MaskedMumbler's ROOT (kill) list

Hello, everybody!
This year I'll be aiming to take on some of the heavier classics I've been putting off. I'm talking about Joyce, Faulkner, Pynchon, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, the list goes on really. I'll create a hierarchical kill list one of these days and strike out the books as I take them out one by one. But I won't be able to do much in January as I have exams...
Anyway, this will be tons of fun!

Welcome, MM! Good luck to you.

Thanks, Connie, good luck to you too!

wow, ambitious as to the tomes you've picked out! Welcome.

Good luck! I've been putting off most of those authors as well, so I'll be curious to see whether or not you enjoy them.

Here it is! In 2013 I'm taking down This (Library)Thing Of Ours.

The structure of the family as it is currently known:

The Boss: Finnegans Wake (Wife: Mrs Dolloway; Goomah: Madame Bovary)


The Consigliere: Absolom, Absolom!


The Underboss: Leopold "Ulysses" Bloom

The Sound Crew:

Capo: The Sound and the Fury


Soldiers: As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Intruder in the Dust


Associate: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The Rainbow Crew:

Capo:Gravity's Rainbow


Soldiers: Mason & Dixon, Vineland, V.


Associates: Dubliners,Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable, Infinite Jest

The Arms Crew:

Capo: A Farewell to Arms


Soldiers: For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast


Associates: East of Eden

Russian connection:

Pale Fire

Russian Crime Family:

Boss: Anna Karenina

Underboss: War and Peace

Consigliere: Crime and Punishment

The Karamazonv Crew:

Capo: The Brothers Karamazov


Soldiers: Pnin, The Idiot, Invitation to a Beheading, Ada, or Ador: A Family Chronicle


Associate: The Stories of Anton Chekhov

It looks like a fantastic reading year, a fabulous choice of books. Good luck! I'll keep an eye on your thread. :-)

Thanks, Ameise! I'm going to try and make a story out of this reading experience to hopefully make this as fun to follow as it is to read.

WOW, you've really thought about this! Fabulous!! I'm going to follow you.

Great setup for your book list! Also, very impressive choices :)

Wow, that's an intimidating list -- best of luck! I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Invitation to a Beheading -- haven't read it yet, but the idea of a crime called "gnostical turpitude" has made me curious!

Thanks, everybody! I have an episodic story (sort of) in mind, which I will be posting here, following my progress in taking down these books that have been mocking me with their smug little smiles from atop their shelf for a while now. I'll also be doing the 75 books challenge where I'll be posting my thoughts on the books so feel free to follow that one for more serious thoughts on my reading (2013: A Literary Odyssey). I won't really get into my regular reading habits until I'm done with my exams at the end of January, so I won't be posting much until then. I hope this will turn out to be as much fun as I see it my mind.

What a great list! I think I'd be happy to finish just one of those :-) Good luck with your exams.

I'm really interested to yee your story evolve. I'll definitely follow your thread. So long, good luck with your exams!

Now THAT'S a list! I'll be following you as well. You've inspired me to not be such a wuss and only read the short books on my shelves. How satisfying for me to look back on 2013 and to say I've read these.

Best of luck, and I'll tune into your Literary Odyssey.

All right, now that I'm all done with my exams (I'm expecting good results sometime mid-February) let's get this show on the road! First of all, thank you for the support! Second, I will try to update as often as possible, but considering that these are books of varying length, I will be reading other books as well and I will have periods where I am increasingly busy with coursework and more exams (especially in May/June), I can't promise any kind of schedule. Third, in this story, the characters will be composites of characters from each book with a mafia twist. I will have them interact in, what I hope will be, an interesting narrative, keep in mind English is not my first language and I have close to no experience with writing, even though I have been eager to give it a shot. I would appreciate any criticism (even brutal honesty) to make the story read better. Thanks!

Looking forward to reading the story!

Ha! This will be fun.