New Year, New 30 Day Book Challenge, Day 23

Day 23: A Book You've Wanted to Read for a Long Time but Haven't

Gianna:

There are many books that I have never read. Some of those books I have no desire to read, others I am somewhat ashamed that I haven’t read, and one of the books below, Liz is terribly ashamed that I haven’t read. 

Giant by Edna Ferber goes on top of my list. Every time I make a trip out to west Texas I regret not having read this novel, but until I actually read it, I refuse to see the film…and I really want to see the film. Maybe this summer?

 

Collected Stories by William Faulkner. I have read a handful of Faulkner novels, but just a few well-known stories, which are included in anthologies ("A Rose for Emily" and "Barn Burning" for example).

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter.  This has been reviewed as an incredibly well researched and exhaustive history through segregation and integration in Birmingham.

Hollywood by Gore Vidal. Truth be told I have only read two Vidal books, Point to Point Navigation (memoir) and Selected Essays. So now you’re thinking that Hollywood is a strange novel to choose over his numerous other works of fiction, including Lincoln. Well, to that I say, “Why so judgy?”

No Logo by Naomi Klein.  This book ties branding with globalization and how corporations began targeting younger markets to earn the title of cool. Someone recommended this book to me after a discussion on the novel Jennifer Government, which shares many of the same topics of No Logo. 

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by William Lee Adams. I suppose this is the book I am most embarrassed that I haven’t read. I have no excuse, let's move on. [No excuse.]

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam. I have only read a few books on Vietnam, (Bright and Shining Lie, Dispatches, and Rumor of War) and I was told this is the book to read on the subject.

Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion. I have read Miami, and The White Album, but California in the 1960’s has long been a fascination with me. Of course the collected book of essays, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, includes all of the above and more essays, so this is actually the book to get. 

Tana French – I have never read a Tana French novel!

And that’s it, that’s my list. Nothing missing at all. I know, except Lonesome Dove. I get it, I get it. Get off my back, Liz!  I have looked through this gorgeous Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove, that counts for something. [You don't deserve to appreciate this book until you read the masterpiece. Humph.]

Liz:

I love these covers

There are books that I want to read but haven't yet, and there are books that people seem shocked that I haven't read but I have no motivation to read. I've never read the Harry Potter series. That's most likely not going to change. As for books I do want to read, here's a sampling:

Clarice Lispector's novels. These have been on my list for a long time, and the new covers from New Directions are cool. I don't have much of an excuse--Agua Viva is only 88 pages long--but I keep moving books higher in my pile. Someday....

I've never read Catch 22. I feel like I should. Growing up, I read mostly American Lit since that's what my mother taught, and then in college, feeling like I needed to balance out, I took mostly British Lit classes. Somehow a lot of the 20th Century American Lit classics have slipped through. I only read Slaughterhouse Five last year. I'm catching up.

George Orwell--never read him. I know that everyone reads 1984 or Animal Farm in school, but my school was in the backwoods and had a limited budget, so there were definite holes in our curriculum.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. I think this is the one that's going to invoke my friends' rage. At least I've read Lonesome Dove, though. It's not like I've been selling a book on the making of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and haven't read the source material, right?