The post I promised you-- it's about books

Okay...

So once I got over the fact that Chelsea broke out of our little fiction cult and actually made real internet friends...naturally I started reading their blogs. One thing that really caught my eye was the lists of books....to be read, to be owned, to read again, all time favorites... the lists went on for what seemed to be forever.

This, naturally, got me to think about my own library. Some people think that I'm well read, but I'm not so sure. I read a little here, and a little there, frequently for class, sometimes serendipity throws books into my lap. Having a job at the parking garage last summer allowed me to read 10,000 pages. A lot of those pages belonged to books that I'm not going to admit to have read. A few of them, I will though. Last summer I read Gore Vidal for the first time, and I'm still thinking about that book (all 500+ pages). I also read Saunder's other story collection (Pastoralia, which I highly recommend), and ZZ Packer's collection (which I had really mixed feelings about). I have a lot of random books on my shelf that look pseudo-impressive, and some books that don't. I love buying books, sometimes I buy by author, sometimes by title, occasionally by cover (the back one, not the...okay sometimes by the front one).

But there's a lot out there that I haven't read. Like Hamlet. I fucking hate Hamlet...can't do it. I've also not read a lot of Faulkner (okay almost no Faulkner) same for Hemingway. I've also not read the novels of Garcia Marquez (despite having loved his short fiction in high school...if you're ever looking for short stories and you're bored, check out Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez). The only Joyce I've ever read is Araby. My Woolf oeuvre is pathetic. I still haven't read Jhumpa Lahiri's novel (The Namesake). I haven't read House of the Spirits (Allende). I never made it through Rushdie's Midnight's Children (started it though). I've started Camus's The Plague at least twice, haven't finished it yet. I didn't finish Lolita. I've not read much Henry James. I started a Phillip Roth book once (can't remember which one). I've also not been exposed to a lot of contemporary fiction. The problem with contemporary fiction is that I don't really even know the names to go after.

The other problem is that I was an over-ambitious reader when I was younger. I read Catcher in the Rye when I was twelve. I'm pretty sure that most of the book went over my head because after I finished it, I wondered what the big deal was about. I'm pretty sure I haven't head Jane Eyre in 10 years. I reread most of my Austen library (again, definitely not complete) last year for the first time in almost ten years. I think I read Lolita too young, I was maybe 15 or 16. I know I was too young to really appreciate Arundati Roy's The God of Small Things (again, maybe 14?)-- I got the book, but I didn't really like it. I read Slaughterhouse V when I was maybe 15-- again, a book that went over my head at the time. I'm trying to brainstorm books that I've read and this would be so much easier if I were at my parents house (where the bulk of my books are living).

So, I as I was reading these lists on Angelle's blog, I started thinking about my essential books. Beloved (Toni Morrisson) is definitely on there. I read it the summer before my senior year of high school, and I'm still thinking about it. The Autobiography of Malcolm X changed the way that I saw the world (and it was great fun reading it when I was in Mississippi for three weeks). Daniel Quinn's books gave me one of the biggest head-fucks I've ever had, and I'm still grateful for it. I love the adult fiction of Roald Dahl-- to me he's one of the best story tellers of the 20th century and if none of you have read him, go track down his stories "Royal Jelly" and "The Great Automatic Grammatisator"... hell, get the entire Omnibus, you won't regret it. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera was probably the most phenomenal book I read sophomore year (of college). I know there are other books, but they're slipping my mind. Julie Orringer, if she continues to live in my head, will make this list.

So anyways, now that you've suffered through reading this ill-organized and unaesthetic looking blog entry, I'm charging you, reader, with a task. Tell me what to read. Help me draft a list.

Also, Chelsea, if you become a literary agent, and I make it to that point, will you consider representing me?