ve always felt like I’m missing out on things when people talk about ‘chilling out’ in front of a good book. In the last few days I have decided I’m going to rectify this.

How am I going to do this? Well. I love having myself a target, I’m the kind of bloke who needs a bit of structure to his day/life/thoughts. I thought the best thing to do would be to I get a list of books to read and then go through them and have a bit of extra interest by blogging about them as I go.

I had a surf online for some book lists but most of them struck me as a bit too heavy going and a bit Too Much Too Soon. I finally came upon a list on the Times website called The 100 Best Books of the Decade. Suits me as all the books are modern and a bit less heavy on the old nut.

I’m not going to read all 100 of them. My target is the top 20:

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003)
3. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (2004)
4. Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers trans Robert Bringhurst (2002)
5. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (2006)
6. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002)
8. Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood (2008)
9. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
10. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003)
    One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre *As suggested by Colin in the comments
11. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, in a new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2007)
    The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler *As suggested by Steve in the comments
12. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000)
13. Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald (2001)
14. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003)
15. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006)
    Animal Farm by George Orwell *As suggested by Jaggy in comments
16. Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy (2005)
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (2007)
    The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen *As per Jen’s suggestion in comments
18. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (2008)
19. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
20. White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)

Now here is where I take some liberties on my original concept. I’ve taken out The God Delusion and The Da Vini Code because I’ve already read them. Harry Potter is a gonner because it would require me to read parts 4, 5 and 6 (read the first three) and War and Peace has been dropped because I want to finish this project in the next 50 years.

So to replace the 4 dropped books I thought, in the true spirit of the internet, I would ask the world to tell me what to read. So here it is, dear reader, I’m asking for your input here. I would be really grateful if you could suggest some great books for me to grip my teeth into.

Thanks!

PS. I’m away to start on White Teeth now, which I bought yesterday!