week four:the uncommon reader

i’ve continued to upset the continuum of this blog by making insufficient progress with herzog, so swerving off and reading this last minute.  recommended recently as reading like a children’s book it was definitely a much quicker read than the book it was alternating for, but still thoroughly rewarding.  i give myself horrendous douche chills talking about the books i’m reading but feel kind of redundant if I dont, hopefully I’ll strike some sort of balance by the end of the year.  anyway this week will hopefully see me finish off herzog, but maybe i’ll end up reading this instead

week three: inamorato anonymous

despite being a long term pynchon advocate, and having bought three distinct copies of this book, I had never - to my shame - finished it, and as it is roughly a quarter of the length of herzog, i decided to return to it to ensure i kept on course. the second time round it certainly seems a lot less dense and far funnier than i remembered, and the unraveling of oedipa maas at the end more than made up for herzog’s one week hiatus. i’ve returned to that this morning and so can hopefully make next week’s update without too much drama

week two preface: week one

week two

so i failed completely to get ahead of myself in week one and actually only read one book, and not even an actual book at that, the rest of my time being consumed with failed job interviews and dragon age, mostly the latter.  I read man alone with himself, and was frankly underwhelmed.  it’s an excerpt (as most of those penguin great ideas books are) from human, all too human so only comes in at about 100 pages but did put me in the right frame of mind to read again.  i’ve started on this

but with a much cooler, if just as old, cover.

week zero

i plagiarised this idea wholesale from sarah maule in an attempt to give me something to keep me motivated as far as reading is concerned. i have too much time on my hands and instead of sitting around refreshing forums where i read maybe one thread a day anyway, i’m going to commit to get mentally fit and simultaneously make a dent in the huge stack of books i have to read and reread. My aim is to read one book a week for the next 52 so i’ll try and kick this off on monday and update it after the weekend each week from then

here’s my list to be getting on with, some of these I’ve already made headway with, am going to re-read,  or are only little (a couple of them from penguin’s great ideas series) but I need to break myself in gentle.

• celine - journey to the end of the night
• herman hesse - steppenwolf
• fernando pessos - the book of disquiet
• jose saramago - the year of the death of ricardo reiss
• friederich nietzsche - man alone with himself
• soren kierkegaard - the sickness unto death
• graham greene - twenty one stories
• thomas pynchon - the crying of lot 49
• william blake - songs of innocence and experience
• oscar wilde - the picture of dorian gray

then hopefully once i’m back into the swing of things i can crack on with weightier volumes like the fountainhead and man without qualities.