Andrew Nagy

Wow… thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and give me their input. I’ve got a lot of great suggestions. In fact, after compiling the list, it appears that I have 105 books. I need you all to help me decide which of the following books to drop out of the list. It’s hard for me to get rid of any of them, but if I don’t draw a line somewhere, I’ll just keep adding more. So here’s what I’m thinking. Everyone select the five books you think I should drop. I don’t really need reasons why, and I don’t want this to turn into a bashing session on anyone’s interests. Just enter the five you don’t think I should bother with at the moment and I’ll tally up the votes. Here’s the list of 105:

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander Mccall Smith
The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Muskateers – Alexandre Dumas
Idylls Of The King – Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Beowulf – Anonymous
The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Starship – Brian Aldiss
Wuthering Heights – Bronte
Fairy Tales – Brothers Grimm
Star Risk Ltd. – Chris Bunch
Xxx-Holic – Clamp
The Wings Of A Falcon – Cynthia Voight
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Old Man And The Sea – Earnest Hemingway
The Chessmen of Mars – Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
The Trial – Franz Kafka
Crime And Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Man Who Was Thursday – G.K. Chesterton
The Napoleon Of Notting Hill – G.K. Chesterton
100 Years Of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Seventh Tower (6 – book series) – Garth Nix
Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
Lilith – George Macdonald
Animal Farm – George Orwell
She – H. Rider Haggard
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The Odyssey – Homer
Modern Japanese Stories – Ivan Morris
Pride And Prejudice – Jane Austen
A Confederacy Of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Separate Peace – John Knowles
The Constant Gardener – John Le Carre
Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Of Mice And Men – John Steinbeck
Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
The Tale Of Desperaux – Kate Dicamillo
Bitten – Kelley Armstrong
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Ceremony – Leslie Marmon Silko
Peace Like A River – Lief Enger
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Wrinkle In Time – Madeline L’Engle
In Search Of Lost Time – Marcel Proust
Rorschach’s Ribs – Marcus Eder
Oryx And Crake – Margaret Atwood
Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
Home – Marilynne Robinson
House Of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
World War Z – Max Brooks
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being – Milan Kundera
The Tale Of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu
Leepike Ridge – Nathan Wilson
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) – Philip K. Dick
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman
The Dark Elf Trilogy – R.A. Salvatore
Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Percy Jackson And The Olympians – Rick Riordan
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
Citizen Of The Galaxy – Robert A. Heinlein
“Conan” Short Stories – Robert E. Howard
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
The Stand – Stephen King
Eye Of The Dragon – Stephen King
Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King
The Green Mile – Stephen King
The Emperor Of Ocean Park – Stephen L Carter
Picasso At The Lapin Agile – Steve Martin
The Once And Future King – T.H. White
Thief Of Time – Terry Prachett
Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
The Name Of The Rose – Umberto Eco
Les Miserable – Victor Hugo
The Aenid – Virgil
The Razor’s Edge – W Somerset Maugham
The Book Of The Dun Cow – Walter Wangerin Junior
Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Hamlet – William Shakespeare  
Life Of Pi – Yann Martel

One day, I want to write fiction. I’ve attempted a few times and I have plenty of ideas, but I find that the actual writing process is perplexing. I realized recently that while I love reading fiction, there are lots of great books out there that I haven’t read. Lots. So I’m going to read as many as I can and hopefully absorb enough great fiction to create my own. My goal is to read so much that I’ll absorb what naturally fits into my writing style so the process becomes more natural.

That may be a load of crap, but the good news is I love reading fiction so I basically can’t lose. If I’m not better at writing after reading a ton, well… who cares? I’ll get to enjoy tons of great books.

But I need help. Recently I emailed a bunch of my friends/family to get some recommendations on what to read to fill in the gaps. I want to get to 100 books. I’ve got about 40. More were submitted to me, but I really want to get as broad as I can with as many different authors as possible. So this is your chance to show me how much smarter you are than me. Tell me what should be on this list, what you can’t believe I haven’t read, but temper it with a nice compliment about how pretty I am or something.

Once I have the final list, I’ll submit it to you guys to help me determine the order in which to read them. Then the basic goal is to read all 100 books in the next three or four years. To me that sounds like a really long time, but I calculated it up (I are smart) and to read 100 books in four years means I’ll have to read one every two weeks. I tend to read pretty fast, but that is still gonna take some doin.

Also, I want to blog about these books as I read them, so I’d like feedback throughout the whole process. It’d be great if we had some really cool dialogue about these characters, their stories, and the meaning of it all.

Here’s what I have so far:

Watchmen – Alan Moore
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith
The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
Beowulf – Anonymous
Dracula – Bram Stoker
Starship – Brian Aldiss
Star Risk Ltd. – Chris Bunch
The Old Man and the Sea – Earnest Hemingway
The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
Lilith – George MacDonald
Animal Farm – George Orwell
She – H. Rider Haggard
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The Odyssey – Homer
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
The Tale of Desperaux – Kate DiCamillo
Peace Like a River – Lief Enger
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
World War Z – Max Brooks
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) – Philip K. Dick
Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Percy Jackson and the Olympians – Rick Riordan
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
“Conan” Short Stories – Robert E. Howard
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King
The Green Mile – Stephen King
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
Thief of Time – Terry Prachett
Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
The Aenid – Virgil
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Hamlet – William Shakespeare  
The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu

So… fire away.