proximoception | (no subject)

That notebook's one I've been keeping since c. 2002, listing all completed reading for each year. The page is divided into six parts: novels, poetry, plays, story collections, individual stories, non-fiction - for that page the poetry one runs out of room and starts up again in the bottom corner. Before 2002 I'd kept a list for maybe three years on a single sheet of loose paper in minute writing. But it filled up, hence the notebook.

A few times over the years I've tried to list all the books I'd ever read - and invariably fall asleep after a couple columns. Which is to a large extent the point of my list-making anyway.

I think several categories would sink the effort: Wodehouse books, as I can never keep his titles straight, therefore have no idea which or how many of his I've read; children's books because of the dark backwardsy abyss and all that; genre fiction and comic books from c. 7-15 because I cringe thinking about most of them. Also probably Shaw, Strindberg and Eugene O'Neill plays. I guess for those I could just physically check by reading the first couple pages of each, but that's hardly worth my time. None of this would be worth anyone's time. But it's interesting that it's also impossible. Which is probably why I've never heard of anyone trying to do it, unless you count the people who say, "The only book I've ever read is..." [usually the Bible, sometimes The Secret or something].

I read so slowly that I'll never read half of what I want to. I read so slowly that I should stop making or daydreaming about making lists and go read.

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Somebody posted an Excel spreadsheet online of all the books in that 1001 Books You Have to Read list and you can manipulate it so it keeps track of the percent you've read. Turns out I've only read 14%.

I count 158/1001. Barely ahead of you.

Always found it a pretty weird list though. So many novels on it that the exceptions don't really make sense - like they were going to have it be all novels but the publisher made some last minute decision and added ten or twenty stories and vaguely novel-like non-novels.

that you have only read 158 and gras has read fewer scares me. i may not have even read 47, but i'm afraid to find out just how low the number actually is.

It's a very padded list, I'd say - tries to represent all genres, works of historical note, source material of famous movies etc., and especially to call attention to very recent books. PUBLISHER: Throw in modern stuff people will actually buy so this doesn't look like some asshole professor's list. Keep it hip. AUTHOR: Yes ma'am.

Restricting 'books' to mean 'novels' means there's suddenly a lot fewer great ones to choose from. I'm not even sure there's 1001 books worth my time (not because my every second is such a miracle, but because it could be stuffed with such as rereading the best 501, or 101) - I'm quite sure there aren't 1001 novels.

i started making a list when i was a teenager, when i realized i couldn't rely only on my memory, on a blank white thick-papered bookmark i'd made myself. but i never had the discipline to stick with it. i do so many things like this that aren't worth anyone's time that i should start a list of those things.

I make lists of lists to make, thus probably rendering me diagnosable for something, but not of lists I've already made. That would be a long list.

also, how did you sneak that picture in outside of my f-list?

Flickr decided it had been sent several hours earlier, which seemed weird so I corrected the time manually. Probably threw your list off somehow.