Project Fill-in-the-gaps

I stole this idea from Aerin who stole it from Moonrat who stole it from Andromeda. According to Moonrat, Andromeda wanted to collect a list of 100 books to read to fill in the gaps she has when it comes to classics and contemporary fiction. She gave herself 5 years to read all 100 books. She also gave herself a 25% forgiveness rate so 75% completion rate is victorious.

We’re all giving ourselves the same rules Andromeda gave herself. So I should be completed with my list by March 29, 2014.

The criteria for the list:

• snobby classics I’ve always wished I could tell people I’ve read, but would never read otherwise because I can’t imagine enjoying them (these will probably end up making up the 25)
• Books that I’ve bought and owned for a long time, but haven’t read because they’re reeeeally long and I’m easily daunted by length at time of reading–choosing
• Some books I’ve been curious about and keep forgetting to buy/read
• The gaps filled in with some award-winning books

A

• Achebe – Things Fall Apart
• Agee, James – A Death in the Family (’58 Pulitzer Prize)
• Allende, Isabel – The House of Spirits
• Anderson, Laurie Halse – Speak
• Austen, Jane – Sense and Sensibility

B

• Babbitt, Natalie – Tuck Everlasting
• Beagle, Peter S. – A Fine and Private Place
• Beowulf
• Boyle, T.C. – The Tortilla Curtain
• Bragg, Rick – All over but the shoutin’
• Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
• Butler, Octavia – Kindred

C

• Carter, Angela – Nights at the Circus (’84 James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
• Carter, Angela – The Bloody Chamber
• Chandler, Raymond – The Big Sleep
• Chaon, Dan – You remind me of me
• Cheever, John – The Stories of John Cheever
• Chekhov, Anton – The Cherry Orchard
• Chekhov, Anton – 40 Stories
• Cisneros, Sandra – Caramelo
• Cleaver, Eldridge – Soul on Ice
• Colwin, Laurie – Home Cooking
• Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness

D

• Dante – The Inferno
• Datlow, Ellen – Black Swan, White Raven
  
• Didion, Joan – The White Album
• Dillard, Annie – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (’75 Pulitzer)
• Dog, Mary Crow – Lakota Woman
• Doyle, Arthur Conan – The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1
• DuBois, W.E.B.  -The  Souls of Black Folk

E

• Eliot, George – Middlemarch
• Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man (’53 National Book Award)
• Erdrich, Louise – Love Medicine (’84 National Book Critics Circle Award)

F

• Faulker, William
• Fisher, M F K -
• Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
• Friedan, Betty – The Feminine Mystique

G

• Gaines, Ernest – A Lesson Before Dying (’93 NBCCA)
• Greene, Graham – The End of the Affair

H

• Hamilton, Edith – Mythology
• Hansberry, Lorraine – A Raisin in the Sun finished August 2011
• Harjo, Joy – She had Some Horses
• Heat-Moon, William Least – Blue Highways
• Hemingway, Ernest – Old Man and the Sea (’53 Pulitzer)
• Hemingway, Ernest – A Moveable Feast
• Homer – The Odyssey and The Iliad
• Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes Were Watching God   completed4/3/2011

I

• Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
  

J

• Jelloun, Tahar Ben – This Blinding Absence of Light (2004 Impac Dublin)
• Jones, Edward – The Known World (’04 Pulitzer in Fiction)

K

• Karr, Mary – Sinners Welcome
• Kennedy, William J.-  Ironweed (’84 Pulitzer in Fiction)
• King, Laurie R. – The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
• Kingston Maxine Hong – Woman Warrior (’76 NBCCA)
• Kushner, Tony – Angels in America (’93 Pulitzer in Drama) 10/09
  

L

• Lahiri, Jhumpa
• Larsen, Nella – Passing
• Lesser, Elizabeth – The Seeker’s Guide
• Li, Yiyun – The Vagrants

M

• Mansfield, Katherine – The Collected Stories
• Mattiessen – Shadow Country (’08 National Book Award)
• McCarthy, Mary – The Group
• Medley, Laura – Castle Waiting *completed 4/9/09
• Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
• Millay, Edna St. Vincent – Selected Poems (Pulitzer)
• Momaday, N. Scott – House Made of Dawn (’69 Pulitzer)
• Morrison, Toni – Beloved (’87 Pulitzer) completed December 2010

O

• Obama, Barack – Dreams From My Father
• O’Brien, Tim – The Things They Carried
• O’Connor, Flannery – Collected Stories
• Oliver, Mary – Red Bird completed February 2011

P

• Paley, Grace- Collected Stories
• Pattou, Edith – East *completed 3/30/09
• Parks, Suzan-Lori – Topdog/Underdog (’02 Pulitzer in Drama) *completed 4/19/09
  
• Porter, Katherine Anne – Collected Stories (’66 Pulitzer)
  
• Pollock, Donald Ray – Knockemstiff Gave up
• Potok, Chaim – The Chosen
• Proulx, Annie

Q

R

• Robinson, Marilynne – Housekeeping (’81 Pen/Hemingway)
  
• Russo, Richard – Empire Falls (’02 Pulitzer)
  
• Rylant, Cynthia – Missing May (’93 Newbery Medal)
  

S

• Said, Edward W. -Orientalism
• Sappho – Poems
• Sexton, Anne
• Shakespeare, William – Othello
• Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
• Smith, Zadie – Changing My Mind  gave up on 1/2011
• Spiegelman, Art – The Complete Maus (’92 Pulitzer & ’92 Eisner)
• Steinbeck, John – The Grapes of Wrath

T

• Tan, Amy – The Joy Luck Club
• Taylor, Peter – A Summons To Memphis (’87 Pulitzer)
• Teasdale, Sara – Love Poems (1918 Pulitzer for Poetry)
• Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
• Twain, Mark – Huckleberry Finn
• Twarp, Twyla – The Creative Habit
  
• Tye, Larry – Satchel

V

• Virgil – The Aeneid

W

• Walker, Alice – The Color Purple (’83 Pulitzer)
• Wallace, David Foster – Consider the Lobster
• Wells, H. G. – War of the Worlds
• Wells, H.G. – The Invisible Man
• Welty, Eudora (’72 Pulitzer Prize)
• White, T.H. – The Sword in the Stone
• Whitman, Walt – Song of Myself
• Williams, Tennesse – A Streetcar Named Desire (’48 Pulitzer in Drama)
• Woolf, Virginia
• Wright, Richard – Native Son
• Wright, Richard – Black Boy

X

• X, Malcolm – Autobiography of Malcolm X

Y

• Yezierska, Anzia – Bread Givers
• Yolen, Jane – Briar Rose
• Yolen, Jane – Touch Magic

Z

• Zafron, Carlos Ruiz – The Shadow of the Wind

Is there a book you think I left off? Leave a comment!