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Thursday, July 29, 2010

What's the point?

Hey everyone out there who either stumbles across this blog or humors me when I tell them what I am doing and checks this out.  This blog is an attempt to record my attempt to read all of the novels that appear on a list that Time.com published on their website in 2005.  This list was compiled by Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo, two critics working for Time at that time.  I honestly know very little about these guys, but I wanted to find a reasonable list I could work off of, and this seemed as good as any.  If you have any interest in how they put their list together, here is a link to their explanation:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1951793_1952021_1952025,00.html

So why am I doing this?  To many, this task probably seems akin to choosing to pull out every hair on their forearms one by one.  Even to people who love literature, there are probably many books on this list that they wouldn't get near even if an envelope containg the secrets of the universe were contained within.  The answer to the question "Why?" is that as someone who believes themselves to be reasonably well educataed, I have a BA in History and Religion, and a JD in...well, the law, I was ashamed to find when I came across this list I have read a grand total of 7 of these books.  From middle school on through high school, college and law school, I have only read 7 of the 100 greatest books of the last 90 years.   Though many books on this list are certainly up for debate, I felt like I should have been batting better than .070.  So in order to right that particular wrong, and to open myself up to reading more than military history, biographies, case law, and Sports Illustrated, and to hopefully learn a little bit about literature, writing and maybe myself in the process, I am going read every book on Time's All Time 100 Novels list.  Lord help me.

1 comment:

  1. Well, I surprisingly have managed to read 14 out of those 100 books (I think...I'm atrocious with titles). Others I own, but haven't gotten to yet, others I've been meaning to read, but again, haven't gotten to yet. So, I applaud what you are attempting here. :)

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