Old Books…Catching Up

So…remember that time I sat atop my high horse and proudly proclaimed that I would read 12 classics this year, and then it was July and I had read a total of NONE OF THEM!

Oh, dear! Sometimes my reading eyes are bigger than my reading stomach!

I wanted to include a plate with books on it here, but the search only brought up bookplates. Lame.

To my credit, I HAVE read a bunch of books this year…just not the ones I planned to. And every time I consider actually starting one from my list, I think “Ugh. I just really want to read one I’m going to LIKE!” Which is not the way I should be thinking about it at all.

OK, let’s try and revamp this list so that it’s actually doable:

THE 12 CLASSICS OF 2012—The Let’s Get Real (LGR) Version

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky—an impoverished student commits a murder for financial gain then deals with the mental fallout. Yeah, not in 2012.
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy—tragic story of Russian socialite. A movie version of this is coming out that looks good./It’s on my Kindle. Outlook: Hopeful.
• The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Goethe—a young man experiences unrequited love (the first emo kid?). This has been on my to-read list since 2005. It’s on.
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas—a wrongly imprisoned man plans complex revenge. I have only heard good things about this. Still planning to read.
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf—the fictional biography of a man who morphs into a woman and lives for centuries. Sorry, Orlando. Maybe next year.
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce—the intellectual/philosophical awakening of a young artist. Yeah, nope.
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck—the struggle of Midwestern sharecroppers in the 1930s. Too depressing for now.
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers—the struggles of a few in 1930s Georgia. See above.
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway—personal tragedy contrasts with the impersonal destruction wrought by WWI. What was I thinking when I put this list together???
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut—a satirical novel of WWII. Satire I can do.
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess—a dystopian novel that explores human psychology. Still sounds good. Hopefully I will not be scarred for life.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger—the comings and goings of a disaffected youth. I would have appreciated this more 15 years ago, but whatever. Better late than never.

Alas, it seems I am a lazy former English major. I would say that the 27 books I’ve read this year are padded with fluff, but let’s be honest: It’s all fluff. I have been on a full-time diet of literary junk food and I need to get some vitamins in me—stat!

So where are you in your reading goals?