An Unalterable Commitment

I will go into the title of this post a bit later on. As of right now I am detailing a new project: the books I will read before I hit 30. Based on this list I found on this list. Both very good lists.

When I read the 30 before 30 list I was depressed to see how many fine books escaped my attention throughout the years. Some of these books I have read part of, but very few I have finished. I was also surprised that I have a B.A. in English focusing on Contemporary Literature without having read War and Peace.

So here they are in the order I plan on reading them, and a few notes about each:

Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
I've read most of this one already, so it's a slam dunk first book. Complicated poetry? No problem. Eliot's The Waste Land was the subject of at least four papers (all with different theses) at Berk.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau
NOT EASY, NOT SHORT. I've tried reading this wholly twice now, and failed both times. But the rhetoric contained in this book is very prevalent in a green society.

1984 by George Orwell
Read all but the last thirty pages in Jr. College. Good recovery from Walden.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
No problem.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I don't know much about this one. I expect it to be complicated and full of satire and allusion.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The beast. If I finish this before September I will consider myself on track.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Great book, on my list because it's been like fourteen years since I have read it.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Great book (again), and I've read bits and pieces. I know it will be hard tog et anything from this one without some kind of analysis.

The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
Never heard of it.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Two never "heard of it" in a row. It's a gamble on this one.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickins
The magician?

Catch 22 by Joseph Helley
Looking forward to this on.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
How have I never read this? I must be afraid that I am a Manchurian candidate or something.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I have read this book. But it was for school. So I skipped around a bit >>:)

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
As above >>>:)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Like the Salinger, again, how?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Read this one about ten years ago.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Never heard of it.

The Republic by Plato
Why am I ending with what will likely be the most difficult to consume text on the list? I can only imagine War and Peace being more difficult than Plato's masterwork.

If I finish all these before February 23, 2011 (thirty.. shit...) I will come up with some sort of amazing achievement award. Sex in a library sounds appropriate. With the cougar librarian who is staring me down as I read Plato's Republic? I think so.