Book Log (September 29, 2024)
- sobrien04
- Sep 29, 2024
- 4 min read
As something of a goal-oriented reader, I am a big fan of the good old-fashioned book log. I can sort through all of the books I'd like to read, order them, manipulate them, fantasize about the words and prose and stories I'm going to learn by reading them, and then check them off, one by one. I have an Excel spreadsheet devoted to exactly this task, and I have several further spreadsheets which perform related functions.
I know that I have not been the most diligent poster of late, and I want to change that by sending out a log of all of the novels and short stories I've read since June of 2022, since I graduated from college. And I would love it if you would comment if there's a specific book that you'd like me to review. Whether or not you have any thoughts about these books, I will be more on top of it in the weeks to come:
Title | Author Last Name | Author First Name | Pages | Year Read | Pub. Year |
Count of Monte Cristo, The | Dumas | Alexandre | 1276 | 2023 | 1844 |
Atlas Shrugged | Rand | Ayn | 1168 | 2022 | 1957 |
Infinite Jest | Wallace | David Foster | 1080 | 2024 | 1996 |
Moby Dick | Melville | Herman | 823 | 2024 | 1851 |
Anna Karenina | Tolstoy | Leo | 815 | 2023 | 1878 |
Ulysses | Joyce | James | 788 |
| 1922 |
Brothers Karamazov, The | Dostoyevsky | Fyodor | 752 | 2023 | 1880 |
Human Bondage, Of | Maugham | William Somerset | 611 | 2024 | 1915 |
Theory of Justice, A | Rawls | John | 560 | 2022 | 1971 |
Poland | Michener | James | 556 | 2022 | 1983 |
Short History of Nearly Everything, A | Bryson | Bill | 544 | 2024 | 2003 |
Jane Eyre | Bronte ("Currer Bell") | Charlotte | 532 | 2023 | 1847 |
Alienist, The | Carr | Caleb | 512 | 2023 | 1994 |
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Harari | Yuval Noah | 512 | 2024 | 2011 |
Pride and Prejudice | Austen | Jane | 494 | 2023 | 1813 |
Dracula | Stoker | Bram | 488 |
| 1897 |
Black Swan, The | Taleb | Nassim Nicholas | 480 | 2022 | 2010 |
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov | Chekhov | Anton | 454 | 2024 | 1883-1903 |
Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time, Vol I) | Proust | Marcel | 444 | 2023 | 1913 |
Crossing, The | McCarthy | Cormac | 426 | 2024 | 1994 |
One Hundred Years of Solitude | Marquez | Gabriel Garcia | 417 | 2023 | 1967 |
Homegoing | Gyasi | Yaa | 400 | 2022 | 2016 |
Madame Bovary | Flaubert | Gustave | 395 | 2023 | 1857 |
Blood Meridian | McCarthy | Cormac | 354 | 2024 | 1985 |
Love In the Time of Cholera | Marquez | Gabriel Garcia | 348 | 2024 | 1985 |
Consider the Lobster | Wallace | David Foster | 343 | 2024 | 2005 |
Nutmeg's Curse, The: Parables for a Planet in Crisis | Ghosh | Amitov | 336 | 2024 | 2021 |
Orlando | Woolf | Virginia | 329 | 2024 | 1928 |
Nineteen Eighty Four | Orwell | George | 328 | 2023 | 1949 |
Beloved | Morrison | Toni | 324 | 2023 | 1987 |
Sound and the Fury, The | Faulkner | William | 322 | 2024 | 1929 |
Lolita | Nabokov | Vladimir | 317 | 2023 | 1955 |
Absalom, Absalom! | Faulkner | William | 316 | 2023 | 1936 |
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The | Kundera | Milan | 314 | 2023 | 1984 |
Devices and Villainy | Eaton | Will | 308 | 2023 | 2023 |
Handmaid's Tale, The | Atwood | Margaret | 301 | 2023 | 1986 |
Waves, The | Woolf | Virginia | 297 | 2023 | 1931 |
Cities of the Plain | McCarthy | Cormac | 292 | 2024 | 1998 |
Treasure Island | Stevenson | Robert Louis | 290 | 2023 | 1882 |
Road, The | McCarthy | Cormac | 282 | 2023 | 2006 |
To Kill a Mockingbird | Lee | Harper | 281 | 2024 | 1960 |
Picture of Dorian Gray, The | Wilde | Oscar | 270 | 2023 | 1891 |
Brave New World | Huxley | Aldous | 269 | 2024 | 1932 |
As I Lay Dying | Faulkner | William | 261 | 2023 | 1930 |
If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler | Calvino | Italo | 260 | 2023 | 1979 |
In the Dream House | Marchado | Carmen Maria | 251 | 2024 | 2019 |
Remains of the Day, The | Ishiguro | Kazuo | 245 | 2024 | 1989 |
I, Robot | Asimov | Isaac | 244 | 2024 | 1950 |
Happy-Go-Lucky | Sedaris | David | 242 | 2024 | 2022 |
Animal Liberation | Singer | Peter | 240 | 2022 | 1975 |
Beyond Good and Evil | Nietzsche | Friedrich | 240 | 2023 | 1886 |
Jazz | Morrison | Toni | 239 | 2024 | 1992 |
Year of Magical Thinking, The | Didion | Joan | 239 | 2024 | 2005 |
Cathedral | Carver | Raymond | 232 | 2023 | 1983 |
Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The | Kundera | Milan | 228 | 2023 | 1978 |
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry | Tyson | Neil deGrasse | 224 | 2022 | 2017 |
Lord of the Flies | Golding | William | 224 | 2023 | 1954 |
Exile and the Kingdom | Camus | Albert | 213 | 2023 | 1958 |
To the Lighthouse | Woolf | Virginia | 209 | 2023 | 1927 |
Alchemist, The | Coelho | Paulo | 208 | 2024 | 1988 |
Annihilation | VanderMeer | Jeff | 208 | 2024 | 2014 |
Cannery Row | Steinbeck | John | 208 | 2023 | 1945 |
Post Office | Bukowski | Charles | 208 | 2023 | 1971 |
Sun Also Rises, The | Hemingway | Ernest | 208 | 2022 | 1926 |
Gambler, The | Dostoyevsky | Fyodor | 201 | 2024 | 1866 |
Mrs. Dalloway | Woolf | Virginia | 194 | 2023 | 1925 |
Dubliners | Joyce | James | 192 | 2023 | 1914 |
Moveable Feast | Hemingway | Ernest | 192 | 2024 | 1964 |
Tinkers | Harding | Paul | 191 | 2024 | 2009 |
Lathe of Heaven, The | LeGuin | Ursula K. | 184 | 2024 | 1971 |
Silver Man, The | Eaton | Will | 182 | 2023 | 2023 |
Ficciones | Borges | Jorge Luis | 178 | 2023 | 1962 |
Ocean at the End of the Lane, The | Gaiman | Neil | 178 | 2023 | 2013 |
Invisible Cities | Calvino | Italo | 176 | 2023 | 1972 |
Great Gatsby, The | Fitzergald | F. Scott | 174 | 2023 | 1925 |
Racial Contract, The | Mills | Charles | 171 | 2022 | 1997 |
Frankenstein | Shelley | Mary (Wollstonecraft) | 166 | 2023 | 1818 |
Grapes of Wrath, The | Steinbeck | John | 164 | 2022 | 1939 |
Crying of Lot 49, The | Pynchon | Thomas | 152 | 2023 | 1966 |
War | Celine | Louis-Ferdinand | 144 | 2024 | 2022 |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Carroll | Lewis | 135 | 2024 | 1865 |
Purgatorio (Divine Comedy, Vol. II) | Alighieri | Dante | 132 | 2023 | 1320 |
Candide | Arouet ("Voltaire") | Francois-Marie | 129 | 2023 | 1759 |
Stranger, The | Camus | Albert | 123 | 2023 | 1942 |
Of Mice and Men | Steinbeck | John | 112 | 2023 | 1937 |
Paradiso (Divine Comedy, Vol. III) | Alighieri | Dante | 111 | 2023 | 1320 |
Inferno (Divine Comedy, Vol. I) | Alighieri | Dante | 108 | 2022 | 1320 |
Waiting for Godot | Beckett | Samuel | 108 | 2023 | 1952 |
Art of War, The | Tzu | Sun | 99 | 2023 | 6th Century BCE |
Moon is Down, The | Steinbeck | John | 99 | 2023 | 1942 |
Heart of Darkness | Conrad | Joseph | 98 | 2024 | 1899 |
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The | Irving | Washington | 96 | 2023 | 1820 |
Old Man and the Sea, The | Hemingway | Ernest | 96 | 2024 | 1952 |
Pearl, The | Steinbeck | John | 96 | 2023 | 1947 |
Fall, The | Camus | Albert | 90 | 2022 | 1957 |
Metamorphosis, The | Kafka | Franz | 70 | 2023 | 1915 |
Theogony, The | Hesiod |
| 36 | 2023 | 7th Century BCE |
Most Dangerous Game, The | Connell | Richard | 24 | 2022 | 1924 |
Great list, Will! I for one would love to see a review for Jazz by Toni Morrison or The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
As a goal-oriented reader, do you have a process for determining which books secure a spot on your lists? I’d love to hear more about how you decide upon a reading list / order and any thoughts on how this process has changed over time.
Best wishes from New York!