Oliver Shaw
I LOVE books. They are the most educational and entertaining invention that humankind has ever made. Books are responsible for showing so many of us what is possible in life, they communicate the inner thoughts of others in a way that films never can. Books are the most undervalued resource the modern world has.
So imagine my horror four years ago when I realized that I had read just one book in six months. It is strange how sometimes you get into new routines start watching too much Netflix at night, listen to songs and go for coffee in the morning, somehow i just stopped reading.
Somewhere in the middle of a conversation with a friend three and a half years ago i was asked what I had read recently. Normally this would produce a confidently reported list of a couple of books being read and a couple of recently finished ones. Shame washed over me as I realized I had somehow lapsed into not reading a single book in six months.
That is how my quest to read a book a week for six years began. The aim is simple: 312 books in six years -- between turning 44 and my 50th birthday.
The decision was made that books have to be on average at least 300 pages long. Being a slow reader this takes at least two hours a day of reading time and does include some days reading for far more time.
A couple of extra criteria were added, the first being half fiction and half non fiction, just to maintain some sort of balance of education and entertainment. In addition to this I wanted to see if books read when I was young are still as valid and great later in life. It turned out at age 45 Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Llightness of Being would be better called ‘The Unbearable and pretentious first twenty pages of boredom’.
Well at least for me it should... seriously how did I ever think that book was so amazing? For the record I did not get more than twenty pages into it before refusing to put it down.
There is no crime in starting a bad book but it is criminal to finish one. Even I started reading the The Davinci Code but there is no way i would carry on and finish it, heck I still feel ashamed to having read 50 pages of it.
Ok enough of the negativity and on to two classic rereads that are brilliant and two books that have joined them in my personal great books hall of fame. Needless to say this is personal opinion. That said, it's mine and I am always right in my own mind at least. If you disagree that is fine. It would be a world with very few authors if we all liked the same books.
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse still amazes me even after losing count of how many times i have read it. The fact that hippies and new agers also love it should not be a reason to discredit the beautiful flowing simplicity of text combined with enlightenment. It seems almost impossible to look at a river without thinking of the deep meanings conveyed in this masterful short story.
One Hundred Years of Solitude has always been my other firm favorite and again it did not disappoint. How Gabriel Garcia Marquez manages to get such depth of character spanning a century into just 400 pages is beyond comprehension. I was hooked on this book from the moment I started reading it over twenty years ago and it still seems like a dream every time I delve into its pages. A word of warning: some of the magic seems less impossible if you read his biography, Living to Tell the Tale.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is rapturous in its ability to go through the full range of human emotions and leave you wanting more. The tragicomic downfall of Count Rostov and his ability to manage life under ‘hotel arrest’ was a great surprise for a novel that somehow just turned up in my life. Amor Towles deserves all the accolades a quick internet search fo reader reviews produces.
The last book on this list is undoubtedly my favorite new fictional book and again i knew nothing about it when i picked it up. David Benioff’s City of Thieves is another book about Russia this time set in Leningrad during the Second World War. A quick read and yet so deep in feeling and sense of adventure it makes you believe you know more about the tragedy of war without hopefully ever going through one. Anyone who complains that Game of Thrones ended badly due to Benioff being an incompetent writer should read this and shut up.
So there you have it. Four great works of fiction that you may or may not love. My book list is getting closer to completion and one thing is sure: doing a list acts as a great motivator to push through and read more.
Never give up reading it is what sets us apart from the stupid and lazy.
Also never finish a bad book just because you started it. It is plain embarrassing having to admit that you have read The Beach or the Celestine Prophecy.
The author of this article is the first to admit to being a better reader than a writer and accepts that the books talked of in the negative sense are better than anything he could write. Well apart from one book mentioned - maybe two.
This is excellent. Thanks for the inspiration Olie!
Thank you. You sold me on Siddhartha. I will read it next. But I'm ashamed to say I have not been able to read more than 20 pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I will try again. I must.