Over the past several years a number of Top 100 lists for novels or books started to appear.  There was the Mondern Library Top 100, Radcliffe’s Rival 100 Best Novels List, The Guardian 100 Greatests Novels of All Time, Newsweek Top 100 Books: The Meta List.  Many others have appeared that go as high as 1000 title or say that you “must read before you die”…

I actually debated about gathering those in as well.  Then I decided enough is enough.  I still want to have time to read my personal choices as well as complete this project.  There is nothing stopping me from tackling additional books when I complete this list.  Besides, it is much less daunting looking at a few hundred books than looking at a thousand books!

I collected all those listed above into a spreadsheet, and decided to start reading them… one at a time.  In total, there are 287 different titles on the list.  I admit, I eliminated one book – The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version.  My project, my choice.

Some of these I have read before, but so long ago that I figured I could read them again.  What amazed me was how many I knew, but I haven’t read.  I mean a lot I’ve seen in production (a lot of Shakespeare on the list) or seen in a movie.  However, though I love to read, I tend toward Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mysteries.  Most of the books listed do not fall into those genres.

I wrote a quick script to randomize my book list – just to make it a bit more interesting for me… okay, I know I would cheat and choose what I want to read eventually leading to several months of War and Peace and The Second World War back to back…

And so without further delay here’s what I’m reading now!