Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Sycorax Pine's Second Challenge List

Last year I failed spectacularly in my goals (amidst, in my own defense, the madness the surrounded the completion of my dissertation), so I will address my list this year with new found zeal. Many parts of my lists make look familiar from last year, although I was spurred on (during at after the period of the challenge) to read a number of authors from my list.

I list six authors on the primary list below with (in parentheses) ideas about which book I might start with). After that I have listed a number of "extra credit" or alternate authors/works.

  • Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy)
  • Friedrich Durrenmatt (The Physicians or The Visit)
  • Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red)
  • Richard Powers (The Gold Bug Variations)
  • China Mieville (Perdido Street Station)
  • Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)

Alternates/Extra Credit:

  • John Fowles (The Magus)
  • Joyce Carol Oates (Bellefleur)
  • Stendhal (The Red and the Black)
  • Iris Murdoch (The Black Prince)
  • Nadine Gordimer (Burger's Children)
  • Tim Winton (Cloudstreet or Dirt Music)
  • Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda or True History of the Kelly Gang)
  • Marilynne Robinson (Gilead)
  • Caryl Phillips (Crossing the River)
  • J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace)