Reading Projects

Retro Reads
Perhaps because of my fascination with Mad Men (10pm, Sundays on AMC), I've decided some retro reads are in order.  My starting list includes

The Group by Mary McCarthy
Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

A Thought:  While not retro, I think a companion read of The Group and Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan might prove interesting.


SPENSER REVISITED

There was a time when the new Spenser would be in my hands on release day for immediate reading.  Then came the love affair with Robert Urich, oh my, and the TV series.  And then the sad day when we learned of the passing of Robert B. Parker.  I'm caught up on the more recent releases, but it's time to go back to revisit these books and to remember what it was that made me love Spenser, Susan (yes, count me as one reader who actually liked Susan), and Pearl the Wonder Dog.

The Godwulf Manuscript
God Save the Child
Mortal Stakes
Promised Land
The Judas Goat
Looking for Rachel Wallace
Early Autumn
A Savage Place
Ceremony
The Widening Gyre
Valediction
A Catskill Eagle
Taming a Sea-Horse
Pale Kings and Princes
Crimson Joy
Playmates
Stardust
Pastime
Double Deuce
Paper Doll
Walking Shadow
Thin Air
Chance
Small Vices
Sudden Mischief
Hush Money
Hugger Mugger
Potshot
Widow's Walk
Back Story
Bad Business
Cold Service
School Days
Hundred-Dollar Baby
Now and Then
Rough Weather
The Professional
Painted Ladies (10/15/10)
Sixkill


SOME DAY BOOKS

I have lists of books everywhere.  Most of those wished-for titles end up being satisfied by a trip to the library  (I love inter-library loan!)  or a Kindle download.  The books listed here are in the stratosphere of my reading wishes.  Some day...

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (re-read)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (re-read)
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bronte, Charlotte and Emily (re-reads)
Emma, Jane Austen
Eudora Welty
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
From the Terrace, John O'Hara (re-read)
Butterfield 8, John O'Hara (re-read)
God Is an Englishman, R. F. Delderfield (re-read)
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (re-read)
Howards End, E.M. Forster
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
Joy in the Morning, Betty Smith
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Mary Stewart (re-reads)
Middlemarch, George Elliot
Penmarric, Susan Howatch (re-read)
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand (re-read)
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read)
The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer (re-reads)
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Thornbirds, Colleen McCullough (re-read)
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Tracy Chevalier books
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
William Trevor, short stories and novels
more to come...