Archive for the ‘Books’ category

30 by 30 Update

March 13th, 2009

Dylan recently asked me how my 30 by 30 list was coming along and I do have one thing crossed off the list (Go Zags! NCAA basketball tournament game complete!)

But one of my bigger goals is to read every book that has won a Pulitzer award for fiction. That’s a lot of books. I think I got this hairbrained idea watching Jeopardy and it was a category and I thought that would be cool to have read every one of those books, so I started.

Here’s the one’s I’ve read so far:

  • 2007- The Road
  • 2003 – Middlesex
  • 2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
  • 1993 – A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
  • 1988 – Beloved
  • 1985 – Foreign Affairs
  • 1963 – The Reivers
  • 1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird
  • 1932 – The Good Earth
  • 1926 – Arrowsmith
  • 1921 – The Age of Innocence

So 11 out of probably 80 some-odd books left to read (good thing I have a few years left to get this all done!) It’s an interesting experiment to see the differences in story and writing that will win you this award. Of course some that I’ve read I enjoyed more than others. And I don’t think I ever finished The Age of Innocence, I had to read it for a college class and despised that book. Sorry. And honestly, I haven’t read anything yet that I’ve been totally in love with. I should probably re-read To Kill a Mockingbird because I read it in 8th grade and probably doesn’t count anymore. Although I will say that I did particularly enjoy the Reivers, but if you are not a Faulkner fan then you might not like it.
I picked up another Pulitzer Prize winning book at Powells before my last vacation and have since discovered that it won for Non-Fiction, so that’s not helping my list any. Sigh. I’m about halfway through with it so I might as well finish it, right? I also need to get a big bookshelf for our house because I have books scattered everywhere and it’s driving me crazy :)