Mark's TBR Challenge List

[Mark]

Hey everyone -- I guess I should start by saying that this is something that I have been trying to do on my own but now I have the good fortune to share the slog through my bookshelf with other people as well. Thanks for the extra motivation!

Anyway, one thing that I seemed to have done a bit of, outside of purchasing lots of books, is purchase big books that sit on my bookshelf and seem to grow more daunting the longer they sit there.

And so being that we are all dealing with leaner wallets, I thought this would be a good time to start lugging some tomes around on the subway. Already this year I have finished: Moby-Dick, American Master (DeKooning biography), The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian, and Shantaram byt Gregory David Roberts. Here is the beginnings of the rest of what I will be trying to read:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (just started)
2666 by Roberto Bolano
JR by William Gaddis
War and Peace by Tolstoy
The Tunnel by William Gass
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann (also have his seven-book treastise on violence -- Rising Up and Rising Down -- but that may have to be split up)
Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
Women and Men by Joseph McElroy

That's probably enough for now, and probably enough for the year. A bunch of them I have had for too long and am really excited to delve into. Also, DFW's passing probably moved me in one way or another to finally tackle Infinite Jest, and it is a pretty amazing read. Definitely a mind and a heart to be missed.

Well that's all. I look forward to reading with all of you and can't wait to hear what you say.

Take care,
Mark

[Mark]

I've tried to clear off some of the bigger tomes but have been sidetracked with smaller books along the way as well. Here is what I've been able to read:

1. The Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
2. 2666 by Roberto Bolano
3. Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
4. The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
5. Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
6. Lush Life by Richard Price
7. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
8. You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free by James Kelman
9. War as They Knew It by Michael Rosenberg
10. The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

[Mark]

The latest:
The Power Broker by Robert Caro
Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
McSweeney's 32
The Wild Things and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers