Books You Plan to Read in 2013

[dreamdead]

So I thought it'd be interesting to see what everyone's interested in trying to read in 2013. Most people certainly have a few select books already in mind, so let's see what you're aiming to get to next year. The goal is to bump the thread periodically and encourage each other to keep with it...

I'm gonna be ambitious and attempt a few big books this next year.

1. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
2. Don DeLillo's Libra
3. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye
4. Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
5. Albert Camus's The Plague
6. Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life
7. J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories
8. Philip Roth's The Human Stain
9. Zadie Smith's On Beauty (to follow up on this year's reading of Howards End)
10. Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

[Kurosawa Fan]

Well, I have to read the following for my Native American Literature course:

Indian Killer - Sherman Alexie
Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko
Round House - Louise Erdrich

As for what I plan to read for leisure:

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
King Lear - Shakespeare
Warlock - Oakley Hall
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... - Italo Calvino
Kiss of the Spider Woman - Manuel Puig
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Blindness - Jose Saramago
A Room With a View - EM Forster
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe

Those are the first to leap to mind.

[Hugh_Grant]

I think I'll have more time for leisure reading this year. I hope.

Two Solitudes
Dinner with Mugabe
The Sense of an Ending
Small Island
Eight Pieces of Empire
The Last King of Scotland
Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
Nervous Conditions
King Leopold's Ghosts
The Table Comes First

KF, I'm half Native American, but I'm sadly not well-read on NA lit. Boo me.

[Kurosawa Fan]

KF, I'm half Native American, but I'm sadly not well-read on NA lit. Boo me.

It's the last literature class I have to take to complete my degree, and it's an area I likely wouldn't have exposed myself to on my own. Plus I really like the professor. It's actually just an American ethnic literature class, but this semester she's focusing on Native American lit. We have an anthology as well, so we'll be reading a lot more than those three novels.

[D_Davis]

I'll re-read The Stars My Destination with you, Brude. The last time I read it, I read it twice in a row. :)

I want to read more true crime this year. I attempted two books this year, and they were both terribly written. I will be reading In Cold Blood and Manhunt for sure, and I'm open to more suggestions.

I will be continuing my adult re-reads of Stephen King's novels. I just started It, and I am LOVING it. I will also be re-reading The Shining and Carrie.

I want to read more from R.A. Lafferty.

I'm also going to read the entire (all 5 books) of Book of the New Sun.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I assume a MC book club has been tried?


It has, with very little success.

[D_Davis]

Well, I have to read the following for my Native American Literature course:

Indian Killer - Sherman Alexie
Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko
Round House - Louise Erdrich


I'll be reading some too. Going to read a couple of books of folklore from the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, the tribe that I will soon be a part of. There are a couple of books on Amazon.

[Robby P]

All the stuff I didn't get around to this year:

NW - Zadie Smith
The Yellow Birds - Kevin Powers
Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
This is How You Lose Her - Junot Diaz
Sweet Tooth - Ian McEwan
Live by Night - Dennis Lehane
Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'll be reading some too. Going to read a couple of books of folklore from the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, the tribe that I will soon be a part of. There are a couple of books on Amazon.

I need more info. How and why are you joining a tribe? That would mean you are already part Native American, I would presume?



@KF There's actually quite a few books I could go for on your list -- the Calvino, Bradbury, Forster and McMurty. Why do you think the club idea failed?

Not enough people followed through on the book of choice, and the discussion suffered. I've taken to reading suggestions that I own but haven't read that are being discussed on MC as a way to spark discussion. Hence my reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell right now. After hearing both Mara and Grouchy rave about it, and Grouchy having just finished it, I figured now was as good a time as any.

If you plan to read any of the above-listed books in the next couple months, and I have enough time during my semester, let me know and we can coordinate them. It will work better after May, when I'm finished with school, but I'm hoping with only one lit class that I'll have plenty of time to read leisurely as well during the semester.

[Mara]

4. Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall


Yes!



King Lear - Shakespeare
Kiss of the Spider Woman - Manuel Puig
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy


Yes!

[Benny Profane]

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
Warlock - Oakley Hall
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler... - Italo Calvino
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Blindness - Jose Saramago
A Room With a View - EM Forster

Those are the first to leap to mind.


You are in for a damn good year.

[Melville]

The World as Will and Representation - Schopenhauer
The Guermantes Way - Proust
The Counterfeiters - Gide
Watt - Beckett
Franny & Zooey - Salinger

Also, the same two books I plan to read/finish every year:

Finnegans Wake - Joyce
Phenomenology of Spirit - Hegel

[Benny Profane]

I am only reading 1000 page books this year:

Infinite Jest
Don Quixote
The Stand
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
The Recognitions
The Count of Monte Cristo

If I can finish all of those I'll be pretty happy.

I've started an 800 page book about the Civil War called Battle Cry of Freedom and won't finish that til January. I've heard from a few reliable sources that this is THE definitive civil war book and so far it is utterly fascinating.

[D_Davis]

I need more info. How and why are you joining a tribe? That would mean you are already part Native American, I would presume?


Yep. My great grandmother on my dad's side (my grandpa's mom) was full-blooded, and I just recently found out which tribe - the Lipan Apache of Texas. A relative contacted me after my grandma (my dad's mom) died this year.

Of course they're the poorest tribe in the nation! So no casino, no land....oh well! That means I'll fit right in. :)

It doesn't cost anything to join.

[Benny Profane]

I want to read more true crime this year. I attempted two books this year, and they were both terribly written. I will be reading In Cold Blood and Manhunt for sure, and I'm open to more suggestions.



These are both top notch and I think you'll love them both. I would also recommend The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer for some great true crime.

[dreamdead]

Well, I have to read the following for my Native American Literature course:

Indian Killer - Sherman Alexie


Ceremony is excellent stuff, especially in Silko's ideas of the half-blood as the true survivor of the race.

Let me know when your class starts Alexie's novel. I made an attempt on it this summer when I thought I'd be teaching it, but once the class was canceled due to low enrollment I put it aside. This would be good motivation to give it another go.

[D_Davis]

These are both top notch and I think you'll love them both. I would also recommend The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer for some great true crime.

Noted, thanks!

And cool - that's about Gary Gilmore. An old band I was in had a song called Gary Gilmore, based on his story.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Yep. My great grandmother on my dad's side (my grandpa's mom) was full-blooded, and I just recently found out which tribe - the Lipan Apache of Texas. A relative contacted me after my grandma (my dad's mom) died this year.

Of course they're the poorest tribe in the nation! So no casino, no land....oh well! That means I'll fit right in. :)

It doesn't cost anything to join.

Very cool!


Ceremony is excellent stuff, especially in Silko's ideas of the half-blood as the true survivor of the race.

Let me know when your class starts Alexie's novel. I made an attempt on it this summer when I thought I'd be teaching it, but once the class was canceled due to low enrollment I put it aside. This would be good motivation to give it another go.

Nice. Glad you enjoyed Ceremony. I was a bit nervous seeing as the plot synopsis of Indian Killer paints it as a fairly generic crime-thriller, so I was a bit concerned that the class selections were chosen with a broad audience in mind. I'll let you know when we start on Alexie.

[TGM]

As of right now my to-read list consists of:

1984 - George Orwell
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor

I was also considering Mark Rogers' Samurai Cat series based on Davis' recommendation, however those appear to be quite hard to acquire, so we'll see.

But pretty much all of my reading comes as a result of recommendations, as otherwise I wouldn't even know where to start, lol. So if anyone has anything they'd recommend me, I'd be more than happy to hear 'em. :)

[Pop Trash]

I totally dig trashy true crime.

Anyways, I will attempt to read the collected works of Kurt Vonnegut and Phillip K. Dick, but I doubt that will happen.

[megladon8]

KF - while it's Native Canadian, a book you might be interested in checking out (if you enjoy the style and are interested in the culture) is "Green Grass, Running Water" by Thomas King.

When I was in grade 8 I was selected to take a university course at Ottawa U called "Fiction, Religion and Star Wars" in which we looked at how literary fiction, religious philosophy and popular culture interconnect. King's book was one of the focal points of the course (as they also tried to give the course some Canadian identity).

Now, I haven't read the book since that time (12 years ago at this point) but I greatly enjoyed it. It was clever and funny, and was the backbone of some really interesting discussions.

I know your plate is probably filled to the brim already, but like I said, just wanted to suggest it in case you end up really liking the style and wanting to look for some more Native lit.

[D_Davis]

I totally dig trashy true crime.


What can you recommend?

[megladon8]

Since I'm officially back in a reading spell, here are a few books on my "must read next" pile...

"Shake Hands With the Devil" by Romeo Dallaire
"A Whale for the Killing" by Farley Mowat
"Under the Sea Wind" by Rachel Carson
"The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll" by Alvaro Mutis
"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond
"Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson

[ledfloyd]

These are pretty generic recommendations DDavis, but if you haven't read David Simon's Homicide or Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven I'd recommend looking into both.

As for what I intend to read this year, I don't have any big plans. Maybe I'll finally get around to Ulysses.

[dreamdead]

1. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
2. Don DeLillo's Libra
3. Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye
4. Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
5. Albert Camus's The Plague
6. Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life
7. J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories
8. Philip Roth's The Human Stain
9. Zadie Smith's On Beauty (to follow up on last year's reading of Howards End)
10. Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

New list after a month:

1. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
2. Don DeLillo's Libra
3. Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
4. Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life
5. J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories
6. Philip Roth's The Human Stain
7. Zadie Smith's On Beauty (to follow up on last year's reading of Howards End)
8. Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending
9. John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces
10. Craig Thompson's Habibi

[Duncan]

Been meaning to read Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess. Also, Tristram Shandy.

[Benny Profane]

Here is some news that pleases me a ridiculous amount.

New Pynchon book called The Bleeding Edge being released in September, focusing on the New York tech scene in 2001. Whether it's 1000+ pages or not, I'll be reading it.


http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/pynchon-takes-on-silicon-alley/