So praise baby Jesus that I’m wrapping up Naked Lunch, and it’s time to pick the next five novels I’ll be reading from the Time list.
We’re starting down the homestretch here. The next novel will be my 80th, meaning I only have 21 novels to read before this whole project is finished.
Every now and then, I solicit your votes to help determine which five novels I should read next, and that’s what we’ll be doing today.
So here are the 22 novels I have left to read:
- The Adventures of Augie March (1953) by Saul Bellow
- At Swim-Two-Birds (1938) Flann O’ Brien
- The Berlin Stories (1946) by Christopher Isherwood
- Brideshead Revisited (1946) by Evelyn Waugh
- Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
- The Heart of the Matter (1948) by Graham Greene
- Herzog (1964) by Saul Bellow
- Light in August (1932) by William Faulkner
- The Man Who Loved Children (1940) by Christina Stead
- Midnight’s Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie
- On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac
- The Painted Bird (1965) by Jerzy Kosinski
- Play It As It Lays (1970) by Joan Didion
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark
- The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis
- The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles
- To The Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf
- Tropic of Cancer (1934) by Henry Miller
- Under the Net (1954) by Iris Murdoch
- White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo
- White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith
- Ulysses by James Joyce
Of special note: I’m withholding Ulysses until the final book.
As I explained in this post, I added Ulysses to Time’s original list, making the total of 101.
So your only rule is that you can’t vote for Ulysses. Other than that, have at it! Also, you don’t have to vote for all 5 novels if you don’t want to. Pick your favorite, your two favorites, or all five. It’s up to you.
I’ll tally up the votes Sunday night and announce the next five novels on Monday.
Have fun, and go easy on me please!
