Create a Book List

Being retired for five years now, I have always had in my bucket list to read at least one book a month. Just twelve books per year. It should be no problem because I like to read. Back in 2014 when I retired, I read 16 books including five books of the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov and three books of the Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. Good year, I was  ahead of my goal. But then the following years were:
  • 2015 - 8 books
  • 2016 - 8 books
  • 2017 - 4 books
  • 2018 - 5 books
  • 2019 - 3 books (through the first seven months)
I realized I was not keeping up with this simple bucket list item so I decided to make a change recently, on how I choose which books to read. I had previously obtained a list of 100 classic books that everybody should read. The source for the list has been forgotten, and I will share the first 20...

Book Title Author
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell
His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Little Women Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare (or a good selection of them) William Shakespeare
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
Birdsong Sebastian Faulk
Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch George Eliot

In this list, I have read 8 of them (in Bold) and some of the Shakespeare and the Bible. I decided to check for other lists on the Internet and also ask my friends for suggestions. Now the list has grown, approaching 200 books. In August (last month), I started to read from my new list and here are the first six I have completed.
  1.   70  Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  2.   91 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 
  3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
  5. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  6.   72 Dracula  by Bram Stoker
The number is where the book was in the original list of 100. If someone recommends a book I move it up the list. The book Ulysses was third in my list and I started to read it. But I was having a difficult time so I moved it down to 30. I figure I would give it a second try after I have had a few beers.

I have been getting the books from either the Eau Gallie Public Library or the Melbourne Public Library. Here is the current list from 7 to 30 (the number is from the original list):
  • 37 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Philip K Dick
  • 31 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
  • 74 Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
  • 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
  • 1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
  • 28 Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
  • Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
  • 65 Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
  • 61 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
  • 63 The Secret History Donna Tartt 
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People Dale Carnegie
  • 73 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • 82 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
  • 47 Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
  • 45 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
  • 83 The Color Purple Alice Walker
  • 46 Anne of Green Gables LM Montgomery
  • In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
  • 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  • 76 The Inferno – Dante Dante Alighieri
  • All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque
  • 75 Ulysses James Joyce
If I cannot find the next book in the list, I move it down the list. This makes the list dynamic. And being a mathematician, I love keeping the numbers around. Just like everything else I do, I score each book after I finish it. I plan a post of reviews on the first six books.

When creating the list, any book I had read I moved to the end. After some thought, I think there are some that I might read again:
5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
48 The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
62 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
8 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell
13 Catch 22 Joseph Heller
18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
22 The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
29 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

The Forever War Joe Haldeman

Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes

The first three are definite rereads and the others are probable rereads. The last list I will include are the books that I added to the list but have read and currently do not plan to reread:
41 Animal Farm George Orwell
2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
4 Harry Potter series JK Rowling
16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
52 Dune Frank Herbert
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (or a good selection of them) William Shakespeare
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
42 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving
49 Lord of the Flies William Golding
51 Life of Pi Yann Martel
58 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
64 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Albom
98 Hamlet William Shakespeare

A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson

The Last Lecture Randy Pausch & Jeffrey Zaslow

The Road Cormac McCarthy
40 Winnie the Pooh AA Milne

A Game of Thrones George R.R. Martin

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson

I am still looking for books to add to the master list which has 191 books (actually more since some is just an author who has multiple books). You can email with suggestions...

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