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