Looking forward to reading

Ones with beautiful or intriguing titles

• I know why the caged bird sings (I've always thought this phrase perfectly beautiful)
• Cryptonomicon (yeh, you can feel my fantasy leanings seeping out.)
• Neuromancer (ditto)
• The Things they Carried
• Sexing the Cherry
• The Trick is to Keep Breathing
• The beautiful Room is Empty
• Oscar and Lucinda
• the Child in Time
• The Bonfire of the Vanities
• Blood and Guts in High School (probably not as exciting as it sounds)
• if not now, when?
• The Colour Purple
• The Comfort of Strangers
• Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (definitely a metaphor...)
• One hundred Years of Solitude
• Stranger in a Strange Land
• malone Dies
• The 13 Clocks
• Cry the Beloved Country
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Their Eyes were Watching God
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
• Call it Sleep
• The Childermass
• A portrait of the Artist as a Young man
• V.
• Cat's Cradle

Ones based on films
Because my finger twitches to cross them out every time I scan my list. The Godfather is exempt from this - I love the film too much to read the book.

Famously hefty ones, so I can smile and look superior as I devour them on the bus

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• A Return to Times Past
• Kafka - Metamorphosis, the Trial

Alarming ones, so I can smile and look charming as I devour them on the bus

• Oranges are not the Only Fruit
• Trainspotting
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• The Marquis de Sade ones, I suppose
• Lolita and Clockwork Orange, wot I have already read.

The sci-fi classics on the list
Most of which I've done already - I, Robot and some Robert Heinlein still awaits. Also The Player of Games - Ian Banks wrote Use of Weapons, which at the time was the most brilliant thing I'd ever read. it's still hotdarn good.

the Gothic Novels
Because I love them - Vathek, Castle of Otranto, Mysteries of Udolpho e.t.c.

The Thomas Hardy
I loved Mayor of Casterbridge - also, I'm sick of people telling me how upsetting Jude the Obscure is.

Also

The Dictionary of the Khazars - Because it's in our local Oxfam, and I nearly buy it every time I go in. I only discovered it was on the list this morning - so naturally, it'll be gone when I return. C'est la vie.

Middlesex - I got hooked reading this in the corner of an airport departure lounge. In the bookshop, before I had bought it.

American Psycho -because the hero likes Genesis music, and so do I.

Melmoth the Wanderer -Because an exiled Oscar Wilde took Melmoth as his cover name.

Slaughterhouse Five

Posession

Not looking forward to reading

The Dickens.
There's ten on the list, and so far I've only read one. I'm thanking my stars I've already got Lord of the Rings, Gormenghast and Count of Monte Cristo out of the way.

Clarissa
My English teacher's favourite novel. Also (possibly) the longest book on the list. In fact, perhaps its the longest book in the English language?

The Marquis de Sade.
Quite aside from how I'm going to lay my hands on them (school library, I don't think...), reading a synopsis of Justine was quite enough for me.

Books read since last post: 40