"How Many a Man has Dated a New Era in His Life from the Reading of a Book"

In 2002, it started as a heated discussion with friends about why women are never typically acknowledged as being “the best” in their respective fields, with the discussion initially focusing on music and movies, and centering around “Best Of” lists. Lists like the American Film Institute, Rolling Stone 100 greatest artistsof all time etc, are always gender-centric (2 women in the top 40? Fo' real??). We eventually moved on to books and we had pulled out some examples from the web to support this hypothesis.

Gender issues however, are totally and completely not the point of this blog. While I could blather on here about my feelings about gender inequality, I’m the first to admit that I’m neither qualified nor well-versed enough to do the discussion justice. But the direction that initial conversation took me that has changed my life has to do with books and reading. And book lists. Ahh, the book list.

The “Best Of” book lists that we landed on during the course of the discussion:

• The100 Greatest Works of Literature by Inteliquest seemed to be the benchmark that we initially found. The greatest, most incredible words ever put to paper throughout all time, whether they be the world’s most celebrated playwrights, novelists, deep thinkers, or even one from an unknown author (think bad Angelia Jolie movie). These are the benchmarks that have stood the test of time as the most stunning examples of literature.
• TheModern Library’s list of 100 Best Novels, all primarily from the 20th century (focusing on the board’s list, because seeing “Atlas Shrugged”, “Fountainhead”, and “Battlefield Earth” at the top of the reader’s list already told me that there weren’t necessarily sound, legit reasons for the selection of the list contents). As much as I loved the old school (like really old school) stuff, I kind of wanted a barometer for more recent literature. And mostly wanted to see some titles that I actually recognized and could relate to the content.
• And for comparison to another list based on 20th century modern literature, we pulled the Radcliffe List, which apparently the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled at the request of the Modern Library editorial board.
• And then for good measure, we of course had to see if anything existed focusing exclusively on female works, which led us to Feminista!'s list of the 100 Great 20th Century Works by Women. This list was apparently assembled in response to the Modern Library list and the lack of the century's most celebrated writers (who happened to be women). This list is not ranked and only includes 1 work by each author.

I have no idea where in the world of book experts these lists fall. Any lit scholar would probably scoff at my choices and say “Ha, you should go with list Blahbitty Blah because that is clearly the standard of determining fine literature.” (This would certainly be said with an overly haughty voice by a bearded man, likely while smoking a pipe. Or waving said pipe about in the air with a superior air of knowing more than I do about the realm of literature). And there is inherent subjectivity in any “Best of” list. While I’m sure that VH1 is certainly knowledgeable enough to come up with the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s, the fact that there are many artists on the list that had way more than one hit (c'mon, XTC alone has like, 3 I can name off the top of my head) shows that any list can be flawed and open to criticism.

But somehow these were the lists that made it to my awareness and that were stamped into my sphere of consciousness. And these somehow were the lists that I printed 10 years ago and have diligently saved in a turquoise plastic, see-through file folder for 10 years of my life. These are the lists that I check, and re-check every time I go to the bookstore. The lists that are worn with being flipped through so many times. I have kept these lists and nearly all of my reading decisions and books that now adorn my bookshelves over the last 10 years have been based on these.

And so a bit about me. I have zero formal literature education, aside from 2 classes I took as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. One was a 20th century literature class and one was a class about psychologically-compelling novels (including Kafka, Madame Bovary, and Oedipus, with a little Freud thrown in for good measure). I always grew up loving to read. When I was little, my mom would take me and my sister to the Troy Library where we were a part of their “Cool Cats” reading program for kids. And I think I did once win coupons to Pizza Hut for having read a certain number of books. And maybe incentivizing reading wasn’t a good way to get a child to read (sometimes when I finish a book, I often find myself craving pizza…), but it did cement the joy of exploring books into the firmament of who I am. So while no one gave me a diploma saying that I am an expert in literature, I almost prefer it that way. I like to think that I can read things with a slightly intellectual slant while still just enjoying it for what it is and not getting all smarty pants on it.

So then what is the goal of this blog?? Throughout the years, I have been slowly making my way through reading all of the books on my 4 collective book lists. I’d like to re-emphasize the word slowly. And not slowly because of time limitations, but because I just can’t read old school books exclusively without wanting to speak in old English, or start wearing petticoats, or in general feel caught in a time warp that makes me start to loathe reading. So I’ve generally rotated between the classic literature on my lists and current literature. Which effectively doubles the time it takes to read all of the books. So my goal (saying it out loud, here in print to now be held accountable) is to read all the remaining books by the time I’m 40 (t-minus 7 years and 2 months). So this blog will be an odyssey of me plodding through all of these books and documenting my progress, thoughts on the individual books, and any other random related thoughts (I can see the movie remake of many of these books to feature prominently as a topic as well).

So feel free to stay tuned if you have any interest in tracking my progress or hearing the ramblings about books (I promise it won’t be book-clubby rants!).

Coming tomorrow: exactly how much crack have I been smoking to think I can finish these all in 7 years.