This was in a teacher blog and I really wanted to post it here too. I'm curious what comes during the Beyond. Besides Sci Fi.

At 5, I read books similar to the Bob Books. I didn't attend kindergarten and I worried everyone else had a jump on me. I left those chumps in the dust thanks to Bob. And Sesame Street.

At 10, I devoured Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Pippi Longstocking. Everything by Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and, for some odd reason, Erma Bombeck.

At 15, I read a lot of Stephen King. I read The Elephant Man and East of Eden. Both felt very deep, man. I also read a lot of Beatles and Pink Floyd. As poetry, of course.

At 20, I read Anna Karenina. I was hooked on Russians as I started college in earnest. This was also the start of books I had to read and books I should read.

At 25, I read many parenting books. I didn't read to my oldest much at all. She was a toddler when I had twins. I did read Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care cover to cover. I also continued majoring in English.

At 30, I was in my first year of teaching. I also divorced. Did I mention the toddler and twins? I read nothing. Except Confederacy of Dunces, which now seems somehow appropriate.

At 35, I read a lot of YA novels to try get hip with my students. No dice. They do remember me and my class, though. I also reread a lot I had read in college. Then I taught it. In teaching All Quiet on the Western Front, I read Johnny Got His Gun. I will buy this in any used book store even though I already own it. Lending copies.

At 40, I have decided that I want to read what I want to read. No longer the books I have to read, or the books I should read. Librarything.com is my home page, need I say more? I have read a lot of current books by using the library online reserve. I am amazed at the diversity and quality of literature available today. Wow. Lucky us.

This was not my original idea, but reminiscing was fun. Send. ;).

Edited to try to shorten. Oh well, sorry it's so long. Edited again to try for touchstones.

Message edited by its author, Sep 23, 2009, 11:14pm.

Wow, that's a really interesting trip down memory lane. I am at work and can't do this justice. Will try to get on line tonight from home.

Very neat post. I wish I had as good a memory but will try to fill in some eras:

10: all the Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, etc. I could get my hands on. I had a friend who had 100s. I also started sneaking up the stairs to the adult section of the library to look through the new books, hoping the staff wouldn't challenge me when I tried to borrow something (they never did). Only later did I realize librarians want kids to expand their horizons.

12: all of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the Bronte sisters. My most serious reading period, but probably the least enjoyable (except for Jane Eyre, which I've reread many times). I was determined to get through the Russians, though, and have never gone back.

15: Emilie Loring and the Angelique novels. Definitely on the rebound from the Russians.

17: de Sade (still have nightmares). Recommended to me by my high school French teacher, can you believe it? (Got them on interlibrary loan through the public library. The staff really did follow the non-censorship rules, and this would have been in the late 60s)

20-25: Castaneda, Leary, Tolkien, and philosophy and history for class work (Nietzsche, the Greeks, logic, which I loved).

30: Ram Dass, Ramakrishna, books on Hinduism and Buddhism, Julian Jaynes

35: bodice busters; gay and lesbian literature and philosophy

40: Anne Rice, contemporary fiction, religion, anything that looked interesting on the new book shelves at, you guessed it, the library. Lots of books on AIDS (friends dying).

50: Mysteries and suspense, contemporary fiction, some SF, psychology, religion. Didn't read as much during this time while caring for parents.

60+ An explosion of reading (retired, fewer responsibilities, and a Kindle on hand!) Suspense, religion, big history, evolution, philosophy, Julian Jaynes again, classics, Star Wars, Pulitzer fiction winners, contemporary fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction. What a difference the reading experience is today: I read both hard copy and Kindle versions, and usually my laptop is right by me for checking facts and terms I want to know more about. Even when I'm reading print, I use the Kindle for checking definitions. It's like having hyperlinks while reading. I love it, and it helps branch out my reading interests. LT is expanding my topic range, too (e.g., I'd never heard of Big History before). Can't imagine what the next 20 years will bring.

Message edited by its author, Jul 23, 2009, 11:39am.

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness had a profound impact on me when I read it in my thirties and I have never let go of much of it. It is one of the two or three most important books for my worldview. The Bible and The Tao of Physics b/w The Dancing Wu-Li Masters were the other two. How did it fare when you read it thirty years later?

>4
It's superb. I had forgotten a lot of what he said, but I do think it changed my outlook on life and being human even 30 years ago. Now I'm ready to read Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness, which is a collection of essays by Jaynes and others published a couple of years ago.

auntmarge, it wasn't available from Barny Noble so I have it coming from an ABE Books vendor. You may have to look for it.

Robert

Hi Robert,

I should have said I bought it along with the original book from Amazon (I think...) Anyway, it's sitting on my pile of TBR books. Jaynes' theories do explain a lot. Have you checked out this web page: http://www.julianjaynes.org/, especially the newsletter page. The Spring 2008 issue has a really interesting article on the effort to find the book Jaynes was planning to write before he died, or at least any notes and unfinished versions he may have finished.

Margaret

Margaret,

I just glanced at the website. I'll have to go back to pay more attention.

I looked at who owned the book on LibraryThing and didn't see your name. I knew that was not conclusive but then acted on the presumption that you did not yet have it.

Let's hope it is fun.

Robert

10-11 A Wrinkle in Time; 1066 and all that
13 Lord of the Rings; a canticle for Leibowitz
15 the Alexandria Quartet; the quiet American
20 be here now - Absences; the structure of scientific revolutions; das capital
25 Limits to Growth - (orig. Club of Rome rpt);Cutting through spiritual materialism
30 birth of the clinic, good deal of anthropology.
35 the uses of enchantment - Spock & others on child care.
40 various environmental books, Tibetan buddhism, SF/Fantasy, poetry. Lots of children's and YA lit. Lots of genre interspersed w/ the odd serious novel and non-fiction...repeat through present. The politics of Rich and Poor - Kevin Phillips.

44 the coming plague - Laurie Garrett on the interaction of man/environment and health/disease.

Message edited by its author, Jul 23, 2009, 10:06pm.

8 - charlotte's web

10 - nancy drew. hardy boys. ghost & pirate stories. horse stories. pippi longstocking.

12 - nancy drew. pride and prejudice. to sir with love. jr tolkin. lots of myths and legends (greek, irish, norse). johnny tremain. witch of blackbird pond. the hero and the crown.

15 - david eddings. david weber. nora roberts. wheel of time. blood books by tanya huff. laurell k. hamilton. Melissa Scott

20 - textbooks. erotica. charles de lint . finally got through twilight. war for the oaks . various urban fantasy and fantasy.

25 - cannot do this just yet. :P

Message edited by its author, Sep 20, 2009, 8:00pm.

15-17 : The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Evasion, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
21 : The Crying of Lot 49, V.

Message edited by its author, Sep 20, 2009, 11:12pm.

11: inaudible - nothing before age 15?

I'm having trouble matching titles with years in my head, so I just posted what came to mind immediately.

okay. I was just wondering because most people don't just starts reading at 15

Message edited by its author, Sep 24, 2009, 2:55pm.

>14

I started my list at age 10 because that's about as far back as I remember. I'm 61, the eldest sibling, both parents gone, no one to ask what I read before what I can remember. I guess I could have put in the Dick and Jane books (yes, we read them when I was a kid), and my mother was an avid reader and encourager of reading, so there must have been something (other than the Bible, which we read aloud each evening my entire childhood). And Reader's Digest condensed books and The Water Babies on vacation. Hmmm, if I keep thinking a about it, maybe I will have to add an earlier category.

What an interesting idea.

At 5 I read all of the Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein I could get my hands on. Where the Wild Things Are was my first favorite, and I'm actually about to name my second child after the character of Max.

At 10, I started reading Shakespeare and Poe, although I'll be the first to admit that I didn't really "get" it at that age. I also started reading Christopher Pike, and mysteries by Sue Grafton (my grandmother loved them, and was always passing them along).

By 15 I had started reading a good deal of classic horror and gothic lit like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein. I was also addicted to teen "horrors" by authors like L. J. Smith, and was first introduced to Terry Pratchett.

By 20 I was in graduate school, and most of my reading was done for class (split pretty evenly between 16th and 19th-century lit). I was also introduced to Laurell K. Hamilton, which gave me a much-desired brain-break after writing term papers.

I'm still a year shy of 25, but my reading has shifted quite a bit this year in particular. I'm reading much more nonfiction than I used to, and have worked on both tackling a huge TBR list and trying out new genres.

15: auntmarge64 - I figured as much. I wouldn't remember anything before 10 either except my third grade teacher read Charlotte's Web to us and I remember asking my parents to get it for me. I think that book is one of the reasons I started reading. There must have been other books before (probably school stuff) and immediately after but I don't remember any of them.

by 3rd grade - pretty much everything in the children's section of the public library (we went twice a week - we were limited to 10 books - you had to be able to carry them out yourself), Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Caddie Woodlawn + other Carol Ryrie Brink, Diddakoi

4th-5th grade - , Gone with the Wind (meh), The Lord of the Rings, started Heinlein

age 12 - I Capture the Castle, the rest of Heinlein, started Asimov, Sci-Fi, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames

13-15 - more SF, random coming of age books and Newbery Medal winners - the rest of the "YA" section of the library, Madeleine L'Engle

16- The Fountainhead, Fear of Flying, some random romance book my friend liked (blech), Flowers in the Attic - same friend (double-blech, yawn), more SF, classics as per really awesome Adv Lit class (Scarlet Letter, random others; books - meh, teacher - awesome, teacher trumps books)

17+ - SF, textbooks, classics as per mediocre AP English class (Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales, Henry James, etc; books - meh, teacher - bleh, books trump teacher)

19+ - SF + cyberpunk, textbooks

22-25 - SF, medical textbooks

30-35 - re-read SF, add random Zen books and branch out to other genres (meh - occasional amusing bits)

35 - right, apparently I like SF (more specifically certain types of SF - don't dress your Fantasy up with techno-terms and tell me it's SF - that's magic and doesn't count); Add linguistics and cosmology to lexicon, fondness for OTG (Off-The-Grid) reference materials

I gave the bestsellers/Oprah books a random trial of a dozen or so works - ummm, I can't really remember them and have no burning desire to read them again so - tepid fail. (Which is way worse than an "OMG_WTF" fail like Dianetics and Justine - which are just so brain-melting-ly atrocious I at least remember not to think about them.)

Message edited by its author, Sep 24, 2009, 11:47pm.

age 7 - Rain and Shine a 'Dick and Jane' book. 35 years later, my daughter read it when she was first learning.

before 10 - Hardy Boys, comic books, Brighty of Grand Canyon, H.P. Lovecraft (scared me too much, so I quit after two or three stories)

before 15 - The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Scientific American mag., Everything by J.D. Salinger, Hal Borland's When the Legends Die, Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night or The City and the Stars, Edgar Alan Poe

before 20 - Macbeth, Canterbury Tales, Robert Heinlein, almost any human sci-fi (not much on aliens), Euripides, greek mythology and drama in general

Age 20 till about age 30, not much reading (dating and college seemed to fill the time), so 'Statics', 'Dynamics', 'Hydraulics', 'Differenctial Equations' etc. Worked in The Foundation, though. And the radio production of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

30 to 40 - histories, historical fiction, novels, poetry, essays, cultural history, Victorian/Edwardian era travel writings. All over the map, really. Shipping News, The Wind in the Willows, Oscar Wilde, Saki, To Kill A Mockingbird, Winesburg, Ohio, "Hitchiker's Guide" books

Over 40 - Guy Davenport's Geography of the Imagination, Waverley, Aenied, Wuthering Heights, What is the what, A Palpable Elysium, {Boswell's London Journal, The Third Policeman, Dracula, A Natural History of Selborne, Herodotus Histories

Os

age 7 - Rain and Shine a 'Dick and Jane' book. 35 years later, my daughter read it when she was first learning.

before 10 - Hardy Boys, comic books, Brighty of Grand Canyon, H.P. Lovecraft (scared me too much, so I quit after two or three stories)

before 15 - The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Scientific American mag., Everything by J.D. Salinger, Hal Borland's When the Legends Die, Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night or The City and the Stars, Edgar Alan Poe

before 20 - Macbeth, Canterbury Tales, Robert Heinlein, almost any human sci-fi (not much on aliens), Euripides, greek mythology and drama in general

Age 20 till about age 30, not much reading (dating and college seemed to fill the time), so 'Statics', 'Dynamics', 'Hydraulics', 'Differenctial Equations' etc. Worked in The Foundation, though. And the radio production of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

30 to 40 - histories, historical fiction, novels, poetry, essays, cultural history, Victorian/Edwardian era travel writings. All over the map, really. Shipping News, The Wind in the Willows, Oscar Wilde, Saki, To Kill A Mockingbird, Winesburg, Ohio, "Hitchiker's Guide" books

Since 40 - Guy Davenport's Geography of the Imagination, Waverley, Aenied, Wuthering Heights, What is the what, A Palpable Elysium, {Boswell's London Journal, The Third Policeman, Dracula, A Natural History of Selborne, Herodotus Histories

Os

Message edited by its author, Sep 25, 2009, 2:00am.

Portia, I laughed out loud (literally, not the LOL kind) at your comment about Dianetics and Justine. I think there should be a new category called OMG_WTF. I'm going to start using it as a tag.

>18, 21

OMG_WTF: Love it, definitely a useful tag!

Before 10--Hardy Boys and a prose version, written in contemporary language, of the story of Odysseus called The Great Adventurer. Also I remember being captivated by a kids' version of Beowulf--trembling as Grendel prowled outside the chamber where Beowulf and his men are sleeping, smashing down the door. Read The Wizard of Oz dozens of times in one year--I still wonder why...but something in that book clearly captivated a 9-10 year old mind.

After 10-13--trying to find something interesting on the family shelves (my folks weren't great readers), reading John Buchan's 39 Steps and book I can't remember (probably mercifully) by Daphne DuMaurier.

13-16--my love of science fiction and genre titles blossoms; reading very little mainstream literary fiction

Age 16-20 Sharpening my mind with better writing, challenging myself with my first, early cracks at Pynchon and William Burroughs, more fringe-type writing

Age 21-NOW Reading the best books and not limited by genre considerations, educating myself, studying how highly regarded writers construct sentences, create characters, build suspense.

The Future--hopefully have time and energy to dive into the classics that have sustained literature for hundreds of years; WAR & PEACE, Proust, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, more Dickens...

Message edited by its author, Sep 26, 2009, 12:54pm.

Part of the joy of being in my forties is that I now read and buy what I want without any reference to what I think I 'should' read - fabulous!

Has anyone here read the book That Summer by Sarah Dessen? I need some help for a school project. 6 household objects to symbolize the book. Please help me!

Thanks

5 -- Can't honestly remember, but probably illustrated.

10 -- Choose Your Own Adventure

15 -- Fountainhead, Naked Lunch, Lolita, Paradise Lost -- and didn't understand the lot of them. MAD Magazine

20 -- my Hermann Hesse period, the Beats, more WSB, William Gibson, Sade

25 -- Earthly Powers, Warhammer 40K novels, Foucault, Lord of the Rings

30 -- Enderby, Stranger in a Strange Land, A Handful of Dust, The Cantos, The Royal Family

35 -- Assuming I'm still alive ... probably more Chinese literature, since the US will inevitably become a Chinese colony ;)

40 -- No idea; assuming civilization hasn't collapsed into a Hobbesian Mad Max nightmare where berserker hordes fight pockets of resistance for "juice."

... and beyond: Whatever the medical technicians can supply me, since I'll be a head suspended in a jar a la Futurama

Message edited by its author, Sep 26, 2009, 6:04pm.

5: Dr. Seuss, Encyclopedia Brown

10: Tolkien, EB White, Caddie Woodlawn, lots of kids' books from the library such as Heidi, Little Women, Nancy Drew mysteries....

15: My "Russian Summer" when I read War and Peace, Fathers and Sons, The Brothers Karamazov and short stories by Gogol, as well as Madame Bovary and Lorna Doone, all off of my parents' bookshelves (they are English majors)

20: Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters, lots of Spanish and French lit books (my majors), Racine, Corneille, and Moliere, lots of "Magic Realism" including 100 Years of Solitude, 7 novels by Mario Vargas Llosa

25: More mysteries and other crap fiction as well as Jane Austen and George Eliot

30: More mysteries, true crime, other crap fiction, as well as a return to Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley, lots of other not so good stuff

35: Several books borrowed from friends who were in women's book clubs - so stuff like wide Sargasso Sea, The Blind Assassin, etc. All of Dan Brown's garbage. More mysteries and crap (a vast amount). Crichton and Orson Scott Card (argh). Hardy, Dickens, Conrad, other 19th Century stuff borrowed from a friend who got tons of them at the Cairo Book Fair.

40: Maeve Binchy and Alexander McCall Smith as well as the other crap fiction I usually read. Then I found Library Thing and have read Ulysses, The Master and Margarita, The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr and several other wonderful books and am so very happy! My reading habits are improving and I am now preparing to read Les Miserables and Le Desert by LeClezio. I am also working on Patrick O'Brian's maritime series (palate cleansers in between more serious stuff).

I am now 41 and I hope to be reading for many more years. There's so much left out there.

Anna: you candor is refreshing.

5: Dr. Seuss and other picture books. Used these to learn English. (Chinese was my first language.)

10: Nancy Drew, Three Investigators, comic books (Green Lantern, The Flash, Archie), Asterix, Tintin, Little House series.

15: Heinlein, Tolkien, Agatha Christie, Jean Plaidy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Bronte sisters, Dickens, Harlequin Romances, books about baseball. I read voraciously and indiscriminately.

20: Canadian literature (both French and English), especially Robertson Davies and Timothy Findlay. Hemingway, E.M. Forster, The Magic Mountain, Austen, Tolstoy.

25: Technical books (math/computer). Clarke and Asimov. P.D. James, Martha Grimes.

30: Margaret Atwood. Alice Munro. Colin Dexter. Parenting books.

35: Knitting books. Children's books. Harry Potter. A lot of light mysteries, including some really awful ones. With two young kids and a new job, I was brain-dead most of the time.

40+: Starting to read more substantial stuff again. Attempting War and Peace. Book of Negroes, House of Leaves, The Killing Circle, more Margaret Atwood. Young-adult books, including Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman and Shane Peacock.

Message edited by its author, Sep 26, 2009, 9:08pm.

6: Pony Pals by Jeanne Betancourt. I read all 40-something of these!
10: I loved the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
15: Now days I read ANYTHING I can get my hands on. My current favorites are Pendragon, Warriors and Ally carter.

26: You went through a Hesse period? What do you think of him now? I read a few, but I only liked The Glass Bead Game.

This can only be a partial list at best:

5 The Little Engine that Could and many other Little Golden Books as well as several cloth books that could be washed. Most of the Dick and Jane series for school. This is about the age I took my first shot at Treasure Island and Kidnapped. The Bobbsey Twins. A Child's History of the World and the companion A Child's Geography of the World, read lots of comics, both newspaper and books. Several of the John Carter Barzoom stories, some H. Rider Haggard, tried some of the Waverley novels. These were my Grandfathers books. I read the first three Tom Swift, Jr. books.

10 Several early Heinlein, The Sands of Mars, other YA by Clarke, many short stories, mostly to do with SF (my mom was into SF short stories) my favorites were by Kuttner and Moore especially the Hogben stories. YA by a fellow named Pease, wrote YA stuff about shipping adventures on the Luckenbach Line which called at Guam while I was there (age 9 - 12). Nancy Drew because I really wanted to impress a young girl who was a Nancy Drew fan. I didn't hear of the Hardy Boys until I was past them. Somewhere in here I took my first shot at Moby Dick I wanted to know what a moby dick was (c'mon, I was a twelve year old boy for pete's sake), needless to say it was not what I thought. The Blue Jacket's Manual, The Great Gatsby. All the Illustrated Classics I could get my hands on. I liked the black dude in the back, after the main story, (an African prince) with his hair in dreds. I'd never seen that before.

15 Little Me, Catch-22, Some Shakespeare, mostly for school and immediately forgotten, nearly everything Steinbeck wrote, The Wake of the Red Witch, Look Homeward, Angel, took another more serious stab at Moby Dick (I knew what the moby dick was this time) watched lots of TeeVee. Read some duMaurier. At one point I owned the first Batman makeover comic (1964) with the introduction of the Elongated Man in the back. I wonder if that's worth much these days. Read Rabbit, Run during this time. Over my head. didn't read another Updike for forty years. Read A Month of Sundays when I was in my early fifties and remembered why it had been so long since I read him. Alice's adventures.

20 Discovered the pleasures of alcohol, stopped most of my reading and went into the service after flunking out of college. Read LoTR and the Gormenghast Trilogy. Read the obligatory beats, On the Road, The Dharma Bums, the Legend of Jack Duluoz (serialized in Playboy, along with Hugh Heffner's twenty three part philosophy). Howl, A Coney Island of the Mind. A Spaniard in the Works which I thought was kind of silly.

25 Fell in love with reading in the most insane way. Read Macroscope, Cities in Flight, Stand on Zanzibar and Rendezvous with Rama and thought I had hit SF heaven, then I read a piece of Maximum Shit by Robert Silverburg about a junkie filled dystopia where everyone experienced life vicariously. Suddenly my love of SF came crashing down. Didn't read another SF for forty years. Married a woman who thought books were evil. Don't remember much what I read during this period. Most of it was popular fiction but mostly non-fiction. Started with lots of Barbara Tuchman. Somewhere in this period I read my first Ayn Rand, Anthem I believe. It seemed pretty over the top to me. I also took a stab at de Sade during this period. Was pretty disgusted and didn't finish. It was at this time that I discovered not everyone was eat up with empathy. Also during this time I read Looking for Mr. Goodbar, a watershed event in my reading life. I don't think I've read a piece of popular fiction since. It was this book that led to...

30 Joined two book clubs: The Heritage Press, and was a charter subscriber to The Library of America. Started reading what they sent me. For a list of what I read or was reading during this period see my library, keyword Heritage Press, or LOA. I read most of Heritage Press books and much of the LOA. I joined the Time-Life Reading (TRP) program at this time and have read most of them.

35 Divorced the wart hog from hell. Had little but time on my hands after my divorce (I did have an 8 -5 job) and spent most of that time cattin' around (remember the alcohol? ever been to the Tattletale in Atlanta? might have seen you there). Went to beaucoup Braves games during this time and a few Falcons games (the seventies and early eighties, bad teams, good fun) nickel beer night was a big draw. Still reading primarily Heritage Press and LOA. Met my current wife who talked me into reading Gone with the Wind, a winner, and The Stand, a loser. Read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (mader no sense) and Childhood's End, an excellent read for SF.

40 My wife convinced me to drop my book club subscriptions and reading became less important to me. I was raising a small by who was a real handful. During this time we relocated to Dallas. Continued reading mostly in my book club books.

45 Pretty much the same as above.

50 Went back to college. Read the Greeks, read Virgil and Ovid, read Austen, Borges, several Pomo philosophers (Bourdieu, Derrida (nearly incomprehensible), Habermas, Foucoult, and Baudrillard. I read, not studied them. I learned that Post-Modernism is a philosophy founded on sand and quite dangerous. Anyway, I read a lot of undergraduate and graduate things that you would expect a Lit. Studies major would read. Lots of Beckett, maybe most of Beckett. Lots of early novels, Lazarillo de Tormes, Cervantes, early English novels, etc.

55 After my college experience most of my reading turned to non-fiction, especially with the Bush administration. At least, if they did nothing else, they got me interested in reading for pleasure again. Read some Tolstoy, some Dostoyevsky, some Turgenev, some more Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Conrad. It's hard to be specific because it spans such a great number of English and American authors.

60 Check my library with the tag read200x starting with 2007. Most of it is the same eclectic mix I've been reading the last ten years, with a little SF mixed in.

It's been an interesting trip, and as I said this is only a partial list.

31: Hesse was pretty good when I was young. I especially liked the Eastern mysticism and heady Romanticism. Haven't read anything of his since. Burgess gives him a smack-down in Earthly Powers I do want to read The Glass Bead Game though. Looks innerestin'.

Gene: Just so you know...LOVED that post.

>31

The Glass Bead Game is a favorite of mine, too. I tried to read it in HS, finally did in college, just reread it in the last year or two.

Thanks, Cliff. BTW somewhere in my twenties I read several of Hesse's books. As I said the above was a partial list. I read on average three books a week for nearly three years during college. No way I could recall by title what they were.

34: I agree!
36: Yes, of course these lists are partial. I tried to hit major categories with the understanding that of course I read hundreds and hundreds of books that I am not going to list out.

5-Various children's books...Dr. Seuss and the like. Nothing that really stands out in my mind.

10-The wonderful Dear America and Royal Diaries series about young women in various eras in history. Still wasn't a big reader yet, though.

15-This is when I went on a major reading spree starting with YA authors like David Levithan and Rachel Coen and working my way to A Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse-five, Catch-22, The Great Gatsby, Brideshead Revisted, Rebecca, Victorian Lit., Anne Rice, and some graphic novels.

Present (18)-Continuing to read Evelyn Waugh, working on the Russians (The Master and Margarita, The Brothers Karamazov), and reading a lot of nonfiction about various religions. Unfortunately, my reading habits have become more sporadic as school has started up again, but I have been able to read some wonderful plays (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, A Doll's House, The Importance of Being Earnest) along with some books through my AP English class.

Message edited by its author, Oct 11, 2009, 5:52pm.