Book Reading

I have come across several posts that discuss the author's favorite books or recommended reading. The books are usually fiction - though one list is non-fiction.

I must admit that I haven't read many of them (I'll post the links below). In some ways I feel the urge to run out and get all the books and read them, a compulsion if you must.

I admire those who read passionately of the classics and modern fiction. It amazes me when people say they've read The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye and found them to be life altering. Frankly they bored me and I didn't get it. Maybe I was too young, maybe I didn't read into it enough, or maybe it just didn't "work" for me. I tend to question myself and think it's an inadequacy on my part when I don't get the same thing that others have gotten. Books are an eternal failing of mine it seems.

I have much more affinity for non-fiction books than fiction. Perhaps it's because I prefer dealing in the details and straight-forwardness of real things, versus imaginary places.

Oddly enough, I want to be a Librarian and I write fiction. Go figure.

On to the lists ...

50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Life
20 Amazing and Essential Non-fiction Books to Enrich Your Library
100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library
30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Their 30th Birthday
TIME magazine’s All-Time Greatest 100 Novel


These lists are largely repeats of each other. Everyone has to wax poetic in their own way about how these books changed their life.

I just may have to post a list of books that may not have changed my life but were influential to me or at least memorable (the good kind of memories).