Reading Pool for 2023

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: 400 + 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 (75) To Read=Red

The House of Twenty Thousand Books — Sasha Abramsky
The Monkey-Wrench Gang — Edward Albee
A Coffin for Dimitrios — Eric Ambler
The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
Act of the Damned – António Lobo Antunes
The Nice Guys — Charles Ardai
God: A Human History — Resa Aslan
Petty Troubles of Married Life — Honoré de Balzac
The Memoirs of Two Young Wives — Honoré de Balzac
City — Alessandro Baricco
Monsieur Ouine – Georges Bernanos
The Lime Works – Thomas Bernhard
Life of Samuel Johnson — James Boswell
Religion For Atheists — Alain de Botton
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook — Anthony Bourdain
Open Season — C. J. Box
Killoyle, An Irish Farce – Roger Boylan
Anonymous Celebrity — Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
The Unknown Quantity – Hermann Broch
Thru — Christine Brooke-Rose
Between – Christine Brooke-Rose
Father and Son – Larry Brown
Neon Rain — James Lee Burke
Cecilia — Franny Burney
The Wanderer — Franny Burney
The Biographer’s Tale — A. S. Byatt
Birnam Wood: A Novel — Eleanor Catton
Moonglow — Michael Chabon
The Manchurian Candidate — Richard Condon
Blood Work — Michael Connelly
What Girls Learn — Karin Cook
The Winners – Julio Cortázar
At Bertram’s Hotel — Agatha Christie
American Dirt — Jeanine Cummins
The Origin of the Species — Charles Darwin
Manhattan Is My Beat — Jeffrey Deaver
Death of a Blue Movie Star — Jeffrey Deaver
Colonel Jack — Daniel Defoe
Guns, Germs, Steel — Jared Diamond
Bright Magic: Stories — Alfred Döblin
Bucking the Sun — Ivan Doig
Island People – Coleman Dowell
The Corsican Brothers — Alexander Dumas
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana – Umberto Eco
Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
Manhattan Beach — Jennifer Egan
A Boy and His Dog — Harlan Ellison
The Samurai – Shusaku Endo
Final Jeopardy — Linda Fairstein
The Crack-up — F. Scott Fitzgeral
The Cremator — Ladislav Fuks
The Mare — Mary Gaitskill
The Case of the Baited Hook — Erle Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Perjured Parrot — Erle Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Rolling Bones — Erle Stanley Gardner
Promise At Dawn — Roman Gary
Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story — Elizabeth Gaskell
Gun Island — Amitav Ghosh
She Drove without Stopping – Jaimy Gordon
Time Shelter — Georgi Gospodinov
Château d’Argol — Julien Gracq
Too Far Afield – Günter Grass
Party Going — Henry Green
Looking for Alaska — John Green
The Book of Intimate Grammar: A Novel – David Grossman
The Magicians — Lev Grossman
Stalingrad — Vasily Grossman
The Motherfucker with the Hat — Stephen Adly Guirgis
White People — Allan Gurganus
The Midnight Library — Matt Haig
The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Alex Haley
The Good Soldier Svejk — Jaroslav Hasek
Whistlejacket – John Hawkes
Starship Troopers — Robert A. Heinlein
I — Wolfgang Hilbig
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages — Tom Holt
Là-Bas – J. K. Huysmans
Captain Saturday — Robert Inman
The Princess Cassamassima— Henry James
Some Came Running — James Jones
The Thin Red Line — James Jones
A Field Guide to Reality — Joanna Kavenna
Alien Rice — Ichiro Kawasaki
The Lacuna — Barbara Kingsolver
The Exile — William Kotzwinkle
The Last Days of Mankind — Karl Kraus
God’s Without Men — Hari Kunzru
Complete Stories — Clarice Lispector
A Man of Parts — David Lodge
Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud — Mike Lupica
The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer
Oswald’s Tale – Norman Mailer
Harlot’s Ghost – Norman Mailer
Le Morte d’Arthur — Thomas Malory
The White Lioness — Henning Mankell
Joseph and His Brothers — Thomas Mann
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel — Leopoldo Marechal
The Loved Ones – Alia Mamdouh
Shadow Country — Peter Matthiesse
Women and Men — Joseph McElroy
Annals of the Former World — John McPhee
Forbidden Colors — Yukio Mishima
Teeth — Hannah Moskowitz
The Redbreast — Jo Nesbø
Nemesis — Jo Nesbø
Lemprière’s Dictionary – Lawrence Norfolk
In the Shape of a Boar — Lawrence Norfolk
A Widow’s Story: A Memoir — Joyce Carol Oates
My Heart Laid Bare — Joyce Carol Oates
A Tale of Love and Darkness – Amos Oz
The New Life — Orhan Pamuk
Towns Without Rivers – Michael Parker
The Poe Shadow — Matthew Pearl
Time and Chance — Sharon Kay Penman
Devil’s Brood — Sharon Kay Penman
Lionheart — Sharon Kay Penman
The Sunne In Splendour — Sharon Kay Penman
Monsieur Songe – Robert Pinget
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Robert M. Pirsig
A Glastonbury Romance — John Cowper Powys
Porius — John Cowper Powys
Owen Glendower — John Cowper Powys
Maiden Castle — John Cowper Powys
The Extremes — Christopher Priest
eXistenZ — Christopher Priest
Satiristas! — Paul Provenza
Time Regained — Marcel Proust
Slag Attack — Andersen Prunty
Betrayed by Rita Hayworth — Maanuel Puig
Gargantua & Pantagruel — François Rabelais
Joshua Then and Now — Mordecai Richler
Barney’s Version — Mordecai Richler
Larva: A Midsummer Night’s Babel – Julían Ríos
Captain Blood — Rafael Sabatini
The Sea-Hawk — Rafael Sabatini
The 120 Days of Sodom — Le Marquis de Sade
Memoirs of an Invisible Man — H. F. Saint
Farmerettes — Gisela Sherman
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich — William L. Shirer
And Quiet Flows the Don — Mikhail Sholokhov
Barefoot Boy with Cheek — Max Shulman
The Shadow Puppet — George Simenon
The Murderer — Georges Simenon
The Judge’s House — Georges Simenon
The Engineer of Human Souls – Josef Skvoresky
Havana Bay — Martin Cruz Smith
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle — Tobias Smollett
Imaginative Quantities of Actual Things – Gilbert Sorrentino
The Books of Jacob — Olga Tokarczuk
House of Day, House of Night — Olga Tokarczuk
Cane — Jean Toomer
Scattered All Over the Earth — Yoko Towada
The Beginner’s Goodbye — Anne Tyler
S. — John Updike
Villages — John Updike
Burr — Gore Vidal
Lincoln — Gore Vidal
1876 — Gore Vidal
Empire — Gore Vidal
Hollywood — Gore Vidal
Washington, D. C. — Gore Vidal
Creation— Gore Vidal
Julian — Gore Vidal
The Golden Age— Gore Vidal
The City and the Pillar — Gore Vidal
Rainbow Stories – William T. Vollmann
The Ice-Shirt – William T. Vollmann
The Rifles – William T. Vollmann
An Afghanistan Picture Show; or, How I Saved the World – William T. Vollmann
Girl with Curious Hair — David Foster Wallace
Tipping the Velvet — Sarah Waters
The Martian — Andy Weir
Glue — Irvine Welsh
Dead Men’s Trousers — Irvine Welsh
Skagboys — Irvine Welsh
The Intuitionist — Colson Whitehead
The Naked Jungle — Harry Whittington
Maisie Dobbs — Jacqueline Winspear
This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It — David Wong
Jacob’s Room — Virginia Woolf
Trash — Amy Yamada
I Hotel – Karen Tei Yamashita
The People in the Trees — Hanya Yanagihara
The Book Thief — Markus Zusak