(365) Days of English Literature

I'm posting on a whim. Sort of.

I was reading an old Calvin and Hobbes strip, and it got me thinking about new years resolutions. And I decided, that if I'm going to make any resolutions, I might as well start sooner then later. That is why I have decided to have an October 26th resolution. I shall read 100 stories, and by October 25th, I shall have finished reading these 100 stories. Writing this down, I'm probably making my blog feel like it's a sort of sad spin-off of the Julie/Julia project. But I don't plan on devoting all my time to writing about Ulysses, and The Tropic of Cancer, and Steinbeck, and so on and so forth. The lists I'm looking at consist of mostly western literature, but I don't really have a problem with that. I'm considering creating a list of my very own, taking top 40 or so from Harvard's Bookstore, TIME magazine, Modern Library, and Gutenberg, and sorting through each until I have a list of books that might not completely lull me to sleep, because, you know, not everyone absolutely loves Great Expectations.

I'm considering telling my english teacher about my little project. I think he'll really like it.

I think Beowulf should be somewhere on everybody's 100 list. It's the first whole recorded piece of english literature. It won't be part of mine because, I've already finished it, but I think the poetic translation (from the original old english) is beautiful, and worth trying to finish at least.

I don't know what the other 99 are exactly yet, I'll have my list finished by tomorrow. but I've started things off with Modern Library Board's first pick, Ulysses by James Joyce. 

And, yes Katie, Vonnegut is most certainly on the list!