A Pile of Books Is Called a ???

Wow! It’s December tomorrow and I haven’t even thought about next year’s reading selections.

I have an uncharacteristic urge to just wing it: selecting one book at a time with no preplanning whatsoever. I knew a woman who was a strong reader but she insisted that she never planned her reading in advance. Of course back in the pre-digital days (and the pre-Amazon days) our reading plan was whatever we found at the library or in the local bookstore.

Then computer access to the library allowed us to look for and request specific books to be held for pickup on our next visit. Targeting specific books sounds like a plan to me. Add in the internet, online bookstores, and the once flourishing big-box-bookstores (brick and mortar) and we all had a variety of ways to obtain reading material. But short of just scanning lists of books for catchy titles or flashy covers, isn’t this all based on a reading plan, even if of short duration?

Lists of books others create, especially those Top 100 lists (even 1001 for the truly adventuresome), are a clear example of planning for reading, even if the titles are pre-selected for us.

Here is the gaggle of suggested reading from this last month. There’s some good stuff in the herd to consider:

11-01-16 – Budding Prospects: A Pastoral — T. C. Boyle
11-02-16 – The Chosen Ones — Steve Sem-Sandberg
11-03-16 – A Cock-eyed Comedy — Juan Goytisolo
11-04-16 – The Association of Small Bombs — Karan Mahajan
11-05-16 – Swing Time — Zadie Smith
11-06-16 – The File on H. — Ismail Kadare
11-07-16 – Vampire In Love — Enrique Vila-Matas
11-08-16 – Black Wings Has My Angel — Elliott Chaze
11-09-16 – A Dissertation On Roast Pig — Charles Lamb
11-10-16 – Nobody Move — Denis Johnson
11-11-16 – American God: A Novel — Neil Gaiman
11-12-16 – Shakespeare and Company — Krista Halverson
11-13-16 – The Last Wolf — László Krasznahorkai
11-14-16 – S. N. U. F. F. — Victor Pelevin
11-15-16 – Sports In America — James A. Michener
11-16-16 – The Magician of Lublin — Isaac Bashevis Singer
11-17-16 – Grendel — John Gardner
11-18-16 – Dream of Scipio — Iain Pears
11-19-16 – The Nether World — George Gissing
11-20-16 – American Philosophy — John King
11-21-16 – The Mortifications — Derek Palacio
11-22-16 – Do Not Say We Have Nothing — Madeleine Then
11-23-16 – Gambler’s Anatomy — Jonathan Lethem
11-24-16 – The People and the Books — Adam Kirsch
11-25-16 – Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits — David Wong
11-26-16 – Ugly Man: Stories — Dennis Cooper
11-27-16 – Where the Bird Sings Best — Alejandro Jodorowsky
11-28-16 – Chelsea Girls — Eileen Myles
11-29-16 – Armada — Ernest Cline
11-30-16 – Valley of the Dolls — Jacqueline Susann