27 | February | 2012 | Bride of the Book God

So, I got into a really deep conversation with my friend Silvery Dude before Christmas about how I might mark my turning 50. This has turned into two distinct projects: Films to Watch Before I’m 51 over on Bride of the Screen God, and now the The Big Re-Read, which is about re-visiting books that have been important to me for whatever reason over the years.

It won’t come as any great surprise that it took a great deal of consideration before I settled on my final what was supposed to be 12 books (one a month until 31 January 2013) and which is now what I’m calling a Baker’s Dozen plus Two. And I’m also starting a month later than intended which also tells you how much pondering I have done, adding books right up until yesterday. Some quite important titles haven’t made the cut for various reasons which I will explain when I get there.

I will write about these books once I’ve re-read them but they won’t be reviews as such, more an explanation of why they are important to me and a little bit of metadata (when I first read it, how many times since and so on). This is meant to be a fun thing, looking back over a reading life, which sounds a bit serious but really, really isn’t intended to be so.

Finally the list (in abasolutely no order whatsoever):

Nemesis by Agatha Christie
Katherine by Anya Seton
The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood
Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec
Gilles et Jeanne by Michel Tournier
The Telling of Lies by Timothy Findley
Goodbye Without Leaving by Laurie Colwin
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly

The honourable non-inclusions are:

Lord of the Rings – well , I’ve read this so many times and it had a huge impact on me but it is so magnificent that it really needs to stand on its own; and a re-read will happen at sometime I’m sure
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark – her masterpiece but already dealt with here
Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin – covered here
Duplicate Keys by Jane Smiley – a marvelous thriller/crime novel which I talked about here
Espedair Street by Iain Banks – Scottish rock novel extraordinaire