Rant and Rave: 30 Books to read by 30

Trolling through the interweb I found this delightful gem of an article on ‘I Have A Degree For This’. Some of the books on this list I’ve already read, some I’ve heard of and have intended on reading, some are classics and the rest (most of them) are completely foreign to me. 30 is not that far off so, I guess I should knuckle down and get on with it.

1. The Illiad and The Odyssey - Homer. A hard pair, had to read them as course work. Greatly fantastical.

2. The Secret History - Donna Tartt.

3. Jesus’ Son - Denis Johnson. I have been intending on reading this. Maybe it should be my next read.

4. The Complete Stories - Flannery O’Connor. 

5. Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare. I’m sooo not a Shakespeare girl.

6. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway. 

7. The Road - Cormac McCarthy.

8. Maus - Art Spiegelman.

9. Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card.

10. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen. 

11. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides.

12. Ghost World - Daniel Clowes. 

13. On the Road - Jack Kerouac.

14. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston.  This is another definite must read for me.

15. Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut. 

16. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov.  Yes, Please and Thank you very much!

17. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien. 

18. 1984 - George Orwell.  I absolutely have to read this book

19. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger. 

20. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald.  A personal favourite.

21. Beloved - Toni Morrison. Beautifully written, a beautifully haunting story.

22. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace. 

23. Lord of the Flies - William Golding.

24. Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes. 

25. The Trial - Franz Kafka. Anything Kafka!

26. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf.  I love Virginia! I however haven’t read this particular book

27. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury.

28. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison.

29. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee. Loved it!

30. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson. 

I suppose as time goes, many adjustments will be made to this list. I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces (Obviously) should be added.

How many have you read?

Current Read

I went out during lunch with the intention of buying a pair of shoes, that mission was quickly abandoned when I walked past the Exclusive Books. I bought myself Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and I could hardly contain myself as I started reading it at Steers whilst waiting for my burger and chips.
This is going to be one of those that I can hardly pull myself from; I can feel it in my fingers.  

Artist of the month - JM Coetzee

The first ever novel I read by JM Coetzee was courtesy of my Languages and Literature degree and I must say I am thankful to the person that makes my prescribed reading list because once again I discovered a brilliant South African Author. Although he now lives in Australia, Coetzee manages to tell honestly South African stories and this I attribute to this land being his birth place.

 Born John Maxwell Coetzee to School teacher mother and Lawyer father, JM Coetzee grew up in an English speaking Afrikaans home and I think this was a great basis and beginning for a young man’s love affair with the English language and the lustrous writing career that came as a result.

Coetzee’s work is critically acclaimed and he has received numerous literary awards including winning the booker prize, twice as well as the prestigious Nobel Prize for literature.

Some of his greatest novels include the above mentioned “Disgrace”, “In The Heart of The Country”, “Elizabeth Castello” and “Foe” amongst many others.