B's bookshelf update

On 23 April 2011, I posted – for the first time! Sigh! – my list of to-reads. It’s now 6 months on and I thought I should do an update of how the ‘project’ is progressing.

This is what my original list now looks like:

In Defence of Sin – edited by John Portman
The Heart has its Reasons – the Duchess of Windsor
The Diviners – Rick Moody
Sophie’s World - Jostein Gaarder
The Flaneur – Edmund White
The Subterraneans and Pie – Jack Kerouac
The Book of Revelation – Rupert Thompson
Soul Mountain – Gao Xinjian
Twelve Bar Blues – Patrick Neate
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai
The Red and the Black - Stendhal
Harry Potter und die Heiligtumer des Todes – J.K. Rowling

If I’m absolutely honest, I’d forgotten I had some of these books on my shelves until re-visiting the blog post. Also, looking at the list I now have all the very heavy books left. I did start reading The Inheritance of Loss but I got distracted by a much lighter, sillier book. Soul Mountain and The Red and the Black are likewise started but haven’t progressed far beyond the first 100 pages.

I forecast some very thought-provoking Christmas reading this year.

Of those books I’ve read I couldn’t pick out a best or worst. They were all immensely enjoyable, well-written and re-readable.