Up to page 550
Fun fact: Anna Karenina was published in serial installments over a 5 year span in the 1870's. In other words, trying to read it all in one span is a bit soul crushing. It's a good book, but Tolstoy is a master of getting into his characters' heads. After a while I start absorbing all the unhappy mush that are these characters.
So, new plan. At the end of each part I'm going to take a sanity break and read something else, preferably one of my shorter list items. I just finished Part 5 and man what a heart wrencher. Mostly, I have very little patience for Anna but there is this scene with her son that slew me. I don't think it would have affected me as strongly before I had my son but when Anna breaks into her husband's house to see her son on his birthday. . . it's an amazing moment.
Mind you, if she hadn't acted like an entire idiot for the preceding four parts, she wouldn't have had to sneak in. I guess part of the draw is watching someone cope with the consequences of some really bad decisions. In the meantime, her husband, Alexi Alexandrovich, has become a religious nut mocked by society for the behavior of his wife (and also because he's a bit of an over serious bafoonish character). In a spot of happiness, Levin and Kitty finally got married but then Levin's brother died.
The whole part closes with Anna being confronted with society's' attitude toward her and it is devastating.
I can't wait to find out what happens next....but really I'm taking a break.
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
I Am Legend
I ended up taking a break and reading I Am Legend all in one gulp. I have to admit it was reassuring. I was really beginning to worry there that my general reading rate wasn't where I thought it was, but I managed 160 pages in one day with no problems.
I Am Legend showed up due to one incident ten years ago that somehow stuck in my memory. For some reason the Will Smith movie came up and Nathan asked me what I thought about the differences from the book. This was the first I knew of the book and obviously Nathan just assumed that I had read it.
Having read it now, it has very little to do with the movie. The Will Smith movie is good. It is one of my favorite zombie flicks but there are no zombies in the book. The book has vampires. That being said, the movie did preserve many of the themes. I found the idea of isolation particularly difficult to shake. Usually in these apocalyptic stories, it seems like you have a small band striving for survival. In I Am Legend it is just Robert Neville under siege by hordes of vampires. As far as he knows he's the last human left in the world. In many ways it's more about the psychology of isolation and what makes a monster monstrous than a vampire story.
I Am Legend showed up due to one incident ten years ago that somehow stuck in my memory. For some reason the Will Smith movie came up and Nathan asked me what I thought about the differences from the book. This was the first I knew of the book and obviously Nathan just assumed that I had read it.
Having read it now, it has very little to do with the movie. The Will Smith movie is good. It is one of my favorite zombie flicks but there are no zombies in the book. The book has vampires. That being said, the movie did preserve many of the themes. I found the idea of isolation particularly difficult to shake. Usually in these apocalyptic stories, it seems like you have a small band striving for survival. In I Am Legend it is just Robert Neville under siege by hordes of vampires. As far as he knows he's the last human left in the world. In many ways it's more about the psychology of isolation and what makes a monster monstrous than a vampire story.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 8 or 9 or something
up to page 480
Ok this is a long freaking book. Like really freaking long...and dense. And it's good. It is really, really good but I'm fighting the impulse to put it down to read something else for a while. I worry if I do that, I will have a very hard time picking Anna Karenina back up. On the other hand, I'm fighting with myself trying to get pages in. I'm averaging something like 70 pages a day, which I consider a triumph given the material, but I'm falling behind my page schedule.
Honestly, this is what reading a novelisation of Downton Abbey would be like. There's all this character drama and it's good but after a while I feel like I need to sit the characters down and say... "So tell me about your relationship with your mother." Really. They all just need therapy, which is fun to read for the same reason that people like watching daytime soap operas.
If I keep reading at my current rate, I'll finish off the book sometime this weekend.
Maybe I need a break.
Ok this is a long freaking book. Like really freaking long...and dense. And it's good. It is really, really good but I'm fighting the impulse to put it down to read something else for a while. I worry if I do that, I will have a very hard time picking Anna Karenina back up. On the other hand, I'm fighting with myself trying to get pages in. I'm averaging something like 70 pages a day, which I consider a triumph given the material, but I'm falling behind my page schedule.
Honestly, this is what reading a novelisation of Downton Abbey would be like. There's all this character drama and it's good but after a while I feel like I need to sit the characters down and say... "So tell me about your relationship with your mother." Really. They all just need therapy, which is fun to read for the same reason that people like watching daytime soap operas.
If I keep reading at my current rate, I'll finish off the book sometime this weekend.
Maybe I need a break.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 6
up to page 369
It is the nature of this kind of challenge that I tend to know a fair bit about the books before I'm picking them up either because people talk about them or because I've read sections of them before. It's easy, in fact, to think that I know all I really need to and the reading itself is just icing. That's probably how I landed with this list.
So, before picking up Anna Karenina I already had a rough idea of the plot. I knew about Anna and Vronsky. I knew there was a Kitty in there, but I didn't know how she was connected. I did not know about Levin and it seems to me at this point that Levin is the most likable of the characters.
I'll admit that Levin is a bit moody, but he's also the character that makes the most sense to me. He's a member of the aristocracy but goes out to do manual labor on his estate in order to get the mood lifting effects of heavy exertion. He doesn't like the conflict between the classes and strives to find ways to change things which opens him up to some mockery. When Kitty rejects him in favor of Vronsky, he can't imagine trying her again when Vronsky ditches her for Anna. All in all, I get Levin and I like him even when he does foolish things.
I was talking to Ivan the other day. He and I argue about the relative merits of Shakespeare on an annual basis. He hates Shakespeare and I'm constantly defending it. In one of these conversations I noted that reading anything in translation was bound to kill some of what makes a piece of literature good. As a slovak, Ivan read Shakespeare in translation but he read Anna Karenina in russian.
Yesterday, Ivan noticed I was reading Anna Karenina so we chatted about it. It also turns out that our media specialist, Susan is a big fan. It's weird how different an experience reading in this challenge is.
It is the nature of this kind of challenge that I tend to know a fair bit about the books before I'm picking them up either because people talk about them or because I've read sections of them before. It's easy, in fact, to think that I know all I really need to and the reading itself is just icing. That's probably how I landed with this list.
So, before picking up Anna Karenina I already had a rough idea of the plot. I knew about Anna and Vronsky. I knew there was a Kitty in there, but I didn't know how she was connected. I did not know about Levin and it seems to me at this point that Levin is the most likable of the characters.
I'll admit that Levin is a bit moody, but he's also the character that makes the most sense to me. He's a member of the aristocracy but goes out to do manual labor on his estate in order to get the mood lifting effects of heavy exertion. He doesn't like the conflict between the classes and strives to find ways to change things which opens him up to some mockery. When Kitty rejects him in favor of Vronsky, he can't imagine trying her again when Vronsky ditches her for Anna. All in all, I get Levin and I like him even when he does foolish things.
I was talking to Ivan the other day. He and I argue about the relative merits of Shakespeare on an annual basis. He hates Shakespeare and I'm constantly defending it. In one of these conversations I noted that reading anything in translation was bound to kill some of what makes a piece of literature good. As a slovak, Ivan read Shakespeare in translation but he read Anna Karenina in russian.
Yesterday, Ivan noticed I was reading Anna Karenina so we chatted about it. It also turns out that our media specialist, Susan is a big fan. It's weird how different an experience reading in this challenge is.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 5
Up to page 294
Observation: The fascination of watching a trainwreck of a social situation is apparently a universal appeal. Anna Karenina is reminding me of similar stories in both British and Japanese literature. It also seems universal that most of the time we want it to work out ok....not sure yet about the russians.
Observation: The fascination of watching a trainwreck of a social situation is apparently a universal appeal. Anna Karenina is reminding me of similar stories in both British and Japanese literature. It also seems universal that most of the time we want it to work out ok....not sure yet about the russians.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 3
Up to page 200
I finally found sympathy for Count Vronsky. I still think he's an arrogant, self-important, jerk-face, but I finally hit the first major crisis in his relationship with Anna and the disastrous steeplechase.
Anna falls pregnant which is of course the big fear in any illicit affair. While I don't think he really understands what will happen if she decides to run away with him as he suggests, I am impressed that he was less concerned for saving his own hide and seems legitimately concerned for her. I do still feel like he was the worst kind of guy to pursue her in the first place, but at least he's taking in seriously.
The steeplechase is a heart-breaker. I hate the idea of horses dying and the way Fou Fou dies is just tragic. However, Vronsky's response shows there's more to him than a pretty face. He really cared about that horse and feels guilt for what happened to him, even if it was an accident.
I'm not saying that I'm turning into a Vronsky fan, but I've finally found something sympathetic in him.
Levin seems to be recovering from his "humiliation" but it has been a while since the narrative checked in on him. I'm kind of hoping that he decides to go after Kitty, but we'll see.
I finally found sympathy for Count Vronsky. I still think he's an arrogant, self-important, jerk-face, but I finally hit the first major crisis in his relationship with Anna and the disastrous steeplechase.
Anna falls pregnant which is of course the big fear in any illicit affair. While I don't think he really understands what will happen if she decides to run away with him as he suggests, I am impressed that he was less concerned for saving his own hide and seems legitimately concerned for her. I do still feel like he was the worst kind of guy to pursue her in the first place, but at least he's taking in seriously.
The steeplechase is a heart-breaker. I hate the idea of horses dying and the way Fou Fou dies is just tragic. However, Vronsky's response shows there's more to him than a pretty face. He really cared about that horse and feels guilt for what happened to him, even if it was an accident.
I'm not saying that I'm turning into a Vronsky fan, but I've finally found something sympathetic in him.
Levin seems to be recovering from his "humiliation" but it has been a while since the narrative checked in on him. I'm kind of hoping that he decides to go after Kitty, but we'll see.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 2
up to page 133
Anna Karenina is written in eight parts and there is a large chronological gap between the end of part one and the beginning of part two. I'd say it's at least six months and in that time Vronsky's followed Anna back to Petersburg and Kitty is wasting away in an excess of despair.
I hate that. What kind of a self-respecting woman chooses to waste away because some jerk of a guy ditches her. What's worse is that she keeps thinking that it's all about that pretty boy Vronsky when it seems to me that her issue is more that she's embarrassed. She refused poor Levin's proposal because of pretty boy and now she regrets her decision. She's pouting.
There are signs that she's going to get her act together and I remain hopeful for her, but she's got to let go of that waste of space. I mean he ditches her to chase after a married woman and he tells himself that there's something admirable in this.
Anna, in the meantime, seems to be struggling with herself. She's trying to be faithful but enjoys the attention. I get that, but it can come to no good in the end.
Hopefully, I can get more read tomorrow. I got a little bogged down today.
Anna Karenina is written in eight parts and there is a large chronological gap between the end of part one and the beginning of part two. I'd say it's at least six months and in that time Vronsky's followed Anna back to Petersburg and Kitty is wasting away in an excess of despair.
I hate that. What kind of a self-respecting woman chooses to waste away because some jerk of a guy ditches her. What's worse is that she keeps thinking that it's all about that pretty boy Vronsky when it seems to me that her issue is more that she's embarrassed. She refused poor Levin's proposal because of pretty boy and now she regrets her decision. She's pouting.
There are signs that she's going to get her act together and I remain hopeful for her, but she's got to let go of that waste of space. I mean he ditches her to chase after a married woman and he tells himself that there's something admirable in this.
Anna, in the meantime, seems to be struggling with herself. She's trying to be faithful but enjoys the attention. I get that, but it can come to no good in the end.
Hopefully, I can get more read tomorrow. I got a little bogged down today.
Monday, May 20, 2019
Anna Karenina - Day 1
Up to page 83.
Let me begin by saying, I did not know what to expect really. I knew that I would probably enjoy Anna Karenina if I could get into it because I enjoy most classics once I take on the ordeal of reading them. I don't think that I expected to be captured by the narrative in the first 12 pages, but there is something enchanting about Tolstoy's writing (and Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation too.)
It's the characters that are drawing me in. I haven't met them all yet but I already consider Prince Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky one of those useless people that irritate me at parties. All smiles and two-faced agreeableness and no real substance. They always agree because they haven't spent time really thinking about anything. His wife, Princess Darya Alexandrovna (Dolly), I feel really sorry for. Oblonsky is a cad and a cheat and she has every right to be angry with him. The whole book begins with Oblonsky being distressed because he got caught in an affair with his children's french governess, except he's not really distressed. He knows he ought to be, but he's infuriatingly unaffected by it in any real way. He reminds me of the puppy who gets scolded for chewing on shoes but keeps trying to continue chewing on them while crying for being scolded. It makes me want to smack him with a rolled up newspaper.
Then there's Konstantin Dmitrich Levin. I find myself wondering about poor Levin. He's practically Oblonsky's foil. If Oblonsky doesn't really care or think about things in a meaningful way, Levin goes off the other end and cares/thinks way too much. He's perfectly infatuated with this girl Kitty, or Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna, but keeps convincing himself that he is unworthy of her, then changing his mind, then getting discouraged and giving up again.
Kitty on the other hand is a complete idiot, but I forgive her...I think she is just really very young and more than a little silly. She's infatuated with Count Vronsky who is younger and handsomer than poor Levin. I'm really hopeful that Kitty will get her head screwed on right and reconsider Levin, but that seems unlikely. Vronsky, by the way, is a jerk. So far he seems like an analog for the all-American football star/prom king, who takes female attention as a kind of God given right in appreciation of his splendid testosterone prettiness.
Notice that the title character hasn't even shown up yet. Anna Karenina shows up, finally, on page 61 in my edition. Within 20 pages she has fixed, at least temporarily, Oblonsky's marriage, become a sensation in Moscow society, and caused Vronsky to ditch Kitty at a ball. So she's like a bizarre Russian Mary Poppins - a catalyst that turns everything upside down and who everyone falls in love with. I don't know what I think of her yet, but I'm itching to get back to it so I can find out.
Let me begin by saying, I did not know what to expect really. I knew that I would probably enjoy Anna Karenina if I could get into it because I enjoy most classics once I take on the ordeal of reading them. I don't think that I expected to be captured by the narrative in the first 12 pages, but there is something enchanting about Tolstoy's writing (and Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation too.)
It's the characters that are drawing me in. I haven't met them all yet but I already consider Prince Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky one of those useless people that irritate me at parties. All smiles and two-faced agreeableness and no real substance. They always agree because they haven't spent time really thinking about anything. His wife, Princess Darya Alexandrovna (Dolly), I feel really sorry for. Oblonsky is a cad and a cheat and she has every right to be angry with him. The whole book begins with Oblonsky being distressed because he got caught in an affair with his children's french governess, except he's not really distressed. He knows he ought to be, but he's infuriatingly unaffected by it in any real way. He reminds me of the puppy who gets scolded for chewing on shoes but keeps trying to continue chewing on them while crying for being scolded. It makes me want to smack him with a rolled up newspaper.
Then there's Konstantin Dmitrich Levin. I find myself wondering about poor Levin. He's practically Oblonsky's foil. If Oblonsky doesn't really care or think about things in a meaningful way, Levin goes off the other end and cares/thinks way too much. He's perfectly infatuated with this girl Kitty, or Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna, but keeps convincing himself that he is unworthy of her, then changing his mind, then getting discouraged and giving up again.
Kitty on the other hand is a complete idiot, but I forgive her...I think she is just really very young and more than a little silly. She's infatuated with Count Vronsky who is younger and handsomer than poor Levin. I'm really hopeful that Kitty will get her head screwed on right and reconsider Levin, but that seems unlikely. Vronsky, by the way, is a jerk. So far he seems like an analog for the all-American football star/prom king, who takes female attention as a kind of God given right in appreciation of his splendid testosterone prettiness.
Notice that the title character hasn't even shown up yet. Anna Karenina shows up, finally, on page 61 in my edition. Within 20 pages she has fixed, at least temporarily, Oblonsky's marriage, become a sensation in Moscow society, and caused Vronsky to ditch Kitty at a ball. So she's like a bizarre Russian Mary Poppins - a catalyst that turns everything upside down and who everyone falls in love with. I don't know what I think of her yet, but I'm itching to get back to it so I can find out.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
A Quick Start
Yesterday I blasted through Louis Sachar's Holes which is about 233 pages and ended up on my list because it's a common middle school assigned text. This wasn't the first time I'd picked it up, but somehow I never got through it before. This time it was a breeze.
I picked it up this time because it was easy to get an e-copy on my library through the Dekalb Library.
On its surface it's about a penal camp for bad boys where they dig five foot holes in a desert. However, this is really a multi-layered story with a lot going on. The main story of Stanley the wrongly accused delinquent is interwoven with the story of his great-great grandfather who was cursed by a gypsy. The fascinating thing here for me as a writer is that there are no wasted words. Everything interconnects. I ended up really liking both Stanley and Zero.
All in all, this was a good place to start for me, but obviously not all the books are going to be easy quick reads like this.
I picked it up this time because it was easy to get an e-copy on my library through the Dekalb Library.
On its surface it's about a penal camp for bad boys where they dig five foot holes in a desert. However, this is really a multi-layered story with a lot going on. The main story of Stanley the wrongly accused delinquent is interwoven with the story of his great-great grandfather who was cursed by a gypsy. The fascinating thing here for me as a writer is that there are no wasted words. Everything interconnects. I ended up really liking both Stanley and Zero.
All in all, this was a good place to start for me, but obviously not all the books are going to be easy quick reads like this.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Reboot - A New Challenge
I have come to the conclusion that I'm bored and that's why I'm having such a hard time lately keeping up with the blog. The reading is relatively easy the blogging not so much any more. It's not a surprise, I've been doing the same thing, more or less, for the last five years, so it really is time for a change up.
To that end I've been thinking. There are a lot of books that, as an English teacher, people just assume I've read. Being a British Literature teacher seems to up the ante somewhat although I'm not sure why being a Brit Lit teacher should mean that I am any better read than any other English teacher, but oh well. On a fairly regular basis someone launches into an observation that assumes I've read what they are referring to. Mostly, this is students who seem to think that I've read every classic in existence, but it also happens at times with family, friends, coworkers, and the parents of students.
In most cases, there is no particular reason I haven't read the books in question. Usually it's a case of haven't gotten around to it yet, so I put together a list of 100 books. To show up on the list, someone at some point has expressed the idea that it's a surprise to find out I haven't read it. Obviously, I only put books on the list that I haven't read yet (or haven't fully read - no matter how many times I've started them.) The list is pretty heavily weighted towards heavy classics which is also not a surprise. Just as a reality check, I somewhat indiscriminately estimated the total number of pages by pulling page numbers from goodreads. I didn't worry too much about editions, so the total number in reality could be either over or under my estimate. I came up with 41,511 pages which means reading about 114 pages a day which feels doable.
So, here's the new project: Student graduation was yesterday. I'm going to try reading all the books on the following list by graduation next year. Since I'm reading some really serious classics here, the last thing the world needs is another review, instead I'm going to journal daily about the experience.
If I start a book and it turns out I have read it before, I will simply swap it out on the list for a book I haven't. (Having finished the list, I immediately came up with five more titles that could have been on the list.)
100 Books People Tend to Assume I've Read....But I haven't
To that end I've been thinking. There are a lot of books that, as an English teacher, people just assume I've read. Being a British Literature teacher seems to up the ante somewhat although I'm not sure why being a Brit Lit teacher should mean that I am any better read than any other English teacher, but oh well. On a fairly regular basis someone launches into an observation that assumes I've read what they are referring to. Mostly, this is students who seem to think that I've read every classic in existence, but it also happens at times with family, friends, coworkers, and the parents of students.
In most cases, there is no particular reason I haven't read the books in question. Usually it's a case of haven't gotten around to it yet, so I put together a list of 100 books. To show up on the list, someone at some point has expressed the idea that it's a surprise to find out I haven't read it. Obviously, I only put books on the list that I haven't read yet (or haven't fully read - no matter how many times I've started them.) The list is pretty heavily weighted towards heavy classics which is also not a surprise. Just as a reality check, I somewhat indiscriminately estimated the total number of pages by pulling page numbers from goodreads. I didn't worry too much about editions, so the total number in reality could be either over or under my estimate. I came up with 41,511 pages which means reading about 114 pages a day which feels doable.
So, here's the new project: Student graduation was yesterday. I'm going to try reading all the books on the following list by graduation next year. Since I'm reading some really serious classics here, the last thing the world needs is another review, instead I'm going to journal daily about the experience.
If I start a book and it turns out I have read it before, I will simply swap it out on the list for a book I haven't. (Having finished the list, I immediately came up with five more titles that could have been on the list.)
100 Books People Tend to Assume I've Read....But I haven't
- Adams, Douglas - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
- Adams, Richard - Watership Down
- Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women
- Andrews, V.C. - Flowers in the Attic
- Angelou, Maya - I know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Atwood, Margaret - Handmaid's Tale
- Atwood, Margaret - Oryx and Crake
- Austin, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
- Babbitt, Natalie - Tuck Everlasting
- Blume, Judy - Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
- Burgess, Anthony - A Clockwork Orange
- Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Tarzan of the Apes
- Camus, Albert - The Stranger
- Capote, Truman - In Cold Blood
- Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote
- Crichton, Michael - Andromeda Strain
- Clarke, Arthur C. - 2001
- Clarke, Susanna - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
- Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
- Dahl, Roald - Matilda
- Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
- Delillo, Don - White Noise
- Dickens, Charles - Christmas Carol
- Dickens, Charles - Great Expectations
- Dickens, Charles - Oliver Twist
- Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
- Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Brothers Karamozov
- Du Maurier, Daphne - Rebecca
- Dumas, Alexandre - The Count of Monte Cristo
- Follett, Ken - Pillars of the Earth
- Forbes, Esther - Johnny Tremain
- Frank, Anne - Diary of A Young Girl
- Greene, Graham - Power and the Glory
- Greene, Graham - Brighton Rock
- Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
- Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
- Hemingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises
- Herodotus - The Histories
- Jordan, Robert - Eye of the World
- Kafka, Franz - Metamorphosis and Other Stories
- Kesey, Ken - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Kerouac, Jack - On the Road
- King, Stephen - Cujo
- King, Stephen - It
- Kingsolver, Barbara - Poisonwood Bible
- Krakauer, Jon - Into the Wild
- Larsson, Stieg - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Lawrence, D.H. - Lady Chatterley's Lover
- Le Carre, John - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
- Lewis, C.S. - Out of the Silent Planet
- London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
- Lowry, Lois - Number the Stars
- Machiavelli, Niccolo - The Prince
- Martel, Yann - Life of Pi
- Martin, George R.R. - A Game of Thrones
Matheson, Richard - I am Legend(finished 5/29/2019)- McCammon, Robert - Swansong
- Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - Death of a Salesman(finished 6/8/2019)- Milton, John - Paradise Lost
- Moliere - Tartuffe
- Montgomery, L.M. - Anne of Green Gables
- Morrisson, Toni - Beloved
- Myers, Walter Dean - Fallen Angels
- Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita
- O'Dell, Scott - Island of the Blue Dolphins
- Orwell, George - 1984
- Ovid - Metamorphoses
- Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
- Rand, Ayn - Atlas Shrugged
- Rawlings, Marjorie - The Yearling
- Rawls, Wilson - Where the Red Fern Grows
Sachar, Louis - Holes(finished 5/18/2019)- Sagan, Carl - Contact
- Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
- Satrapi, Marjane - The Complete Persepolis
- Shakespeare - Othello
- Shakespeare - King Lear
- Shaw, Bernard - Pygmalion
- Shonagon, Sei - The Pillow Book
- Sinclair, Upton - The Jungle
- Smith, Zadie - White Teeth
- Speare, Elizabeth George - The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- Steinbeck, John - Of Mice and Men
- Steinbeck, John - East of Eden
- Stevenson, Robert Louis - Kidnapped
- Sun-Tzu - Art of War
- Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
- Tan, Amy - The Joy Luck Club
- Thompson, Hunter S. - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
- Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina
- Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
- Toole, John Kennedy - Confederacy of Dunces
- Travers, P.L. - Mary Poppins
- Verne, Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Vonnegut, Kurt - Sirens of Titan(finished 6/2/2019)- Vonnegut, Kurt - Breakfast of Champions
- White, T.H. - The Once and Future King
- Woodson, Jacqueline - Brown Girl Dreaming
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
Alternates:
- Collins, Wilkie - The Woman in White
- Euripides - The Trojan Women
- Jones, Dianna Wynn - Howl's Moving Castle
- Sophocles - Antigone
- Wharton, Edith - Ethan Frome
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Morning Star by Pierce Brown
(The current list) Finished April 17, so it's been a minute and the details are fuzzy at this point. As a reminder, Darrow was born...
