The Onerous and Ever-Expanding "To Be Read" List
"It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
--Umberto Eco
This is a list of books that someday I hope to read. The list grows on an almost daily basis. That's the thing about reading. Writers are also readers and usually write about books they've read. At this rate, if I never buy another book, I will have completed reading all the books by the time I am 165 years old. They are listed in no particular order or place of importance. Bear in mind, also, that it is ever-expanding and will never be the same list twice, so to speak.
- To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
- The King in Yellow-Robert W Chambers
- The Fisherman-John Langan
- Never Let Me Go-Kazuo Ishiguru
- We Need to Talk About Kevin-Lionel Shriver
- The Road-Cormac McCarthy
- House of Leaves-Mark Z. Danielewski
- The Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
- The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Word-Haruki Murakami
- The Soul Thief-Charles Baxter
- Everything is F*cked: A Book about Hope-Mark Manson
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls-Haruki Murakami
- The Killer Inside Me-Jim Thompson
- Cloud Atlas-David Mitchell
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter-Carson McCullers
- The Complete Tales-Edgar Allan Poe
- Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game)-Herman Hesse
- Desierto-Charles Bowden
- Infinite Jest-David Foster Wallace
- Norwegian Wood-Haruki Murakami
- Don Quixote-Miguel de Cervantes
- God is Not Great-Christopher Hitchens
- White Noise-Don deLillo
- The Brothers Karamazov-Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Picnic at Hanging Rock-Joan Lindsay
- Go Tell It On the Mountain-James Baldwin
- Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge-Terence McKenna
- Dakotah: The Return to the Future
- The Poisonwood Bible-Barbara Kingsolver
- Carpentaria - Alexis Wright
- Four Years Trapped in My Mind Palace-Johan Twiss
- Wanderlust: A History of Walking-Rebecca Solnit
- The Obscene Bird of Night-Jose Donoso
- Blue Lard-Vladimir Sorokin
- Journey to the End of Night-Celine
- Sonata-Charles Bowden
- On the Nature of Things-Lucretius
- Norwegian Wood-Haruki Murakami
- The Instructions-Adam Levin
- The Sellout-Paul Beatty
- Correction-Thomas Bernhard