Blog Revamp. Again. Don't Judge Me.

Several months ago I got a wild hair to read all the great books.  I am an interesting judge of literary value so luckily I discovered 2 lists already in existence of exactly what I was looking for!  Time Magazine published a list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present (which at the time was 1998, I believe).  In response to this, The Modern Library published their own list of the 100 greatest English-language novels, but this time including the entire 20th Century.  In a moment of what can only be described as sheer sleep deprivation ( I was working nights at a hotel at the time), I decided to read these novels.  So, I put the lists together and removed all the repeats.  Every book I'd already read stayed in.  In the end I had a list of 157 novels.  Actually, it's more like 168 because one "novel" is actually a 12-part series.  YIKES!  Once the list was completed there was really nothing left to do except jump in.  I had advice to avoid the Russians for a while and move fairly helter-skelter through my list.  Not try to turn it into a one-person classroom.  So that's what I did!


But I hit a few walls pretty early.  First of all, for a novel to make this list it has to be damn good.  Basically, not a particularly easy or quick read.  I powered through the first few roadblocks on my own but got seriously tied up with Virginia Woolf.  That bitch has had it out for me since college...but I'll get to that some other time.
So now we're on to Plan B (which, to give credit where credit is due, was my best friend's Plan A all along...I'm just stubborn).  I'm opening up my literary experience to the public for both advice on approaching some of the novels, suggestions for what to read next, or just general discussion of what I'm reading.  Since I've already gotten through a few, my next couple blogs will be the actual list and a short recap of what I've already read.  


Who's ready to do some reading?!