Tom & Alissa

In the last few years, I’ve tried to stick to my book lists. This year it’s impossible, since I’ll probably be reading for class but I don’t know what I’ll be reading yet. So instead, I’m listing books I plan to read, but I’m not going to feel guilty if I don’t finish them.

I’ll be tracking my progress on GoodReads - feel free to add me over there. And the list will be on the books page.

Fiction
On the Road - Jack Kerouac (Read)
A Christmas gift from Tom, along with the “Original Scroll” version (before Kerouac’s editors got their hands on it). I’ve been wanting to read this for years, and I’m so glad we’ve finally got it.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Was on everyone’s “best of 2007″ lists, so I’m ready to dive in.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Ridley Scott is directing the movie, which is slated to come out in 2009. I was glad I hadn’t read No Country for Old Men before I see the movie, but I have less faith in Scott than in the Coen brothers, so I think I’ll read this first.

Underworld - Don DeLillo
Lorrie Moore said, “No one’s prose is better than DeLillo’s.” And I’m a little ashamed that I haven’t read him yet.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (Read)
I feel like I should have gone through some emo phase in high school and read this book, but since I missed the memo, I’m reading it now. Borrowed it from Angela - looks like a quick read.

Chasing Francis - Ian Morgan Cron (Read)
To be fair, we’re acquainted with Ian through IAM, but I hear great things about the book.

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Pevear/Volokhonsky translation)
Tom just finished it, can’t stop raving, so I really need to read it.

Non-Fiction
Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
I’m about halfway through already.

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century - Alex Ross
I bought this for Tom for Christmas and after reading the back cover, I’m totally intrigued.

Amazing Grace - Kathleen Norris
A Christmas gift from my mother. I love Kathleen Norris.

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading - Eugene Peterson (Read)
I am halfway through it right now, and it’s very good. Peterson is an excellent spiritual writer, and the book is about Lectio Divina (the practice of reading Scripture meditatively).

Through a Screen Darkly - Jeffrey Overstreet
A Christmas book from Mom, and a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite a while.

Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews - George Plimpton (ed.) (Read)
To be fair, I’m halfway through this at present as well. Interviews with some of the great female writers of the twentieth century. The youngest authors represented are Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates; most of the others have passed away in the last twenty years. Really excellent, especially as I start studying twentieth-century literature.

Where I Was From - Joan Didion
I fell in love with Didion’s concise prose style, and picked this up at a bookstore in the Village.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
Tom is reading it and all his talk has got me intrigued.

The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A Christmas gift from Mom, and a book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time.