Updated Reading List for 2012

With a little over 3 months to go before the end of the year, I think it’s time I updated my reading list for 2012.

I’ve only read 23 books out of my goal of 50, and with only a little over 100 days left before 2013, there’s no way I’ll be able to read 27 more.

Admittedly, there are books on my old list that I’m not so keen on reading anymore, and I’ve plenty of newly discovered books that I’d like to replace them with.

The books on my list which I finished reading are:

1. A Dance with Dragons (George R.R. Martin) January 24 – February 12, 2012
2. 2666 (Roberto Bolaño) January 3-19, 2012
3. The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman) March 13-18, 2012
4. The Book of Lost Things (John Connolly) May 5-12, 2012
5. The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov) March 2-12, 2012
6. Midnight’s Children (Salman Rushdie) December 19-30, 2011
7. A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole) Feb. 13-19, 2012
8. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (David Mitchell) May, 2012
9. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz) Feb. 21-27, 2012
10. A Passage to India (E.M. Forster) December 10, 2011 to January 23, 2012
11. Amsterdam (Ian McEwan) March 1, 2012
12. In the Woods (Tana French)  March 19 – April 2, 2012
13. The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes) Feb. 19-20, 2012
14. Sanditon – Jane Austen and Juliette Shapiro April 5-7, 2012
15. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel April 5 – May 5, 2012

The books below are the ones I have not read, and the ones I have crossed out are the ones I’m not too keen on reading anymore (not this year, at least):

1. The Black Book (Orhan Pamuk) I tried reading this but I couldn’t concentrate on it too much.  I’ll put it off for another time.
2. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller (Italo Calvino) Though I’ve already started this.  I might consider finishing it before the year ends.
3. The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag (Alan Bradley)
4. A Red Herring Without Mustard (Alan Bradley)
5. Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace) After trying and failing Ulysses, I don’t think I want to tackle this…ever!
   
6. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons) – Maybe, but I’m not too sure about this either.
7. A Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
8. The Meaning of Night (Michael Cox) – Might be too long to squeeze in this year…
9. The Monsters of Templeton (Lauren Groff)
10. Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
11. The Book of Murder (Guillermo Martinez)
12. The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)
13. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon)
14. Solar (Ian McEwan)
15. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
16. Istanbul (Orhan Pamuk)
17. Raise the Red Lantern (Su Tong)
18. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams)
19. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (Douglas Adams)
20. Saturday (Ian McEwan)
21. Jamrach’s Menagerie (Carol Birch)
22. The Famished Road (Ben Okri)
23. Hunger (Knut Hamsun) – Depends on if I like his writing style…
24. Mysteries (Knut Hamsun) – ditto…
25. The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson)
26. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle) – Seems short enough to squeeze in this year if I don’t find any new books to read.

Looking at that list, I’m still not too sure about the ones I’ve crossed out.  I might just change my mind about some of them later on.

Books I want to add to the list, to read before the year ends:

1. The Sisters Brothers – Paul DeWitt
2. Dune – Frank Herbert
3. The Perfect Spy – John Le Carre

That leaves me with 10 books, and that’s if I don’t “discover” any new books between now and the end of the year.

I hope I can at least manage to read those before 2013.