Summer Reading

Ok, first of all, full disclosure: I think the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list is ridonkulous. It's elitist, ignores many important trends, favors white, European men, and does not include post-modern works (furthermore, I feel like everyone thinks The Modern Library is some third party entity when, in reality, its an imprint of Random House. And I'm pretty sure that RH publishes all the books on this list, so...). That being said, all the novels on the list are top-notch, and yet I've read an embarressingly low number of them. My number is...22. Oops. I must make amends.

My act of atonement: a summer reading list; unfortunetly, most of the books aren't from TML Top 100. Red indicates that I've finished it already. An * indicates it's an ML Top 100.

*The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers.

White Noise, Don DeLillo.

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco.

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (I was the last woman in America to read this book).

Va' dove ti porta il cuore, Susanna Tamaro (This is The Notebook of Italy).

*Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

*Ulysses, James Joyce (let's be honest, this ones just not going to happen until grad school).

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.

Life Studies, Robert Lowell.

None to Accompany Me, Nadine Gordimer.

The Western Canon, Harold Bloom.

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino.

Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Color, Hilary Spurling.

And, last but not least,

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer. Just tryin to keep it classy.