The Great Reading Challenge of 2011

So we are all aware that I am a raging bibliophile, and it is getting quite ridiculous. I have managed to buy books at a faster rate than I can read, times this by four years working in bookshops, and what do you get? A MASSIVE to-be-read pile. Well, you can really call it a ‘pile’ because if you stacked them up, it would be more like an unread book mound, or perhaps mountain. I have been challenged by my mother to read all the books I own before I go overseas next year, so I’m going to accept that mission. Just so we can gather our wits and see the enormity of the task I have been set, I’m going to publish a list of all my unread books that I own, to wow you with its sheer velocity (and also make your imagination run wild… if that’s the amount of books I HAVENT read…). This challenge also means I can’t buy any new books (after lifeline bookfest this weekend of course!) in line with the saving-for-overseas mentality. Ok so here goes…

Great Expectations Charles Dickens
The Witches of Eastwick John Updike
It’s raining in Mango Thea Astley
Regeneration Pat Barker
Holding the Man Timothy Congrave
Civilisation and its Discontents Sigmund Freud
Histories Herodotus
The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
Possession A.S. Byatt
Naked Lunch William Burroughs
The Quick and the Dead Judy Gardiner
A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula LeGuin
The Mayor Of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
Gullivers Travels Jonathon SwiftThe Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde
The Last Days of Hitler Anton Joachimsthaler
The Truth of the Matter Gough Whitlam
The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy
The turn of the Screw and other short works Henry James
Siddhartha Herman Hesse
Le Morte De Arthur Thomas Malory
War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
Gough Whitlam Jenny Hocking
The Making of Julia Gillard Jacqueline Kent
The Indispensible Chomsky Noam Chomsky
Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
I, Claudius Robert Graves
Watership Down Richard Adams
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
A Streetcar named Desire Tennesse Williams
Madame Bovary Gustav Flaubert
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Tess Of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel
The Case of the Pope Geoffrey Robertson
Peter Pan J.M. Barrie
The Beach Alex Garland
Silas Marner George Eliot
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
Vanity Fair W.M. Thackery
David Copperfield Charles Dickens
The Last of the Mohicans J. Fenimore Cooper
The March Of the Patriots Paul Kelly
Freedom Jonathon Franzen
Weekend Wodehouse P.G. Wodehouse
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
The Tall Man Chloe Hooper
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
Everything is Illuminated Jonathon Safron Foer
The Butterfly Cabinet Bernie McGill
Sabriel Garth Nix
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke
Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
Survival In Auschwitz
The Celtic Twilight W.B. Yeats
God Is Not Great Christopher Hitchens
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
Paradise Lost John Milton
The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
Little Big John Crowley
Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw
Franny and Zooey J.D. Salinger
The Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver
Great Tales and Poems Edgar Allen Poe
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
Anansi Boys Neil Gaiman

Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales

The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter
The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Roddy Doyle
The Book of Illusions Paul Auster
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
Picnic at Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay
The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
The Beauty Myth Noami Wolf
Lady Chatterley’s Lover D.H. Lawrence  
The Call of Cthulhu and other weird Stories H.P Lovecraft

Thats it folks! I think I should make some sort of plan, maybe like one classic then one contemporary, one other (bio, political or historical??) Im not sure yet, but let the games begin!

~images are of Karl Lagerfeld's Parisian Studio (sigh) and the Prague Library's Pile of Books