My Reading List

When I chose something to read, I tend to act on impulse. I go to the library, usually to the 200’s, 500’s, or 900’s in the Dewey decimal system, and just pull down whatever catches my eye. I have a lot of books that I’ve been planning, often for years, to read “someday”, but I almost always forget these when I go to the library or bookstore.

I’ve resolved to change this for a while and finally get around to reading some of those things I’ve been planning to read. In fact, I’ve already made a start on this, reading Sand County Almanac, Black Elk Speaks, and Wuthering Heights within the last year or so, as well as finishing the entire Old and New Testament and most of the Apocrypha. (I think the Bible counts as at least 66 books!) To go a step further, I’ve come up with a list of all the books I can think of that I’ve been intending to read “someday”.

The 31 books on this list are on it for a variety of reasons. Some are considered “classics” in at least some circles. Others are obscure books which just happen to be on subjects which I am very interested in. Some of them are books which I have repeatedly seen referred to in other things I’ve enjoyed reading. Some of them are books on which movies I liked were based. Some of them are books which I once started to read and enjoyed immensely, but for one reason or another just never finished. In some cases, I heard the author speaking on public radio and thought, "I gotta read that book!"

I am not setting any timetable for reading these, or setting up any rules for myself, but I do plan to make an effort to get through most of them in the next year or two or three. I will post updates from time to time on my progress on this.

After I wrote this list, I realized that all but a few of the books in it fit into four broad categories. So here is the list by category. (The stars represent books I’ve already read a significant part of.)

Nature
Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman
The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
Sibley’s Birding Basics, by David Allen Sibley *
Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, edited by John Evarts and Marjorie Popper *
Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams
The Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich

Indians and Cowboys
The Sacred Pipe, by Nicholas Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown *
Dances With Wolves, by Michael Blake
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
The Return of Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger *
A Good Year to Die, by Charles Robinson *
The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje

Classics and Near-Classics
Moby Dick, by Hermann Melville *
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
The Aeneid, by Virgil
The Histories, by Herodotus
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov *

Public Affairs
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
The Corporation, by Joel Bakan
Strategic Ignorance, by Carl Pope
Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, by Al Franken
The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs

Other
One River, Many Wells, by Matthew Fox
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, by William Cronon
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
Vietnam, a History, by Stanley Karnow