50 Essential Reads

I love to read.  But in the past few years I've tended to read financial magazines or craft articles or marriage books (Mr. Penguin and I read them to each other - it's our couples therapy).  Stuff that relates to real life but isn't really a story.

With all of the challenges I've been adding to the site lately I thought I should add another.  Which got me thinking about books.  I read...but I don't read anything new.  As in, I can't remember the last time I picked up a random novel and just read for the fun of it.

And I think that should change.

I found a new site (I'm an internet addict, can you tell?!).  It tracks lists.  You can select one that they have, you can make your own, you can steal one from someone else - either way it's a list.  I opted to go with a list of books I want to read before I die.  I chose the contemporary list to broaden my horizons in regards to authors, although I may add some of the classic ones too. 

This is separate from my 101 in 1001 Challenge as I'm giving myself my lifetime to complete it.  I'm thinking a couple books a year should do it.  I'm excited.

The list: 
"Orange Prize for Fiction's 50 Essential Reads by Contemporary Authors" (United Kingdom)

1. A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
2. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
3. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
4. Atonement – Ian McEwan
5. Being Dead – Jim Crace
6. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
7. Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
8. Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
9. Disgrace – J. M. Coetzee - read
10. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
11. Faith Singer – Rosie Scott
12. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
13. Fred and Edie – Jill Dawson
14. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
15. Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier
16. Grace Notes – Bernard MacLaverty
17. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby
18. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (The first book)
19. Hotel World – Ali Smith
20. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
21. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
22. Misery – Stephen King
23. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow – Peter Hoeg
24. Money – Martin Amis
25. Music and Silence – Rose Tremain
26. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
27. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
28. Riders – Jilly Cooper
29. Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
31. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
32. The Golden Notebook – Doris M. Lessing
33. The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood (4X)
34. The House of Spirits – Isabel Allende
35. The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
36. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
37. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
38. The Rabbit Books – John Updike
39. Regeneration – Pat Barker
40. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
41. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
42. The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
43. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
44. The Women's Room – Marilyn French - read
45. Tracy Beaker – Jacqueline Wilson
46. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
47. Unless – Carol Shields
48. What a Carve-Up – Jonathan Coe
49. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
50. White Teeth – Zadie Smith