100 books in 100 days

i) i'm lodging at a new place.
ii) my resolution was to bring only unread books.
iii) i kinda failed at this.
iv) i also thought about bringing EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED.
v) i didn't have enough time to pack for that.
vi) i have, like - ninety-one?
vii) which, see, the task was going to be: read that one hundred before i am allowed (by myself) to buy any more books.
viii) so i figure there's more or less exactly one hundred days until the end of january.
ix) which gives me time to fill in the extra nine or so.
x) so, uh, guess what i'm doing this autumn.

this started when someone i know suggested a shelving solution, after i spent two days redoing my bookcases: first, take all the books you have read. put the tallest ones on the left. let them get shorter left to right. second, take the books you haven't yet read, and repeat this process.

which is what i'm doing, only with a subset of the books i actually own. they're going to migrate from the shelves on the other side of the room to the ones on this side of the room.

there are going to be a couple exceptions to the rule. buying magazines is allowed, and so is comics. this is so i don't go insane. buying design books is also allowed, i guess, but i don't do that much.

here's the first twenty (n.b. i am not attempting to read these in order. that would be a daft idea:)

1 t.e. lawrence, 'the seven pillars of wisdom'
2 p.g. wodehouse, 'laughing gas'
3 ben marcus, 'notable american women'
4 robert coover, 'pricksongs and descants'
5 lewis hyde, 'the gift'
6 gilbert sorrentino, 'the orangery'
7 elizabeth bishop, 'complete poems'
8 brian aldiss and harry harrison, eds. 'decade: the 60s'
9 joseph f. patrouch, jr., 'the science fiction of isaac asimov'
10 dashiell hammett, 'the big knockover'

11 josephine saxton, 'queen of the states'
12 robyn donald, 'the royal baby bargain'
13 william mayne, 'the second-hand horse and other stories'
14 ellery queen, 'the adventures of ellery queen'
15 g.k. chesterton, 'the innocence of father brown'
16 georges simenon, 'maigret afraid'
17 georges simenon, 'maigret's special murder'
18 e.w. hornung, 'raffles'
(19) dashiell hammett, 'nightmare town'
(20) john dickson carr, 'the hollow man'

the last two are bracketed because uh i didn't actually find copies yet.

Starting with the Lawrence seems a good way to fuck yourself up at the first step.

okay so if you... are you allowed to think you have a problem?

Only if failure to meet said challenges result in feelings of shame or inadequacy, or if the effort you exert in order to meet said challenges exceeds what is commensurate with the enjoyment you get from making the attempt.

Thomp, you are awesome.

Also lucky. I wish I had the time to do something like this.

Also mad, so this:

"there are going to be a couple exceptions to the rule. buying magazines is allowed, and so is comics. this is so i don't go insane. buying design books is also allowed, i guess, but i don't do that much."

Won't do!

... cannot eat... ... must read more...

this was a pretty cool idea. how did it go?

terribly

thinking about it i made a decent attempt at sixteen of these and finished eleven, which is better than i thought. i don't think i managed that many of the hundred, though; wonder where the list is.

1 t.e. lawrence, 'the seven pillars of wisdom'
—have been halfway through this for months: i lost my first copy and before it was replaced started reading something else, now its place is for me to continually think 'once i finish whatever book about the middle east i am currently reading i will go back to lawrence'. right now it's waiting on my finishing 'the mantle of the prophet' and 'the great war for civilization', the latter of which is about half a proust in length.
2 p.g. wodehouse, 'laughing gas'
—this was funny but i remember not a lot about it. it's wodehouse cartoon english people in cartoon america. there was a play about wodehouse's world war ii on radio three the other day. i meant to listen to it and then i didn't.
3 ben marcus, 'notable american women'
—maybe my favorite novel of past decade or so, as it turns out. you should all read this.
4 robert coover, 'pricksongs and descants'
—this otoh is the third coover i've started and thought "this is some bullshit"
5 lewis hyde, 'the gift'
—never trust a book with a glowing quote from m. atwood on cover
6 gilbert sorrentino, 'the orangery'
—thumbs up
7 elizabeth bishop, 'complete poems'
—two thumbs up
8 brian aldiss and harry harrison, eds. 'decade: the 60s'
—unenlightening.
9 joseph f. patrouch, jr., 'the science fiction of isaac asimov'
—terrible.
10 dashiell hammett, 'the big knockover'
story collection of sort of mostly continental op stuff. (the titular story got published as a novella in some territories.) features his unfinished realist novel, a fifty page extract in which nothing happens. introduction by lillian hellman. none of the hammett collections are worth reading unless you read all his novels and thought "man, this guy. i would love to be a big nerd and read everything he ever wrote." which i kind of did, admittedly.

11 josephine saxton, 'queen of the states'
—woman's press SF list, haven't got past page one
12 robyn donald, 'the royal baby bargain'
—i think this was a mills & boon? i have no idea
13 william mayne, 'the second-hand horse and other stories'
—not prime mayne. i think a nephew or cousin ended up with this.
14 ellery queen, 'the adventures of ellery queen'
—hm, didn't read this. i only ever bought it for the cover, really.
15 g.k. chesterton, 'the innocence of father brown'
—never read this but i think i've read all the stories before anyway, does that count?
16 georges simenon, 'maigret afraid'
17 georges simenon, 'maigret's special murder'
—they're maigrets. they read like maigrets.
18 e.w. hornung, 'raffles'
—raffles is really fucking annoying.
(19) dashiell hammett, 'nightmare town'
—has the first sam spade stories in it. it's interesting how spade is almost a parodic turned-up-to-eleven version of marlowe type detectives at first. there's also some story with (i think) a really weedy detective who spends his time trying to sell poems and is detectiving to make ends meet: this wasn't as good as i'd have hoped. kind of shows his weaknesses more than his strengths.
(20) john dickson carr, 'the hollow man'
—famous frame-breaking bit aside, not all that interesting; also, deeply unconvincing in that way of early british detective fiction. i think someone had to break into his own house wearing a giant paper-mache head to fake his own suicide or something, i can't really remember.

Josephine Saxton!

I claim to be a fan, though only on the basis of her earliest novels (The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith, Vector For Seven, Group Feast). Queen of the States is in my pile but I haven't read it yet. I am very happy to see her name mentioned, even if you couldn't get into it.

18 e.w. hornung, 'raffles'
—raffles is really fucking annoying.

If you can, find the Graham Greene play (name escapes me, but it's in his 'Collected Plays') with Raffles and Bunny as an obviously gay couple (not that you have to read the original stories too closely to get that idea) mixed up with Oscar Wilde and Bosie. Lots of fun.

I have to say I really like Hammett's short stories, especially 'The Gutting of Fingal' about a bunch of crims who cut off and rob a whole town in one night.

Elizabeth Bishop is one of my own recent discoveries: she really kicks every variety of arse, doesn't she?