Reading Pool for 2021

Traditionally I would to sit around the café at Barnes & Noble making my Christmas list of books I considered reading during the upcoming year. Then I bought a fancy espresso machine and nowadays I tend to stay home. But I still make that annual list of the next year’s potential reading.

The list is probably one of the most flexible lists I make and the number of titles considered is always far greater than the number of books I actually read during the year. You might notice that a large part of the list contains reading from the previous year that I didn’t get to but still want to read. I start off with about 150 books and by the end of the coming year this list will expand to about 250 books (I’ll read about 100 of them). [Note: 300 + in times of CoVid]

I love lists so here is this year’s Reading Pool. Note also the reading lists under the menu item “Lists.”

Read=Blue (60) | to read from current monthly pool=italics

1. Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life — Kim Addonizio
2. The Monkey-Wrench Gang — Edward Albee
3. Just Kids From the Bronx — Arlene Alda
4. Indian Killer — Sherman Alexie
5. Lionel Asbo: State of England — Martin Amis
6. Act of the Damned – António Lobo Antunes
7. God: A Human History — Resa Aslan
8. La Cousine Bette — Honoré de Balzac
9. Le Cousin Pons — Honoré de Balzac
10. Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes — Honoré de Balzac
11. Illusions perdues — Honoré de Balzac
12. Looking For Bapu — Anjali Banerjee
13. They Were Counted — Miklós Banffy
14. They Were Divided — Miklós Banffy
15. They Were Found Wanting — Miklós Banffy
16. Snow — John Banville
17. Monsieur Ouine – Georges Bernanos
18. The Lime Works – Thomas Bernhard
19. Christine Falls: A Novel — Benjamin Black
20. Religion For Atheists — Alain de Botton
21. Armadillo — William Boyd
22. An Ice-Cream War: A Novel — William Boyd
23. Killoyle, An Irish Farce – Roger Boylan
24. When the Killing’s Done — T. C. Boyle
25. The Terranauts – T. C. Boyle
26. Drop City – T. C. Boyle
27. The Women – T. C. Boyle
28. San Miguel — T. C. Boyle
29. Anonymous Celebrity — Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
30. The Sleepwalkers – Hermann Broch
31. The Unknown Quantity – Hermann Broch
32. Villette — Charlotte Brontë
33. Shirley— Charlotte Brontë
34. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall— Anne Brontë
35. The Professor— Charlotte Brontë
36. Agnes Gray — Anne Brontë
37. Thru — Christine Brooke-Rose
38. Between –  Christine Brooke-Rose
39. Father and Son – Larry Brown
40. The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett
41. Babel Tower – A. S. Byatt
42. Three Trapped Tigers — G. Cabrera Infante
43. Moonglow — Michael Chabon
44. A Night In the Cemetery — Anton Chekhov
45. The Poet — Michael Connelly
46. The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground — James Fenimore Cooper
47. The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea — James Fenimore Cooper
48. The Red Rover: A Tale — James Fenimore Cooper
49. John’s Wife – Robert Coover
50. Ghost Town – Robert Coover
51. The Public Burning – Robert Coover
52. Huck Out West – Robert Coover
53. The Winners – Julio Cortázar
54. The Enormous Room — E. E. Cummings
55. Media — Rachel Cusk
56. The Lost Scrapbook – Evan Dara
57. Varieties of Disturbance: Stories – Lydia Davis
58. The End of the Story — Lydia Davis
59. Americana — Don DeLillo
60. Ratner’s Star— Don DeLillo
61. Libra— Don DeLillo
62. Guns, Germs, Steel — Jared Diamond
63. Little Dorritt — Charles Dickens
64. Bright Magic: Stories — Alfred Döblin
65. Bucking the Sun — Ivan Doig
66. Schultz — J. P. Donleavy
67. Homeland Security Ate My Speech: Messages from the End of the World — Ariel Dorfman
68. The Adolescent – Fyodor Dostoevsky
69. Island People – Coleman Dowell
70. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana – Umberto Eco
71. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
72. The Island of the Day Before – Umberto Eco
73. Baudolino – Umberto Eco
74. Six Walks in the Fictional Woods — Umberto Eco
75. Zeitoun — Dave Eggers
76. The Samurai – Shusaku Endo
77. Tomboyland: Essays — Melissa Faliveno
78. Pylon – William Faulkner
79. The Crack-up — F. Scott Fitzgerald
80. Independence Day— Richard Ford
81. Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder
82. The Mare — Mary Gaitskill
83. A Daughter of the Middle Border — Hamlin Garland
84. Promise At Dawn — Roman Gary
85. Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life — Elizabeth Gaskell
86. North and South — Elizabeth Gaskell
87. Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story — Elizabeth Gaskell
88. The Balcony — Jean Genet
89. The Glass Palace – Amitav Ghosh
90. Taco Noir — Steven Gomez
91. She Drove without Stopping – Jaimy Gordon
92. Château d’Argol — Julien Gracq
93. Too Far Afield – Günter Grass
94. Party Going — Henry Green
95. The Book of Intimate Grammar: A Novel – David Grossman
96. The Big Sky — A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
97. Carnival: A Novel — Rawi Hage
98. The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Alex Haley
99. Warlock – Oakley Hall
100. A Pair of Blue Eyes — Thomas Hardy
101. Whistlejacket – John Hawkes
102. Blithedale Romance — Nathaniel Hawthorne
103. The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni — Nathaniel Hawthorne
104. Histories — Heroditus
105. God Is Not Great — Christopher Hitchens
106. The Folding Star — Alan Hollinghurst
107. The Line of Beauty — Alan Hollinghurst
108. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages — Tom Holt
109. Là-Bas – J. K. Huysmans
110. Stealth — Sonallah Ibrahim
111. Three Trapped Tigers – G. Cabrera Infante
112. Second Person Singular — Sayed Kashua
113. The Flaming Corsage — William Kennedy
114. Sometimes a Great Notion — Ken Kesey
115. Disclaimer — Rene Knight
116. The Exile — William Kotzwinkle
117. The Melancholy of Resistance — Lásló Krasznahorkai
118. God’s Without Men — Hari Kunzru
119. Complete Stories — Clarice Lispector
120. Goth Girl Rising — Barry Lyga
121. The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer
122. Harlot’s Ghost – Norman Mailer
123. The Loved Ones – Alia Mamdouh
124. The Betrothed — Alessandro Manzoni
125. Adam Buenosayres: A Novel — Leopoldo Marechal
126. The Infatuations — Javier Marías
127. The Crossing — Cormac McCarthy
128. Cities of the Plain — Cormac McCarthy
129. Suttree — Cormac McCarthy
130. Lookout Cartridge – Joseph McElroy
131. Solar — Ian McEwan
132. Razor Wire Pubic Hair — Carlton Mellick III
133. Forbidden Colors — Yukio Mishima
134. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
135. The Bone Clocks — David Mitchell
136. Utopia Avenue — David Mitchell
137. Big Breasts and Wide Hips — Mo Yan
138. Earthlings — Sayaka Murata
139. The Green Knight — Iris Murdoch
140. Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle – Vladimir Nabokov
141. Parallel Stories — Péter Nádas
142. The Pit — Frank Norris
143. A Widow’s Story — Joyce Carol Oates
144. Mudwoman — Joyce Carol Oates
145. The Gravedigger’s Daughter — Joyce Carol Oates
146. A Book of American Martyrs — Joyce Carol Oates
147. My Heart Laid Bare — Joyce Carol Oates
148. Broke Heart Blues — Joyce Carol Oates
149. The Fishermen: A Novel — Chigozie Obioma
150. Miss Iceland — Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
151. A Tale of Love and Darkness – Amos Oz
152. History. A Mess. — Sigrún Pálsdóttir
153. The Black Book – Orhan Pamuk
154. Towns Without Rivers – Michael Parker
155. The Watery Part of the World – Michael Parker
156. An Instance of the Fingerpost – Iain Pears
157. The Thanatos Syndrome — Walker Percy
158. Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl
159. Monsieur Songe – Robert Pinget
160. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Robert M. Pirsig
161. Larva: A Midsummer Night’s Babel – Julían Ríos
162. Home: A Novel — Marilynne Robinson
163. Letting Go – Philip Roth
164. The Humbling — Philip Roth
165. Operation Shylock : A Confession — Philip Roth
166. Reveries of the Solitary Walker — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
167. A Renegade History of the United States — Thaddeus Russell
168. Memoirs of an Invisible Man — H. F. Saint
169. It Came From Below the Belt — Bradley Sands
170. In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash — Jean Shepherd
171. Absurdistan — Gary Shteyngart
172. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook — Gary Shteyngart
173. Maigret and the Millionaires — Georges Simenon
174. Maigret and Monsieur Charles — Georges Simenon
175. Maigret and the Informer — Georges Simenon
176. Maigret and the Death of a Harbor-Master — Georges Simenon
177. Maigret and the Killer — Georges Simenon
178. Maigret Has Doubts — Georges Simenon
179. Maigret Afraid — Georges Simenon
180. The Engineer of Human Souls – Josef Skvoresky
181. In the First Circle – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
182. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation — Aexandr Soltzheritsyn
183. In America – Susan Sontag
184. Against Interpretation — Susan Sontag
185. Imaginative Quantities of Actual Things – Gilbert Sorrentino
186. The League of Frightened Men — Rex Stout
187. A Memoir of Misfortune — Su Xiaokang
188. Innocents Abroad — Mark Twain
189. Diary of a Blood Donor – Mati Unt
190. Rainbow Stories – William T. Vollmann
191. The Ice-Shirt – William T. Vollmann
192. The Rifles – William T. Vollmann
193. An Afghanistan Picture Show; or, How I Saved the World – William T. Vollmann
194. Jailbird — Kurt Vonnegut
195. Glue — Irvine Welsh
196. Skagboys — Irvine Welsh
197. This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It — David Wong
198. Bedtime Eyes — Amy Yamada
199. I Hotel – Karen Tei Yamashita
200. Interior Chinatown — Charles Yu
201. People’s History of the United States — Howard Zinn
202. Le Rêve — Émile Zola
203. Une Page d’amour — Émile Zola
204. Le Docteur Pascal — Émile Zola

(Workspace for next year’s reading pool : subject to constant change)