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Big List of Shame 2009
Because it's the only hope (however benighted) of keeping me in check, here's my Big List of Shame for 2009. The BLoS is a list of all of the books I've acquired in the last few years that I haven't yet read (in theory anyway--I'm sure some have escaped listing). I seem to have developed a tradition of resetting it at the beginning of each year.
As of the date of this post, the BLoS stands at 39 books of fiction, 58 non-fiction (or 57--one is down). I eroded a lot of my progress in 2008 by going on a recent, huge book buying binge (I think I had 62 or so left on the 2008 list). If one were inclined, one might talk about a fear of success or self-sabotage; I do get anxious if there aren't piles of unread books collapsing in my living room.
We'll see how frightening this looks in another year (can you believe that'll be 2010?).
Fiction
1. Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself*
2.Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger* 2/3
3.Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati* 8/24
4.J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun* 7/3
5. Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette *
6.Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog* 12/14
7. Samuel Beckett, Molly
8. Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
9. Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
10.David Benioff, City of Thieves* 8/2
11. Carol Berg, Breath and Bone
12. Roberto Bolano, 2666*
13. Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
14. Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
15.Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness* 2/22
16.Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!* 4/21
17. Sioned Davies (trans), The Mabinogion
18.Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* 1/16
19.Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground* 2/24
20. George Eliot, Middlemarch
21. F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise*
22.Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland* 5/23
23.Cornelia Funke, Inkheart* 12/2
24. Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies*
25. Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Svejk*
26.Ha Jin, Under the Red Flag* 2/19
27. Franz Kafka, Collected Stories
28. Lancelot of the Lake
29.David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk* 4/17
30.Nam Le, The Boat* 12/6
31.Ursula K. LeGuin, Lavinia* 11/25
32. Chang-Rae Lee: Aloft
33. Christopher Logue, War Music
34.Colum, McCann, Let the Great World Spin 12/24
35. R. M. Meluch, The Sagittarius Command*
36.China Mieville, The City & The City* 8/29
37.David Mitchell, Ghostwritten* 2/9
38.Perry Morre, Hero* 7/4
39.Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World* 4/11
40.Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart * 2/26
41.Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman * 8/28
42.Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood* 12/8
43.Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin* 11/12
44. Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading*
45.Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red 3/30*
46.Sayed Qashu, Dancing Arabs* 11/17
47.Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind* 8/7
48.Bapsi Sidhwa, An American Brat*
49.Brian Francis Slattery, Spaceman Blues*11/24
50. Elizabeth Speller, Following Hadrian
51.Sasa Stanisic, How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone* 5/30
52. Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma
53. Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters*
54.Colm Toibim, Brooklyn* 8/11
55. Tatyana Tolstaya, White Walls
56. Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children*
57.Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger* 8/13
58. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence*
59.Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway* 5/17
Nonfiction
1. Alcock et al., Pausanias
2. Sumbul Ali-Daramali, The Muslim Next Door*
3. Lindsay Allen, The Persian Empire
4. Babur, The Baburnama
5. Jeannie Boyer, Daily Life in Ancient India
6. Edmund Blunden, The Undertones of War
7. Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom*
8. T. Bryce, Trojans and their Neighbors
9. Bury, Ancient Greek Historians
10. Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World
11. Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome
12. Ragiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City
13.Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying* 3/7
14. W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk*
15. Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich
16.Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks*
17.Dexter Filkins, The Forever War* 12/28
18.Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain 1/5
19. Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion*
20. Lawrence M. Friedman: Law in America
21. Francessco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades
22. Amitav Ghosh, Incendiary Circumstances
23. Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus
24. Andrew Gordon, Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present
25. Al Gore, The Assault on Reason
26.Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families* 6/10
27. Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
28. Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun
29.Daoud Hari, The Translator* 2/1
30.Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother* 7/18
31.Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season* 7/8
32.Jean Hatzfeld, Life Laid Bare* 8/4
33.Jean Hatzfeld, The Antelope’s Strategy* 8/8
34. Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones
35. Chantrithy Him, When Broken Glass Floats*
36.Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost* 1/14
37. Katsuichi Honda, The Nanjing Massacre*
38.Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree* 12/9
39.Nick Hornby, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt* 12/8
40.Paul Johnson: The Renaissance 12/31
41. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
42. Stuart Kelly, The Book of Lost Books
43. Ryszard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus*
44. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire*
45. Joel Kotkin, The City
46.Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull* 10/12
47.Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence12/16
48. Edward Larson: Evolution
49. Livy, Books I-V (Luce Translation)
50. Mary Lefkowitz: Greek Gods, Human Lives
51. Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods
52. Heather McKillop, The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives
53. Margaret MacMillian, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History*
54.Bryan Mealer, All Things Must Fight to Live 10/26
55.Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ* 9/5
56. Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
57.Martin Meredith, Diamonds, Gold, and War* 8/2
58. Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon A Country*
59. Thant Myint-U, The River of Lost Footsteps
60. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea
61.Tim O’Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone 4/3
62. Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father*
63. Robin Osborne, Greece in the Making
64. Stephen O'Shea Sea of Faith
65. Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology
66.Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries* 3/1
67.Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship* 3/6
68. Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind*
69. P. J. Rhodes, Athenian Democracy
70.William Rosen, Justinian’s Flea* 2/18
71. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions*
72.William St Clair, The Door of No Return* 7/26
73. Tahir Shah, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice*
74.Tahir Shah, Trail of Feathers* 1/26
75.Raja Shehadeh, When the Birds Stopped Singing* 1/29
76. Daniel C. Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East
77. Pat Southern, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History
78. Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood*
79. Kevin Starr: California
80. Romila Thapar, Early India
81. Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs
82.Leonard Thompson, A History of South Africa *11/7
83. Frances Wood, The Silk Road
84. Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor
85. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World
*Added in 2009
As of the date of this post, the BLoS stands at 39 books of fiction, 58 non-fiction (or 57--one is down). I eroded a lot of my progress in 2008 by going on a recent, huge book buying binge (I think I had 62 or so left on the 2008 list). If one were inclined, one might talk about a fear of success or self-sabotage; I do get anxious if there aren't piles of unread books collapsing in my living room.
We'll see how frightening this looks in another year (can you believe that'll be 2010?).
Fiction
1. Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself*
2.
3.
4.
5. Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette *
6.
7. Samuel Beckett, Molly
8. Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
9. Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable
10.
11. Carol Berg, Breath and Bone
12. Roberto Bolano, 2666*
13. Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
14. Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
15.
16.
17. Sioned Davies (trans), The Mabinogion
18.
19.
20. George Eliot, Middlemarch
21. F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise*
22.
23.
24. Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies*
25. Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Svejk*
26.
27. Franz Kafka, Collected Stories
28. Lancelot of the Lake
29.
30.
31.
32. Chang-Rae Lee: Aloft
33. Christopher Logue, War Music
34.
35. R. M. Meluch, The Sagittarius Command*
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44. Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading*
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50. Elizabeth Speller, Following Hadrian
51.
52. Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma
53. Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters*
54.
55. Tatyana Tolstaya, White Walls
56. Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Children*
57.
58. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence*
59.
Nonfiction
1. Alcock et al., Pausanias
2. Sumbul Ali-Daramali, The Muslim Next Door*
3. Lindsay Allen, The Persian Empire
4. Babur, The Baburnama
5. Jeannie Boyer, Daily Life in Ancient India
6. Edmund Blunden, The Undertones of War
7. Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom*
8. T. Bryce, Trojans and their Neighbors
9. Bury, Ancient Greek Historians
10. Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World
11. Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome
12. Ragiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City
13.
14. W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk*
15. Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich
16.
17.
18.
19. Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion*
20. Lawrence M. Friedman: Law in America
21. Francessco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades
22. Amitav Ghosh, Incendiary Circumstances
23. Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus
24. Andrew Gordon, Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present
25. Al Gore, The Assault on Reason
26.
27. Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
28. Linda Greenhouse, Becoming Justice Blackmun
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34. Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones
35. Chantrithy Him, When Broken Glass Floats*
36.
37. Katsuichi Honda, The Nanjing Massacre*
38.
39.
40.
41. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals
42. Stuart Kelly, The Book of Lost Books
43. Ryszard Kapuscinski, Travels with Herodotus*
44. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire*
45. Joel Kotkin, The City
46.
47.
48. Edward Larson: Evolution
49. Livy, Books I-V (Luce Translation)
50. Mary Lefkowitz: Greek Gods, Human Lives
51. Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods
52. Heather McKillop, The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives
53. Margaret MacMillian, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History*
54.
55.
56. Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
57.
58. Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon A Country*
59. Thant Myint-U, The River of Lost Footsteps
60. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea
61.
62. Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father*
63. Robin Osborne, Greece in the Making
64. Stephen O'Shea Sea of Faith
65. Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology
66.
67.
68. Colin Renfrew, Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind*
69. P. J. Rhodes, Athenian Democracy
70.
71. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions*
72.
73. Tahir Shah, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice*
74.
75.
76. Daniel C. Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East
77. Pat Southern, The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History
78. Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood*
79. Kevin Starr: California
80. Romila Thapar, Early India
81. Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs
82.
83. Frances Wood, The Silk Road
84. Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor
85. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World
*Added in 2009
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