Educated reading

I used to think that I read quite a lot. I always have a book on the go and rare is the day when I don't read at least a couple of pages. One thing that I have realised though over the last month or so is that although the quantity I read may be quite high, I do just rad quite a random assortment of what ever is available in the charity shop in the order I pick them up in. 

Last week I picked up a leaflet in Waterstones advertising a three for two offer on their top 50 books of the decade (2000 – 2009). Now, although a three for two offer is quite good value I know that you can often get the same books cheaper online, but I was interested to see what they had included in their list. What worried me slightly though was that I've only actually read seven of them – yet at least another eight of them are somewhere is the displaced pile of books in the attic. My challenge for the year is therefore to try and read at least 45 of them before the year is out (I know, my reading time may be somewhat limited come June, so I'll try and squeeze as many as I can into the next four months!)

As an avid reader (and writing about everything I read on here too) it's amazing that one of the other things I've never done is take part in any sort of reading or book group. There is a quick-ish solution to this one though with the "Not the TV Book Group" that dovegreyreader and some fellow bloggers have started up. The selection of books that they will be covering is listed here, and I'm currently working my way through the first on the list: Brodeck's Report
by Philippe Claudel. The online discussion is due to take place on dovegreyreaders blog this Sunday, 7 February, so I'd better get reading!

If any of you are interested in the Waterstones books of the decade then the complete list (by year, with interestingly nothing from 2009) is below:

2000

The Blind Assassin
– Margaret Atwood

White Teeth
– Zadie Smith

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
– Michael Chabon

The Tipping Point
– Malcolm Gladwell

The Human Stain
– Phillip Roth

True History of the Kelly Gang
– Peter Carey

2001

It's Not About the Bike
– Lance Armstrong

The Corrections
– Jonathan Franzen

Life of Pi
– Yann Martel

Carter Beats the Devil
– Glen David Gold

Austerlitz
– W.G. Sebald

Noughts and Crosses
– Malorie Blackman

Atonement
– Ian McEwan

2002

The Lovely Bones
– Alice Sebold

Everything is Illuminated
– Jonathan Safran Foer

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
– Jon McGregor

The Crimson Petal and the White
– Michel Faber

Middlesex
– Jeffrey Eugenides

Fingersmith
– Sarah Waters

2003

Shantaram
– Gregory David Roberts

Persepolis
– Marjane Satrapi

Eats, Shoots and Leaves
– Lynne Truss

A Short History of Nearly Everything
– Bill Bryson

The Bookseller of Kabul
– Asne Seierstad

Inkheart
– Cornelia Funke

We Need To Talk About Kevin
– Lionel Shriver

2004

Dreams from My Father
– Barack Obama

Cloud Atlas
– David Mitchell

Suite Francaise
– Irene Nemirovsky

Runaway
– Alice Munro

2005

Arthur and George
– Julian Barnes

Never Let Me Go
– Kazuo Ishiguro

2006

The God Delusion
– Richard Dawkins

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
– John Boyne

The Secret
– Rhonda Byrne

Eat, Pray, Love
– Elizabeth Gilbert

The Tenderness of Wolves
– Stef Penney

Half of a Yellow Sun
– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2007

A Thousand Splendid Suns
– Khaled Hosseini

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
– Mohsin Hamid

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
– Junot Diaz

2008

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
– Kate Summerscale