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I actually don't agree with using a cut-off date to designate what's a classic and what isn't. Besides the obvious problems with the fuzziness of dates, I also just think that there is more to it than that. There are works from before WWI which are still read on occasion but are probably not considered classics; for example, I recently read a poem called "To His Royall Highness," which was written during the Renaissance but which I doubt if anyone would consider a classic. In fact, I only read it because it had value as a historical artefact, rather than as a piece of literature. That, I think, is an important part of what makes a classic a classic: it has to have "literary value." That takes time to get established, of course, which means that it's odd to talk about a contemporary classic, but I don't think that age is the only factor. To use the language of logic, age is necessary but not sufficient to define what a classic is. I'm sorry to sound cynical, but I think a classic is really just what people decide it to be. Certain books get labelled that way, and as times change, other books get added to the list. The canon in the past used to be a lot more restrictive than it is now, but I still think that it is surprisingly arbitrary even now. When you think about the definition of classics as those books which have "withstood the test of time," it makes me wonder why it is that some books have while others haven't. The cynic in me wants to suggest that sometimes it is more a factor of pedagogy, elitist attitudes, and what have you, rather than an actual "universal" quality of the writing itself. Sorry if this is an unwelcome opinion... I also realize that I could have maybe phrased things a bit nicer too. Oh well!

Happy to be of service, Kylie!

Same here. New foods are scary! My own list of untouched (and untouchable!) food includes almost everything that comes out of the sea. Icky! Also, any of the "gross" foods like internal organs of animals, limbs of frogs, tongues of cows, etc. I saw chicken feet in the grocery store the other day. That's just gross. (I really hope that was a dream and not reality...)

Oh wow.... good luck, Enthusiast!!

I read the first two volumes of Fruits Basket this week. It's a manga series about a girl named Tohru who comes to live with a few boys with a strange family secret. This is my first time reading manga, and I'm really liking it so far! One of my goals for the year was to expose myself to the world of graphic novels and manga, and based on this first excursion, I'm glad I made this goal for myself! Fruits Basket is definitely written for a younger audience as its morals tend to be spelled out rather explicitly by the characters. It is cute, though, and the characters are loveable (at least to me!). My favorite character so far is Kyo, the quick tempered outcast rival of Yuki. His character is so dynamic and dimensional that I always enjoy when he makes an appearance. I'm heading to the library tomorrow to get the next couple of volumes.

I annotate heavily when I'm reading for school, but it's nice not doing that when I read for pleasure. Even then, though, I passagse that I find especially moving or interesting. It is my intention (although it doesn't always happen!) that I will later come back to these passages and copy them into a Commonplace Book of sorts. (It's actually just a computer file, but I got the idea after learning about commonplace books in the early modern period, so that's how I think of it. )

Hmmm... interesting. I'd say: 1. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 4. Hamlet by Shakespeare 5. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Uber-classics all, and nicely spread through time and space, if I do say so myself. )

Oh wow, that's a great idea! Sometimes what I like to do is play an audiobook and read the book on paper at the same time. It forces me to keep going that way--very useful for difficult reads. (I used to do that a lot for things written in Middle English!) I think this print/audio combination would work really well with plays. I'll have to try that sometime.

Thanks, Chimera! That helps a lot, since I really am completely out of my element on this. I'll add Blankets to my list and see if I can track it down somewhere.

I think I go through stages... When I was a kid, I think I read because I enjoyed spending time with the characters and living vicariously through them. Later, I read a lot of classics so that I would be well-rounded as a student. In college, I read as a way to relax and take my mind off my studies. In graduate school, I read to survive. And now... I'm trying to read to learn about myself and life in general. I'm not happy with how my schooling had made my reading mostly an intellectual exercise, so I'm trying to put more soul into it now. I am reading so that I can relate to the plot, characters, atmosphere, etc on a deeply personal level, if possible. And with Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, which I am currently reading (and loving!), I find it very easy to do this. Just my own two cents to throw into the mix!

One thing that I've done that has made play reading more interesting is to gather together a group of friends and read the play out loud together. My friends and I did this once in high school, and it was surprisingly fun. We assigned roles for the more prominent characters, and then took on the minor characters as they came. And the good thing about plays is that given the nature of the medium, they can all be read aloud in one evening! Otherwise, you might try watching a production before or after reading the play, since that will help with imagining facial expressions and stage directions, etc.

I know what you mean about audiobooks! I've tried reading them in the car while simultaneously reading other books on paper. I find myself rewinding a lot while driving, and forgetting what happened between drives. It works well, though, for really long drives and for re-reads. I re-read The Fellowship of the Ring while driving across the United States and it worked out great. (Meanwhile, during stops I was reading paper versions of Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" and the last Harry Potter book, so I guess that is more evidence of the fact that I often have more than one book going at a time!)

1. I have four siblings, and at one point last summer, my siblings and I were spread out into four different continents--Europe, Asia, and Australia, and two in North America. 2. My favorite dessert flavor combination is chocolate and raspberry. 3. I can't draw to save my life. 4. I'm in love with standardized tests like the SAT and GRE. (Go ahead, call me crazy..) 5. I'm scared of basically all animals except humans. (And sometimes them too!)

How about Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart for Nigeria? You already have some for India, but I would also recommend Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, one of my favorites. For South Africa, there's Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying, which is another fabulous work. For Sweden, there's Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking. Those are the ones that come to mind immediately. Hope this helps!

I'm glad you enjoyed re-reading Persepolis. I read your review on your blog, and it sounds very interesting! One of my goals for this year is to become acquainted with graphic novels/manga, and Persepolis is definitely on my list. I was just wondering if there were any other graphic novel touchstones that you would recommend to the uninitiated.

That's not cheating at all! That's where most of my reading in the past has come from. 2009 is actually going to be my first entire year outside of school (since i was four and couldn't read anyway), so we'll see how well I do with the whole self-motivation thing.. Good luck to all three of us!

Well, we will soon see who is put to shame--the one with the reasonable though attainable goal of 50 or the one with the unreasonable and probably UNattainable goal of 80.

Planned Reads: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood The Alchemist by Paul Coelho Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco The Sandman by Neil Gaiman American Gods by Neil Gaiman Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Life of Pi by Yann Martel Bartleby by Hermann Melville Saturday by Ian McEwan Atonement by Ian McEwan Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki V for Vendetta by Alan Moore Beloved by Toni Morrison Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi TBD by Joyce Carol Oates Brisingr by Christopher Paolini TBD by Jodi Picoult The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris Maus by Art Spiegelman Blankets by Craig Thomson Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel by Stephen Weiner The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and of course, many more will be added later!

Short Stories/Poetry Collections Read: also coming soon!

My goal is to read at least 80 books this year, which works out to about 1.5 per week. I am planning on trying out some new authors, but most of the books I want to read are things that I've been intending to read for a long time. Now that I'm not in school anymore, I hope that I will be able to get to more of them! Currently Reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (wow, four books at once...) Books Read: Fruits Basket volumes 1 & 2 by Natsuki Takaya

How about something by Michael Ondaatje for O? I read The English Patient a while back, and it was very good. I've also been meaning to read his Anil's Ghost. And if you want a classic for the letter J, you could read something by James Joyce (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, or Dubliners) or Henry James (haven't read anything of his (*gasp*) so I don't really want to make a recommendation). Or you could even read one of Ben Jonson's plays if you want some real variety in your list! That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope it helps!

I totally agree! I also didn't care much for the epilogue. I just seemed really cheesy to me. The rest of the series was great, though!