The List

Below is my list of books for the year. I just copied my XL file so things are kinda scrunched together. As of today, I've finished the first five books, roughly eight percent of the 17,384 pages. Considering the year is almost 33 percent in the books (ha ha), that's not good. But I am enjoying the challenge. I just finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides which I thought was great. Like Shepard, he's really good with characters in the midst of adolescence as anyone who's read The Virgin Suicides can attest. I know he just had a short story in The New Yorker with art by John Baldessari. I've got to check that out. I've been going around saying "Total ripoff" in my best Greek/ethnic voice.

So, I have to chose a new book. I'd like to read The Masters Butchers Singing Club or White Teeth but they both seem like family dramas and I just got through one of those. Middlesex, I mean. So, I'm thinking maybe Cloudsplitter or Cryptonomicon or Sacred Hunger which I looked at tonight. The problem is I have a limited number of fiction books so I need to read a non-fiction one at the same time. I thought maybe With the Old Breed. I might throw in a short book here and there just to check them off the list. The Civil War stuff I'm putting off until the summer. Then, it's war. And more war.

Like You'd Understand, Anyway - Shepard, Jim 211
And a Bottle of Rum - Curtis, Wayne 256
Out Stealing Horses - Petterson, Per 258
Mishima's Sword - Ross, Christopher 244
Middlesex - Eugenides, Jeffrey 529
With the Old Breed - Sledge, E.B. 315
Meat is Murder -Pernice, Joe 102
The Rest is Noise -Ross, Alex 543
Cloudsplitter - Banks, Russell 758
The Masters Butchers Singing Club - Erdich, Louise 388
Bleachers - Grisham, John 163
The Unconsoled - Ishiguro, Kazou 535
The Road - McCarthy, Cormac 241
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness - Oe, Kenzaburo 261
White Teeth - Smith, Zadie 448
Cryptonomicon - Stephenson, Neal 910
Bay of Souls - Stone, Robert 249
Perfume - Suskind, Patrick 310
Sacred Hunger - Unsworth, Barry 630
Magical Thinking - Burroughs, Augusten 268
A Life in Writing - Chaplin, Charles 203
Reading, Writing and Leaving Home - Freed, Lynn 234
Interesting Times - Hobsbawn, Eric 418
Teacher Man - McCourt, Frank 258
Living to Tell the Tale - Garcia Marquez, Gabriel 484
Herman Melville - Parker, Hershel 883
A Gentle Madness - Basbanes, Nicholas A. 533
Dark Star Safari - Theroux, Paul 472
The God Delusion - Dawkins, Richard 374
The Beleaguered City - Foote, Shelby 347
Battle Cry of Freedom - McPherson, James 867
Stillness at Appomattox - Caton, Bruce 380
Personal Memoirs - Grant, Ullysses S. 682
TCW -Fort Sumter to Perryville - Foote, Shelby 810
TCW- Fredericksburg to Meridian - Foote, Shelby 976
TCW - Red River to Appomattox - Foote, Shelby 1060
Literary Feuds - Arthur, Anthony 208
Nature Noir - Smith, Jordan Fisher 213
The March - Doctorow, E.L. 363
17384 Total Pages