The Mission Redone
Unemployed and bored, I launched into a personal challenge in early 2010 as a way to both better myself and keep my mind from slipping deeper into creative hibernation.
I committed myself to reading through the whole of the Strand 80, a list of 80+ novels designated as the “best” by Strand Bookstore customers. If you have never experienced Strand, dear book worm, than allow me to introduce you to a Wordie’s Mecca. The greatest bookstore on earth, tucked away in the urban folds of Manhattan.
I started off nicely, but then distractions set in. I discovered Hunger Games. LOST came back. LOST left. I got editorial comments. I went into a rewrite coma. I exercised. I came up with excuses to not exercise. I performed weekly. I volunteered. I spoiled my nieces. I spoiled myself. …you get the picture.
All the while I have continued making my way down the list, mindfully avoiding Ulysses, but not at the speed I had initially intended. So, I propose a minor edit to the original challenge and since my vote is the only one that really counts in this instance, the proposition has been accepted.
The time limit for the challenge will be removed. I will simply work my way through the Strand 80 at a speed that will allow me to both enjoy the books and life.
So once more for the record, The Strand 80:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee *
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ***
3. Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald *
4. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger *
5. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
6. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand *
7. Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone by J. K. Rowling *
11. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
12. 1984 by Geore Orwell
13. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
14. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell *
15. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
16. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Yowzah!)
17. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
18. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
19. Ulysses by James Joyce (yikes!)
20. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini *
21. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller ***
22. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
23. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
24. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
25. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
26. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien ***
27. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J. K. Rowling ***
28. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon *
29. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
30. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
31. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
32. Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll***
33. Stranger by Albert Camus
34. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley***
35. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott36. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
37. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
38. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
39. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
40. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
41. Anthem by Ayn Rand *
42. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
43. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
44. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
45. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
46. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez***
47. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
48. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger***
49. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
50. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera*
51. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath*
52. The World According to Garp by John Irving
53. Middlemarch by George Eliot
54. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
55. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
56. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling *
57. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling *
58. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway *
59. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card ***
60. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
61. Beloved by Toni Morrison
62. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens *
63. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers *
64. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
65. The Sound and Fury by William Faulkner
66. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolfe
67. The Giver Lois Lowry
68. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
69. Blindness by Jose Saramago
70. Life of Pi by Martel Yann *
71. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
72. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak ***
73. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
74. Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis (I think this may be cheating)
75. The Odyssey by Homer *
76. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown *
77. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger78. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle ***
79. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer *
80(a). The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
80(b). The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde *
!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?
(*) a book I’ve read, but it’s been a while so I’ll give it another go
(***) already read it and still remember it pretty clearly, so reserve the right to not read
(!?!?!?!?) where the heck is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!?!?!?
Recent comments