Who I HAVE read
More and more lately I've been smashing up against who I HAVEN'T read, and it has rocked my bookworm confidence quite a bit. I couldn't believe it; I was saying no no no over and over like some Bizzaro World Molly Bloom. I started to think: Just what the hell have I been up to all these years? To bolster this shaken confidence and account for some of what I have been up to, I'll list several authors I've read more than once:
Bess Streeter Aldrich - 2 novels
Margaret Atwood - 6 novels and 1 book of short stories
Jane Austen - complete canon, including the juvenile writing
Nicholson Baker - 4 novels
Judy Blume - 4 novels
Charlotte Bronte - 2 novels
Bill Bryson - 4 books
James M. Cain - 5 novels
Taylor Caldwell - 3 novels
Raymond Carver - 2 short story collections and 1 book of essays
Joyce Cary - 3 novels
Michael Chabon - 2 novels
Charles Dickens - 2 novels
Roddy Doyle - 5 novels
Theodore Dreiser - 3 novels
George Eliot - 2 novels
William Faulkner - 2 novels
F. Scott Fitzgerald - 2 novels
Thomas Hardy - 2 novels
Ernest Hemingway - 4 novels and several short stories
John Irving - 3 novels
Shirley Jackson - 4 novels, 2 memoirs and 1 short story collection
Tracy Kidder - 5 nonfiction
Stephen King - 8 novels, 4 novellas and 1 nonfiction
Barbara Kingsolver - 4 novels
C.S. Lewis - 2 novels
Sinclair Lewis - 4 novels
Maud Hart Lovelace - 10 novels
Larry McMurtry - 18 novels and 1 book of essays
Herman Melville - 3 novels
Lorrie Moore - 2 novels, 2 books of short stories
John O'Hara - 2 novels
George Orwell - 2 novels, 1 nonfiction
Chuck Palahniuk - 3 novels
Harvey Pekar - 2 comic anthologies and 2 graphic novels
Sylvia Plath - 1 novel, 1 book of short stories and 4 books of poems
Conrad Richter - 4 novels
Don Robertson - 7 novels
Philip Roth - 4 novels
J.K. Rowling - 5 novels
William Shakespeare - 12 plays
John Steinbeck - 8 novels and 1 book of letters
Mark Twain - 2 novels
Anne Tyler - All of her novels
John Updike - 10 novels, 1 novella and 1 memoir
Alice Walker - 1 novel and 1 book of short stories
Laura Ingalls Wilder - All of her novels
Virginia Woolf - 3 novels
Richard Yates - 3 novels
This isn't a complete list, but that's OK. I'm starting to feel a little more like a real bookworm again. Whew.
5 comments:
Hello dear, Where is your email address? Sorry to reply to your post on my blog here! Would you like me to send you some peppermint M&Ms? Would be more than happy to (and any particular book that you're longing for?) Let me know.
Loretta
What is the other Bess Streeter Aldrich that you read? I must have read A Lantern in Her Hand a thousand times as a girl...
There is clearly no need to feel unbookwormish - this is a mightily impressive list! I am particularly in awe of your Atwood and Tyler accomplishments (and I am floored by the Melville achievement - I find his work an utter slog, though he is my grandfather's favorite author).
And think how much more impressive the list gets with every passing year!
Impressive indeed. I've got only a few authors of which I've read 4 or more of their books- Margaret Atwood and Stephen King are on my list as well.
Lazy Cow,
You're so nice! If I can't find peppermint M&Ms in the US, I'll definitely be checking in with you about that. They sound great!
Annie,
I was surprised that you read "Lantern" -- I found that one on my grandmother's bookshelf! I read the sequel to Lantern -- A White Bird Flying. The protaganist is Laura Deal, Abbie's sensitive granddaughter, who wants to be a writer. The first chapter is the same as the last chapter of "Lantern"...you know, where Abbie's family is at her house after...anyway, it covers ten years in Laura and her cousin Katherine's life. It's not as good as Lantern because of course there's no pioneering, no long stretch of years, and Laura's just not as interesting as her grandmother.
Pour of Tor,
I did not willingly read the Melville books. I took a class called The American Renaissance in which we read Moby-Dick, The Confidence-Man and Pierre. I have a special hatred for Pierre, sorry to any Melville fans out there. The next semester I took a class called The American novel and yep, Moby-Dick again. Melville and I are quits now.
John,
When I find an author I really really like, I go nuts and try to read everything. My big repeats are probably what are keeping me from being as widely-read as I'd like.
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