Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and the Bookish.
The following are books that I am planning on reading for the next few months. There may be others that add to or supplant some on this list.
1. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout: This is for our Thursday Night Book Group. We read and enjoyed Olive Kittredge and this looks to be a good read also.
2. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke: This is a reread of this classic. Our monthly SF Group selected this for December.
3. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges: This is a great biography of one of the pioneers of the modern computer and more.
4. Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars: A comic cross between Celine and Beckett, this is an expressionist masterpiece.
5. Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy: Iwill be reading a selection of his (long) short stories in January alongside the next item on the list.
6. The Short Fiction of Thomas Mann: I plan to read and reread some of Mann's great short fiction like Tristan, Tonio Kroger, and other tales.
7. Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett: This is a recent (2011) biography from an author who has just released a new translation of Anna Karenina.
8. The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes: This presents the history of science in the Romantic age from Captain Cook to the first voyage of Charles Darwin.
9. The Infatuations by Javier Marias: I have read his The Man of Feeling and look forward to returning to this great Spanish author.
10. Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard: Described as "A searing portrayal of Vienna's bourgeosie"; I expect this to be as good as Wittgenstein's Nephew.
Some other tbr books that are not in the top ten include: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa; Complexity and the Arrow of of Time edited by Charles H. Lineweaver, Paul C. W. Davies and Michael Ruse; Breath: A Novel by Tim Winton; and, Talking to Ourselves by Andres Neuman.
6 comments:
This looks to be a great list. My short term TBRs are so malleable and subject to change that I am hesitant to put one out for the world to see.
The only book that I have read on your list is Childhood's End. I reread it myself a few years ago and found that I still thought that it was extraordinary.
Brian,
Most of these books are "required" reading for groups or a class. Nonetheless I am looking forward to them all with the Clarke, and some of the Mann and Tolstoy, being a reread - it is that good.
The Age of Wonder was one of my favorite books this year. Your other choices look wonderful too. Enjoy!
The Age of Wonder looks interesting, I may have to look that up. Great list by the way!
Joel,
Thanks for your comment. The Age of Wonder is a history of science in the Romantic Era that reads like a novel. If you have an interest in scientific discoveries and their impact on culture this is the book for you.
Lory,
Thanks for the recommendation. I am looking forward to reading Holmes' book.
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