My Reading Queue - 2006

I did this last January 1st and kept updating it throughout the year. I found it fairly intersting so I'm going to restart the queue and keep going. I am still going to try and refrain from not buying (or at least severely limiting the number of) new books because this backlog could easily last two years... but that is no longer going to be an explicit goal.

The only reason this list is shorter than what I had left at the end of 2005 is that I cut out the short story, play and poetry collections.

Currently in process:

• Ben Marcus - The Age of Wire and String (January 11th, stalled for some time, though.)
• I haven't started anything else just yet.
  

This is my backlog, currently with 48 books:

• Acker, Kathy: Don Quixote - I've read two books by her (Empire of the Senseless; Blood and Guts in High School) and like both. I don't see her stuff used very often so I tend to pick it up when I do.
• same: Great Expectations - (continued from above:) Hence two books from that same author where neither is exceedingly high in the queue. Other than alphabetically, that is.
• same: In Memoriam to Identity - This is, however, high in the queue. Hmm, you know what? I'm gonna actually list my queue.
  
• Barthleme, Donald: The Dead Father
• same: The King
• Burgess, Anthony: A Dead Man in Deptford
  
• Celine, Louis-Ferdinand - Guignol's Band
  
• Cervantes: Don Quixote - Bought at the same time as Acker's take-off. It's very long.
• Conrad, Joseph: Lord Jim
• Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot - I've come a long ways from reading only one chapter of Crime and Punishment for senior (high school) English.
• Durrell, Lawrence: Mountolive
  
• same: Clea
  
• Eco, Umberto: Foucault's Pendulum - This was recommended to me (sort of) like 8 years ago when I jokingly wrote a rather paranoiac analysis of the lyrics of Dream Theater. This book isn't mine; a friend loaned it to me... uhh... a year ago (to the day.)
• Egan, Greg: Permutation City
  
• Faulkner, William: Soldiers' Pay - My favorite author, hands down.
• same: The Reivers
  
• same: The Hamlet
  
• Fo, Dario: Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas - I think I have one or two remaining in a separate book of plays that I'll read before getting to this one.
  
• Gates, David: Jernigan
  
• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther - his plays are good.
  
• Ionesco, Eugene: Killing Game - Of the books on this list this may be the one I've had the longest. I've read a lot of Ionesco, have not yet gotten to this one (duh.)
  
• Heinlein, Robert: Assignment in Eternity
  
• same: The Menace from Earth
  
• Johnson, Denis: Resuscitation of a Hanged Man
  
• same: The Name of the World
  
• Jones, Terry: Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic
  
• Joyce, James: Finnegan's Wake - I also have A Shorter Finnegan's Wake as edited by Anthony Burgess.
  
• Lem, Stanislaw: The Star Diaries
  
• Mamet, David: Wilson
  
• Morgan, Richard: Altered Carbon
  
• Nabokov, Vladimir: Bend Sinister
  
• same: Ada
• Niven, Larry and Jerry Pournelle - Lucifer's Hammer
  
• O'Brien, Flann: The Third Policeman
  
• Proust, Marcel: Swann's Way - I figured eventually I need to get to A la recherche du temps perdu ... but not in French.
  
• Queneau, Raymond: Zazie in the Metro - Louis Malle directed a film adaptation of this book. I haven't seen any Malle. There, I've said it. As much as I'd like to end this little note on that I don't have any more Queneau in the queue so I need this space to say that Queneau is an odd one.
  
• Rand, Ayn: Atlas Shrugged - OK, I hated We the Living but... I don't know how to finish that sentence.
  
• Robinson, Kim Stanley: The Years of Rice and Salt - He has a newer one that I, surprisingly, have not yet bought (because I haven't started this one.)
  
• Shaw, Bernard: Man and Superman - I haven't read any Shaw. There, I've admitted it.
  
• Smith, E. E.: Triplanetary - Uhh. I read the first half this year. Then I stopped because, wow, this is old, dated and not very good. The scope is kinda cool... but it was kind of annoying.
  
• Steinbeck, John: The Grapes of Wrath - I have, however, read Steinbeck. Just not this one.
  
• Stephenson, Neal: The System of the World
  
• Sturgeon, Theodore: The Cosmic Rape - I need to go back to Ellison's intro to Angry Candy (which was better than any of the shorts) and see what other sci-fi authors he lamented. The two Alfred Bester novels I read were necessary and I liked the first Strugeon novel I read. Here's another.
  
• Welsh, Irvine: Filth
  
• same: Marabou Stork Nightmares - Trainspotting was brilliant, I tried to start... I think this one. Several years ago. I need to try these again.
  
• Woolf, Virginia: Jacob's Room - I bought this one to get The Waves (two novels in one volume.) Now I'm trying to figure out if I liked that one more than To the Lighthouse. Her prose is just gorgeous... Nabokov (when he tries for that sort of thing) and Faulkner are the only I know that are in the same class.
  
• same: Orlando
  

The following is my actual ordered reading queue as I currently imagine it (this includes books not counted in the backlog):

• Acker, Kathy: In Memoriam to Identity
• Greer, James: Guided by Voices - A Brief History
  
• Morgan, Richard: Altered Carbon
• Durrell, Lawrence: Mountolive

Completed Books for 2006:
Count: 2 books, 600 pages. Updated April 12, 2006.

• Murakami, Haruki: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
• Garland, Alex: The Coma - I have no real comments, actually. I liked how it started and it was quick enough that it wasn't a problem to finish.
  
• ???
  

What I will restate is that one of the purposes of this is to garner comments from folks, like "don't read that, you idiot, this book over here is much better" or "damn, I wanna read that. Or, I mean, don't read that it sucks. It sucks so much you should send it to me to make sure you don't accidentally crack it open" or "haha, you still haven't read Finnegan's Wake" so, uhh, have at it.