Tuesday, December 27, 2011

#CBR4 List Selected

I've completed the final list of selections for the Cannonball Read 4. I feel good about it. It's fairly balanced, covers a breadth of genres and authors, includes works both classic and modern, includes fiction and nonfiction, and each of the books appeals to me in some way.


Title Author
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Tigana Guy Gavriel Kay
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand
State of Wonder Ann Patchett
Lolita Vladimir Nabakov
Ender's Game Orson Scott Card
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold John Le Carre
A Wizard of Earthsea Ursula K. LeGuin
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin
Season of Life: A Football Star, A Boy, A Journey to Manhood Jeffry Marx
Volt Alan Heathcock
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clarke
The Neverending Story Michael Ende
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand
The Art of War Sun Tzu
The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
Neuromancer William Gibson
Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut
Heroes Die Matthew Woodring Stover
Rumpole of the Bailey John Mortimer
Someday This Will Be Funny Lynne Tillman
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
The Way of the Superior Man David Deida
Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Restand
Eye of the Needle Ken Follet
The Anubis Gates Tim Powers
On the Road Jack Kerouac
Starship Troopers Robert Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Phillip K. Dick
In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers
There but for the Ali Smith
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Susanna Clarke
The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka
Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
Elantris Brandon Sanderson
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides
The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey
Fletch Gregory Mcdonald
The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
Ringworld Larry Niven
The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth
Talion: Revenant Michael Stackpole
For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Where to Begin?

Wow. I'm really intimidated by this Cannonball Read challenge. 52 books seems like a lot. Narrowing down to a list of 52 books seems just as harrowing.

In order to make my task lighter, I thought I'd come up with some rules to help me craft my reading list for #CBR4.

  1. I'll select my list from some of the various lists of greatest novels found around the Internet. I'll try to limit these lists to some of the most respectable-seeming. That probably means I'll favor lists presented by a select few educated persons over a "vote for your favorite"-style list.
  2. No re-reads. If I've read a book already, it doesn't make the list.
  3. On a related note, if I've seen the movie already, I can't include the book on the list. I may make exceptions here, though. For instance, I've seen Blade Runner, but I might still read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep because the link between the two is by all reports shaky.
  4. On the other hand, I might consider doing a joint book/movie review if I've neither seen nor read either work.
  5. CBR has a 100-page minimum for selections to count. I may need to add a maximum limit, too, if I'm going to get through all 52 books in a timely fashion. An 1000+ pager could throw my whole schedule into chaos.
  6. ??? I don't know. Do I need more? Maybe this covers it.

Now. To the list!

Coming Soon to this Blog: #CBR4

Let me take a moment to announce that I have signed up to participate in Cannonball Read IV. CRB4 is a reading challenge sponsored by the folks over at Pajiba a delightfully snarky movie and pop-culture review site that I frequent. My goal - the full Cannonball, read and review 52 books in one year.

Seeing as how I have had a rather shaky track record on this blog, wish me luck. Maybe I'll finally get in the writing habit. :-)