I have an English degree. This might surprise you if you've perused my blog. You are like, "I'm sorry, was your concentration in Creative Writing, or was it in Using a Webcam? Because this is terrible." You are awfully judgmental, but you're nothing compared to the Voice Inside My Head. There's a 24/7 dialog going on inside this little noggin that usually culminates in me shouting (in my head, remember!) about how I coulda been a contenda. It's a nightmare in there.
About 2.5 seconds after I graduated, I realized that there were huge, embarrassing gaps in my reading history. This wasn't something I expected. See, I've always been a voracious reader. When I was growing up, there were so many rewards for reading. Of course, Book It, but aside from that there was Accelerated Reader. I don't know if everyone else had this, but the general idea was that each book was assigned a point value. You took a ten question quiz on the school's ancient computers, received the appropriate percentage of points, and then accumulated those points in order to win prizes. Fabulous, fabulous prizes, like...MORE BOOKS! For having the most points in my grade level (huge nerd here), I got a boxed set of the Little House on the Prairie books. Also, a t-shirt, which I wore with misguided, nerdy pride.
In high school, I realized that while the rewards of reading weren't tangible,they definitely still existed. For one, I got to escape my life for a little while. I got to daydream about what the future might be like. Most importantly, I could feel better than everyone else. That's right, I used reading to fuel the sort of superiority complex that only a true outcast could really have. I had the patience to read almost anything, most likely because there was little to no intellectual stimulation at my public school (the only classes I ever studied outside of school for were Calculus and Physics, because like I said, I was an English major). I even read The Fountainhead, a fact that shocks me now. How did I slog through such a boring, long, terrible book? Because I literally had nothing else to do.
I assumed that college would introduce me to the rest of literature's classics, and that would be that. As it turns out, that didn't happen! I read some great books in college, but I still haven't read The Grapes of Wrath. Or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Or Mrs. Dalloway. How did this happen? And what can I do about it?
My solution was to implement a reading list. At first blush, I leaned towards The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels. Plenty of people on the internet are working their way through this list of classics, and it seemed rock solid. On closer inspection, though, it was kind of lame. There are less than ten women on this list. And mostly white dudes. And, most importantly for me, not a lot of books post-1960. While I want to check out all of those novels, I wanted a list that was a little more interesting and diverse. So I found Time's 100 Best Novels from 1923 to Present. The date requirements solve my "too many old books!" problem, and it fits my most important rule: No Ayn Rand! I am not reading Atlas Shrugged, you guys, because I am not a naive, selfish 17 year old. Also, there are lots of fun, light-hearted picks on this list. Like Judy Blume!
I've been very, very slowly working my way through this list for a little over a year. I don't read books off the list continuously, but whenever I'm at a loss over what to read next, it is nice to be able to look at this list and make a pick. I still have a long, long way to go, but maybe someday I'll consider myself "well-read."
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