Future

Immediate future:

  • Michael Connelly’s The Closers and Echo Park, continuing the Harry Bosch series.
  • The Bourne Legacy by Eric Van Lustbader, the continuation of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series.
  • Emperor: The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden, the first of a series about Julius Caesar.
  • Lush Life by Richard Price, who also wrote Clockers and this book, which my wife read when I took it out of the library a couple of months ago (she said it was very good, so now I’m going to see for myself). Price also was a writer on the HBO series The Wire.
  • four by Agatha Christie: Murder at the Vicarage, Peril at End House, Thirteen at Dinner and Murder on the Orient Express.
  • a Parker novel by Richard Stark (a pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake): The Outfit
  • Lemons Never Lie, another Stark novel.The Cutie by Westlake.
  • Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler, which was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel when it came out in 2001.

In addition to the books listed on Challenges page, these unread books on my shelf are on my to-be-read list:

  1. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  2. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
  3. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  4. Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
  5. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
  6. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  7. The Wisdom Teachings of the Dalai Lama by the Dalai Lama with Matthew Bunson
  8. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
  9. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  10. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
  11. Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov
  12. The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  13. A Death in the Family by James Agee
  14. A Fable by William Faulkner
  15. When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
  16. The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
  17. Sea Glass by Anita Shreve
  18. Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley
  19. Seabiscuit by Lauren Hildebrand
  20. Downsize This! by Michael Moore
  21. The Miracle of Language by Richard Lederer
  22. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
  23. Bringing Out The Dead by Joe Connelly
  24. Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
  25. Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger
  26. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  27. The Sweet Cheat Gone by Marcel Proust
  28. The Past Recaptured by Marcel Proust
  29. Death Comes For The Archbishop by Willa Cather
  30. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayer
  31. Take A Girl Like You by Kingsley Amis
  32. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
  33. Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World by Louis Fischer
  34. More by Darrell Sifford (Philadelphia Inquirer columnist)
  35. A Month of Sundays by John Updike
  36. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
  37. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
  38. The Accidental Tourist by Anna Tyler
  39. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
  40. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  41. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
  42. The Sayings of Confucius, translated by James B. Ware
  43. The Lives of the Saints by Omar Engelbert
  44. Walking by Henry David Thoreau (essay)
  45. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki
  46. No Need for Speed: A Beginner’s Guide to the Joy of Running by John Bingham
  47. The Courage To Start: A Guide To Running for Your Life by John Bingham
  48. Marathon: You Can Do It! by Jeff Galloway
  49. The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam
  50. Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
  51. The Black Poets by Dudley Randall
  52. Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
  53. Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder
  54. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
  55. From a Buick 8 by Stephen King
  56. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
  57. The Fourth Hand by John Irving
  58. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
  59. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel by Dai Sijie
  60. On Writing by  Stephen King
  61. The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor by Flannery O’Connor
  62. The Sorrow Dance: Poems by Denise Levertov
  63. Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King
  64. Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss
  65. Unfair Arguments With Existence by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  66. Routines by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  67. New and Selected Poems, 1923-1985 by Robert Penn Warren
  68. 3000 Years of Black Poetry: An Anthology by Alan Lomax
  69. Dreams by C. G. Jung
  70. Tartuffe by Jean B. Moliere
  71. Selected Poems by Charles Baudelaire
  72. Quite Early One Morning by Dylan Thomas
  73. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
  74. Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare
  75. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
  76. Seventeenth-century English Minor Poets, edited by Richard Wilbur
  77. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
  78. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  79. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  80. The Golden Bough (abridged) by James George Frazer
  81. Poet’s Choice by Paul Engle
  82. The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
  83. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956, Parts I – II by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
  84. First circle by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
  85. Out of Africa & Shadows On The Grass by Isak Dinesen
  86. The Palm at the End of the Mind-Selected Poems and a Play Wallace Stevens
  87. Dialogues of Plato, edited by J. D. Kaplan
  88. Great American Short Stories, edited by Wallace Stegner
  89. The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller by Henry James
  90. Great Short Works of Henry James by Henry James
  91. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  92. Propaganda by Jacques Ellul
  93. Tao Te Ching: A New English Version by Stephen Mitchell
  94. London Fields by Martin Amis
  95. The Trial by Franz Kafka
  96. The Palace of Illusions: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
  97. The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
  98. Chapterhouse Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 6) by Frank Herbert
  99. It by Stephen King
  100. The Upanishads : Breath of the Eternal Manchester by Swami Prabhavananda
  101. Downsize This! by Michael Moore
  102. Kant by S. Korner
  103. Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse
  104. Indiscretions of Archie by P.G. Wodehouse
  105. Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse
  106. Meet Mr Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
  107. Quick Service by P.G. Wodehouse
  108. The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse
  109. Mulliner Nights by P. G. Wodehouse
  110. Devices and Desires by P. D. James
  111. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  112. A Room with A View by E.M. Forester
  113. Howards End by E.M. Forester
  114. Maurice by E.M. Forester
  115. Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master, edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham
  116. Thy Will Be Done: Letters to Persons in the World by St.Francis De Sales
  117. Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament, edited by Alfred Corn
  118. Modern Spirituality: An Anthology by John Garvey
  119. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch
  120. Classics For Pleasure by Michael Dirda
  121. Praying with Julian of Norwich (Companions for the Journey) by Gloria Durka
  122. Remembrance of Things Past VOLUME 2 by Marcel Proust
  123. Saint Peter’s Fair: The Fourth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters
  124. The Nero Wolfe Primer (And Be a Villain, Black Orchids, Champagne For One)
  125. Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
  126. The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  127. More Adventures of the Great Brain by John Fitzgerald
  128. Triple Wimsey (Whose Body?, Murder Must Advertise, Strong Poison) by Dorothy L. Sayers
  129. A Kierkegaard anthology Søren Kierkegaard
  130. Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila
  131. One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
  132. The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  133. The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
  134. Selected poems by Thomas Merton
  135. Alexander Pope: Selected Works Editor-Louis Kronenberger
  136. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
  137. Othello by William Shakespeare
  138. Christ Among Us: A Modern Presentation of the Catholic Faith for Adults by Anthony J. Wilhelm
  139. Birth of a Fan by Ron Fimrite
  140. Credo: A practical guide to the Catholic faith (abridged) by Martin Harrison
  141. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  142. The Holy Eucharist by St. Alphonsus De Liguori
  143. A guide to the world’s religions by David G Bradley
  144. The Outline of Sanity: A Biography of G.K. Chesterson by Alzina Stone Dale
  145. Adam Bede by George Eliot
  146. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
  147. The Wilderness Reader, edited by Frank Bergon
  148. The Clansman, an Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan by Thomas Dixon Jr.
  149. Dylan Thomas in America by Jbohn Malcolm Brinnin
  150. Bulfinch’s Mythology: Volume 1: The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch
  151. The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy, Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves and The Business of Heaven

5 Comments

  • Matt
    June 24, 2008 at 6:08 pm

    My class just started The Brothers Karamazov yesterday and we’re on the end of Part I. It’s heavy read but is worth all the time.

    Reply
  • Mrs S | Blue Archipelago
    August 10, 2008 at 8:40 am

    Wow – I’m impressed that you listed them all!

    Reply
  • Pat Meadows
    November 4, 2008 at 10:58 am

    Hi Bryan, I read your future reading list with interest, and noticed a few books about Buddhism and the Upanishads.

    If I may make a few suggestions, if you’re new to reading about Buddhism: the best introduction to it that I’m aware of is ‘It’s Easier Than You Think’ by Sylvia Boorstein. ‘Peace is Every Step’ by Thich Nhat Hanh is also excellent, and ‘The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings’ also by Nhat Hanh is deeper, but still a great introduction and clearly explains the heart of Buddhism, as the title says.

    You might be especially interested in ‘Living Buddha, Living Christ’ by Nhat Hanh. (Maybe you’ve already read all these?)

    I’ve been disappointed in a lot of the books ostensibly by the Dalai Lama, as in many cases, the book is really by the interviewer who gives us his own opinions and guesses at what the Dalai Lama actually meant. However, His Holiness actually wrote his autobiography himself. It’s entitled ‘Freedom in Exile’ and it gives you a great sense of the man’s personality and character as well as of his life. (I consider myself a Buddhist, albeit a solitary one as there is no Buddhist fellowship that I can attend – other than online. Brian doesn’t share my faith, but respects it.)

    Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun, who has written several excellent books. Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein are also American Buddhist teachers and have each written several excellent books. (This is probably more than you wanted to know.)

    For an introduction to Hinduism – well, a lot more than an introduction, actually, the three books on the Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran are terrific.

    Easwaran’s books on the Bhagavad Gita are:
    “The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume I,” “Like a Thousand Suns: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume II,” and
    “To Know Me is to Love Me, Volume III.”

    “Meditation: Commonsense Directions for an Uncommon Life ” also by Eknath Easwaran is a classic and a great introduction to … meditation (not a surprise). :)

    Easwaran’s “God Makes the Rivers to Flow” is especially lovely: it contains devotional quotes from many faiths.

    Easwaran also wrote some books specifically about Christian saints: I haven’t read these, but everything I have read by Easwaran has been excellent. You might be especially interested in his books on the Christian saints, in view of your other blog. One of them is entitled “Love Never Faileth: Eknath Easwaran on St. Francis, St. Augustine, St. Paul, and Mother Teresa Second Edition (Classics of Christian Inspiration Series)”.

    Easwaran was a great synthesizer and a great teacher, although a Hindu by birth and upbringing. He saw that the essentials, the core, the basics, of all the world’s great religions is the same.

    Cheers,
    Pat

    I haven’t read Thomas Merton’s books, but I would like to; I’ll put in some Inter-Library Loan requests for them soon. So many books, so little time…..

    Reply

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