What are your reading resolutions for 2010? [Archive]

DB Cooper

23-Dec-2009, 06:20

Some books that I plan on getting to in 2010:

Gravity's Rainbow-Thomas Pynchon: Ive read four other Pyncon books, its time to make the leap.

Ulysses-James Joyce: I will probably take this one slow, ten pages a day.

Javier Marias Your Face Tomorrow trilogy: Read the first one, time to get to the other two.

The Recognitions-William Gaddis: Been sitting on the shelf for a while. Ive heard so many good things that I absolutely must get to this.

Eastern European Lit- More specifically Polish and Russian. Stocking up already with some Gombrowicz. Ive been combing the forums for titles of interest. Suggestions?

Short stories- Nabokov, Kafka, Chekhov, George Saunders, maybe others?

miercuri

23-Dec-2009, 21:49

I'm not making any plans anymore. Making them is as good as sabotaging them, so what use?

Liam

24-Dec-2009, 00:47

Making [plans] is as good as sabotaging them, so what use?I don't know. When my b/f and I plan to have sex in the evening, we usually end up doing just that, :p.

Don't worry, I get you. I stopped making plans and resolutions a long time ago (well, ok, around my 22nd birthday). The only thing I can be sure of is that I'll be reading lots and lots of "secondary" literature in preparation for my MA thesis.

kpjayan

24-Dec-2009, 03:23

Hoping to finish, 3 mammoth novels, which I have been shunning for a while, in 2010.

a. 2666 - Roberto Bolano
b. Hopscotch - Cortazar
c. Don Quixote - Edith Grossman translation.

miercuri

24-Dec-2009, 10:13

I don't know. When my b/f and I plan to have sex in the evening, we usually end up doing just that, .

I was hoping you an your bf were a bit more spontaneous than that :p

Good luck with working on your thesis though! I also have to start thinking about what my graduation paper will be, I'm already half-way through college.

Heteronym

24-Dec-2009, 14:07

sumaira

24-Dec-2009, 15:30

i am gonna study critiszim comprising theater and stage setting.and it takes time so in 2010,it'll be enough to red them.

DB Cooper

26-Dec-2009, 03:22

Hoping to finish, 3 mammoth novels, which I have been shunning for a while, in 2010.

a. 2666 - Roberto Bolano
b. Hopscotch - Cortazar
c. Don Quixote - Edith Grossman translation.

Ive read 2666 and Hopscotch, and I heartily recommend both of them. You wont be disappointed.

DB Cooper

26-Dec-2009, 03:25

I never decide what to read in advance. My real resolution is to buy less books next year and instead read the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of books I have piled up in columns next to my bed. Only after will I buy more books.

I should do this but there are so many tempting books out there its hard to stay disciplined. I probably have (at least) a years worth of unread books on my shelf but something interesting always pops up.

Daniel del Real

26-Dec-2009, 19:49

I have several, and as always some may never come to reality, but I'll try:

1.- Read one classic a month. 2009 was dedicated entirely to XX century or contemporanean writer. I read only 3 or 4 older books. This has to change for 2010 since there are many classics I still have aside. I want to read Melville, Dostoievsky, Dumas, Stoker, Dickens, Zola etc, so although I'm still going to dedicate my reading time mostly to XX century and contemporary writers, I want to get a little space for XIX century novel

2.- Finish Bola?o's works. As may of you already know, I love what Bola?o does. So far I've only read 7 of his works (5 novels, 1 short stories and one poetry) so there are a lot of them I have to read: Nocturno de Chile, Amberes, Una Novelita Lumpen, Monsieur Pain, La Pista de Hielo and his "new novel" to be released in 2010, El Tercer Reich (all novels) Putas Asesinas & El Gaucho Insufrible (short stories) and some books dedicated to his conferences, and diaries (La Universidad Desconocida, Entre Par?ntesis & El Secreto del Mal).

3.- Keep on with contemporary writers in Spanish Language. I developed a high taste for writers like Mar?as, Vila-Matas, Mars?, Castellanos Moya, Bellat?n, Volpi, Zambra, Nettel and of course Bola?o. Hope to follow that path that brought me so much joy, for 2010.

Hoping to finish, 3 mammoth novels, which I have been shunning for a while, in 2010.

a. 2666 - Roberto Bolano
b. Hopscotch - Cortazar
c. Don Quixote - Edith Grossman translation.

I praise your resolutions for 2010. Those three have to be among my top 20 books ever, if not Top 10. Hopscotch is not that long to be considered a mammoth but it's definitely the most complex of the three.

DB Cooper

27-Dec-2009, 05:48

Im adding one more resolution. 2010 will be the year I get around to William T Vollmann. I read a little of The Atlas at a friends house and it was interesting enough to make me want to go further. Europe Central will be my first official Vollmann.

Elie

27-Dec-2009, 10:16

My two big ones are that I'm going to buy no more than 1 book for every 10 read (which believe me is going to be hard work!!) and reduce my unread books pile by at least 50%, although that will probably take longer than a year.

I'm also planning to read War And Peace this year. Had it sitting on my shelf for about 4 years and been too intimidated to touch it so far, but I read Anna Karenina this year and absolutely loved it so I am now quite excited about it!

Chapman

27-Dec-2009, 23:12

Javier Marias' Your Face Tomorrow, almost certainly, since it is already stacked for next-in-line when I finish Possession by A. S. Byatt, perhaps this year.

Then I'll be looking into Verdun by Jules Romains, from some time ago, to satsify a personal curiosity that has existed ever since seeing many books of his series on the shelves in my local boyhood library.

Beyond that, just the perennial search for interesting and imaginative books to expand my reading horizon.

SlowRain

28-Dec-2009, 04:03

Read more than I did in 2009.

Igu Soni

29-Dec-2009, 08:47

Stop reading and study. I'm going to have six courses next term.

:rolleyes:

hdw

29-Dec-2009, 15:42

Read more than I did in 2009.

Good idea, to keep your aspirations fairly general and vague. Every year at this time the papers are full of articles by doctors and psychologists, explaining why people usually fail to keep their New Year resolutions. Partly it's because 1st January is too random a date, partly people are too ambitious and get easily disheartened when they find they've set themselves unrealistic goals in an unrealistic timescale.

When I've managed in the past to lose weight, stop smoking, or whatever the goal was, it's not because I've automatically stopped doing something when somebody fired a starting-pistol. The realisation has just gradually crept up on me over a period of time that I'm sick of my waistband cutting me in half, or of starting the day with a hacking cough, so I just start being sensible and doing the right thing.

Harry

obooki

29-Dec-2009, 21:21

This year's was to read 100 books ... and with three days left I reckon I will do it (though perhaps it was never technically a resolution).

For next year, my resolution is to read at least 20 books in French - which will be a fair achievement, since I've never read an entire book in French in my life.

Also, I guess I should go with Heteronym's resolution and stop buying quite so many books and concentrate on reading the ones already purchased.

nnyhav

29-Dec-2009, 23:57

As I've said elsewhere, I'm still working off last year's (http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2008/12/bookshelf-of-good-intentions.html) ... but speaking of humiliation a la Lodge (as per opening of above link), latest TLS NB had a great bit:

In 2003, Sebastian D. G. Knowles looked at himself in the mirror; he was the author of a study of James Joyce; he was Professor of English at Ohio State University (specializing in Joyce). He had attended dozens of Joyce conferences. But he had never read Finnegans Wake. "Worse, I had never even tried to", Professor Knowles writes in the current James Joyce Quarterly. Guilt-ridden, he decided to confess his failing in a song to be sung at the after-dinner entertainment at a Joyce conference in Miami:
Am I alone?And unobserved? I am.
Then let me own, I'm an academic sham.
My reading of the Wake's a fake.
Up to about page nine I'm fine.
But the idea of reading every word's absurd.
[...] Knowles rendition was met "with great applause". As fellow Joyceans congratulated him, however, he realized they thought he was teasing some other fraud. "You've got the type down exactly", one said. When he protested, "The song's about me", they laughed. "Very good!" The upshot was that he was made editor of the Florida Joyce Series.
He's since read it, and "was recently made President-Elect of the International James Joyce Foundation".

gonfler

30-Dec-2009, 05:29

What are your reading resolutions for 2010?

My reading resolution for 2010 is to read first what I already have at home before buying and borrowing another one.

On my list:
Spring Snow by Mishima Yukio
Thirst for Love by Mishima Yukio
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
L'immoraliste by Andre Gide
Trois Contes by Gustave Flaubert

I am having difficulty understanding Death in Venice. Anyone here who read and liked it?

edit:

And... I realize I've never read anything Spanish. I mean Spain-Spanish. What kind of "introductory" novel would you recommend for the uninitiated like me?

Thanks.

--------

I was hoping you an your bf were a bit more spontaneous than that :p

Good luck with working on your thesis though! I also have to start thinking about what my graduation paper will be, I'm already half-way through college.

What's your major, dear?

miercuri

30-Dec-2009, 15:46

My major is English language and literature, but it is painful enough that I have to take a course in generative grammar. I know for sure that I won't be doing my paper on something linguistics-related, so it will have to be literature.

lionel

30-Dec-2009, 21:27

If I can manage to get through the next year without reading a book in translation - as I have this year - then I know I'm on the right lines. That means reading in English, French, and (a little slower) in Spanish only for me, but that'll do. I don't see why I should read books in bad translations, and many of them are just that: bad.

Anyway, I'm still concentrating on Southern literature, particularly the southern Appalachians, so I have no need to dot all over the world in search of what very often turn out to be lousy translations. I count Kafka as one of my favorite authors, but it appears (and don't ask my why) that all translations of Kafka into English are bad. So...yeah, do we admire the author's work or that of the translator? I'd rather, where I can, read the original work and keep very well clear of this major problem.

Loki

02-Jan-2010, 15:35

Unfortunately I haven't got much spare time to dedicate to reading some good books. I have to study a lot, but the positive aspect of it is that I have to study English and Spanish literature, so it won't be that bad!

This year I'll be studying some Shakespeare in detail. Then I'll be reading on my own:
-G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales;
-J. Donne, The Good Morrow?, The Sun Rising;
-A. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress;
-A.Behn, The Rover;
-J. Bunyan, The Pilgrim?s Progress.

In the Spanish course I'll be reading and studying books such as Don Quixote, Lazarillo de Tormes, El Burlador de Sevilla, El Busc?n, La vida es sue?o...

Not that much unfortunately. However, these are not resolutions, are just obligations!

lionel

02-Jan-2010, 19:23

Because (pace Marie NDiaye) we're making very serious plans to sell this place and move to France, I'm under strict instructions from my girlfriend not to buy many books: estate agents' photos don't appeal to the often bibliophobic English if they see that you live in a library. Nevertheless, I'm continuing my exploration of Southern literature, and I've bought:

Reynolds Price's A Great Circle trilogy: The Surface of Earth (1975), The Source of Light (1981), and The Promise of Rest (1995). The huge The Surface of Earth is generally considered his masterpiece, and a great work of literature in its own right, but is little known because at the time readers were more interested in the more expermental stuff by Barthelme, Pynchon and Gaddis, for example.

James Still's River of Earth (1940). A classic. A family of subsistence famers in southern Appalachia are lured away to a far more uncertain future by a mining company.

Selah Saterstrom's two experimental novels, The Pink Institution (2004) and The Meat and Spirit Plan (2007).

Lee Smith's The Last Girls (2002), a novel based on a raft journey she took, in her youth with a number of other college girls, down the Mississippi from Paducah, KY, and, er, also based on something by Mark Twain.

Annie Dillard's autobiographical omnibus Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), An American Childhood (1987), and The Writing Life (1989)
And I shall be looking out for stuff by:

Wendell Berry - a fascinating novelist and poet

Madison Jones - why have so few people heard of this writer?

T. R. Pearson - Sevigne has only just told me about him, and he looks very interesting indeed

Juien Green - Mentioned to me by two people, and he's a must!

Liam

03-Jan-2010, 22:34

G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
I hope you are reading this in the original Middle English. Or at least in a side-by-side translation. But, really, Middle English is not as hard as some people think. Old English, on the other hand, is another story.

Beth

04-Jan-2010, 00:13

Brothers Karamazov (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans.) or bust!

john h

04-Jan-2010, 00:46

I've been reading fiction for so long that it has practically spoiled me for any other type of book but last year I ventured into the world of American poetry. Made some good discoveries. This year I am resolving to go even further out of my comfort zone and try some science fiction. I am not a fan of most of what I've read in that genre with the exception of Walter Miller's "A Canticle For Leibowitz" and M.K. Joseph's "The Hole in the Zero" which are both marvelous books. I'm reading a little J.G. Ballard now--the short stories--and plan to do a little exploration this year. Hopefully, I'll come across some good things. If not, I may have to rethink the whole endeavor. Anybody got any suggestions for good science fiction?

e joseph

04-Jan-2010, 02:06

Brothers Karamazov (Pevear/Volokhonsky trans.) or bust!
I also wouldn't mind tackling this one at some point this year. I recently finished Demons (same translation duo), so a small Dostoevsky break is in order, but maybe soon?

Eric

04-Jan-2010, 09:39

Resolutions nearly always get broken, but here are some of my pious reading wishes for 2010 and following years. Tastes change, some things become more urgent or important, others fade into the background. But just now, in January 2010, this is what I feel I want to read:

- Two novels by Inga Ābele in Swedish translation, as I can't yet read the Latvian originals.

- Eight novels by Simon Vestdijk, forming the semi-autobiographical "Anton Wachter" suite.

- More works by Charles Morgan.

- Stories by Tove Jansson.

- The satirical novel "Magersfontein, O, Magersfontein" by Etienne Leroux.

- Poetry by Czesław Miłosz.

- The two remaining novels of the so-called "Biographical Trilogy" by Karl Ristikivi.

In reality, this should take me up to at least 2013-2014, so it's more than a resolution for 2010. But it's a nice balance of literature from various countries, and involves the genres of the novel, the short-story, poetry and the essay. I'm not often keen on reading plays.

Liam

04-Jan-2010, 09:50

...here are some of my pious reading wishes for 2010...Eric, when are you finally going to listen to me and read Saint Augustine's 1,000+ page masterpiece The City of God? Preferably in Latin, but that's up to you.

Come on! The Middle Ages await you--

No resolutions for me, I'm afraid, except:

- start writing my MA thesis

- start learning a new language (living or dead, it don't worry me)

- finish watching LOST (hooray, the last season is here!)

Eric

04-Jan-2010, 10:33

It must be telepathy, Liam, because I indeed picked up Saint Augustine's "City of God" a couple of nights ago and thought that I must continue to read it. I've only got to page 27 (of 1,090!) of the Penguin edition, but Augustine does make a lot of common sense observations about this world and the next. I forgot to add it to my list today.

As for learning languages, I'm putting some serious efforts into learning Latvian (Latin's on hold), and hope to get over that uncomfortable lower-intermediate threshold this year, where you can sort-of read a simple text, but you can't owing to a serious shortage of vocabulary. Why Latvian? Because Latvia is next door to Estonia and has shared several centuries of the same cultural and political developments and setbacks. If it's a toss-up between Latvian and Lithuanian, the grammar of Latvian is simpler, in the same way that Estonian is simpler than Finnish in most respects.

This new interest of mine (or, rather, a revived one) was re?nforced by a brief, one day visit to Riga a couple of weeks ago. Riga is still suffering from the aftermath of half a century of Soviet rule and neglect, but despite the Recession, there were signs of new building all over the Old Town, and even at minus 7 Celsius, the Old Town had a friendly aspect. The New Town has some of the bigger shops and stores, but also a charming idealist initiative, the small Satori bookshop, run by young book enthusiasts. The New Town also has a Jugend quarter, but it rather depends on the owners as to whether a building is renovated or is just left to rot, Soviet style. You can get some idea of the cityscape, albeit mostly in much warmer weather, at:

Riga - Google Pildiotsing (http://images.google.nl/images?hl=et&as_qdr=all&um=1&sa=1&q=Riga&aq=f&oq)=

The Freedom Monument below was built in the independent 1930s and, miraculously, survived Soviet times, when they simply interpreted freedom differently but left the monument standing:

http://www.jezikovnapotovanja.com/sprachreisen/bilder/sprachen2008/riga-10.jpg

The first building I would want to knock down is that ugly Soviet cigarette box behind the monument which is identical to a hotel in Tallinn.

The unfortunately named House of the Blackheads (should be Moors' House) was demolished by the Soviets, but lovingly rebuilt:

http://www.europethisway.com/images/riga.jpg

So another resolution this year is to visit Riga again.

Loki

04-Jan-2010, 10:58

I hope you are reading this in the original Middle English.

I don't know yet. Surely it's going to be a side-by-side traslation.
Anyway, Middle English is not that easy, I've just checked how it is:

Oure fadir ?at art in heuenes halwid be ?i name;
?i reume or kyngdom come to be.
Be ?i wille don in her?e as it is doun in heuene.
yeue to us today oure eche dayes bred.
And foryeue to us oure dettis ?at is oure synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris ?at is to men ?at han synned in us.
And lede us not into temptacion but delyuere us from euyl.

I don't think I'd be able to read in Middle English, especially because English is not my mothertongue. It's as if I'd ask you to read Dante in 14th century Italian!

Liam

06-Jan-2010, 10:20

A family of subsistence famers in southern Appalachia are lured away to a far more uncertain future by a mining company.

why have so few people heard of this writer?
Tony: I wonder if (with your interest in working-class literature) you've ever heard of the Canadian writer Hugh Garner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Garner) (1913-1979), who wrote mainly about life in the Toronto "slums" during the Depression?

I came across his name recently while doing research (an another subject), and thought that his novels, esp. the once-suppressed Cabbagetown (1950; full version in 1968), might interest you--

Sorry about being so vague, but I haven't read him myself, so can't really "recommend." My library doesn't seem to have any copies of his work.

saliotthomas

06-Jan-2010, 10:41

If i had any kind of plans i know you guy would mess them up, like every other years.

I might on a general scale add a few here. http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/general-discussion/10771-read-all-authors.html

And this is not a reading resolution but if a good soul could explain to a semi retarded friend how to do those nice "link" thing instead of full sentences, i would be eneternaly gratfull.

slim jenkins

13-Jan-2010, 10:30

Not to attempt anything over 250 pages long (once I've finished Alone In Berlin)

Big books are:

too heavy to carry around

awkward to hold up

longer than they need to be

take up too much room on the shelf

but useful for standing on when needing to reach the top shelf of a library as Tony Hancock once did

kanman

13-Jan-2010, 13:06

.....Anybody got any suggestions for good science fiction?

Arthur C. Clarke's work is an excellent place to start. I would suggest "Rendezvous with Rama" or better still, "Against the Fall of Night" which is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. And is a short read too, in case you feel a little uneasy about SF :)

You could also check out Issac Asimov, maybe "The Bicentennial Man" on which I believe a movie starring Robin Williams was also made. Not seen the movie. Book was very good though.

lionel

14-Jan-2010, 15:30

Tony: I wonder if (with your interest in working-class literature) you've ever heard of the Canadian writer Hugh Garner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Garner) (1913-1979), who wrote mainly about life in the Toronto "slums" during the Depression?

Thanks again for pointing this out, Liam - it clean escaped my attention. Garner certainly does look interesting.

I came across his name recently while doing research (an another subject, heheh, :p)

Heheh, indeed.

Sorry about being so vague, but I haven't read him myself, so can't really "recommend." My library doesn't seem to have any copies of his work [sad, :(].

I see there are loads of copies of his stuff available, but I'm not supposed to be buying books - quite the reverse - maybe I can find a library copy.

Cheers

Tony

Omo

16-Jan-2010, 20:45

My only reading resolution this year is to read a least one "exotic", i.e. non-European book every month, because I tend to get sticked to German and Russian literature, followed by several other European literatures, before I get to read something else, and I want to change that.
I take always care of switching regularly between contemporary and older literature, because I believe breaking from the zeitgeist once every while is important to get a more distant and therefore more objective view on current sociological and political fashions.
In other years I always wanted to read at least one book in English and one in Russian per month, in order to expand my vocabulary in these languages, but I never came around to do it, so even though it is still my wish this year, I'll probably find myself reading other stuff, or even worse: Russian and English literature in translation, when I know I could understand the original.

rishaj!

19-Jan-2010, 12:49

To read more and more inspirational books that talk about achievement and inner struggle!!

gonfler

23-Jan-2010, 06:01

kidvisions

23-Jan-2010, 10:38

I'm not making any plans anymore. Making them is as good as sabotaging them, so what use?

The same for me!
I'm not good at choosing books anyway!

Manuel76

23-Jan-2010, 11:45

What are your reading resolutions for 2010?

And... I realize I've never read anything Spanish. I mean Spain-Spanish. What kind of "introductory" novel would you recommend for the uninitiated like me?

It depends on which writers or kind of literature do you prefer. Classics or moderns and so.

A novel I love, from 1972, is La saga/fuga de J.B. from Torrente Ballester, but only if you like Gravity's rainbow and that kind of literature.

gonfler

20-Jul-2010, 18:38

1. Reread old books
2. Finish reading books I haven't finished reading
3. Read books I already have before buying something new

On my list:

Lolita (Nabokov)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
Spring Snow (Mishima)
T Zero (Calvino)
Hundred Secret Senses (Amy Tan)
Tesseract (Garland)
After the Banquet (Mishima)
Kokoro (Souseki)
The English Patient (Oondatje)

etc.
Reading list:
After the Banquet (Mishima) - Finished
Spring Snow (Mishima) - Half-way done
T Zero (Calvino) - 1/3 done

Re-reading list:
The English Patient (Oondatje) - 2/3 done!

It depends on which writers or kind of literature do you prefer. Classics or moderns and so.

A novel I love, from 1972, is La saga/fuga de J.B. from Torrente Ballester, but only if you like Gravity's rainbow and that kind of literature.

Quasi-classic, quasi-contemporary. As of the moment, I don't have the strength to digest Cervantes-like novel in terms of length.

What's Gravity's Rainbow?

Refus de Sejour

22-Jul-2010, 14:11

Spring Snow (Mishima) - Half-way done

Just read that last week. Be interested to hear your opinion when you're done.

chrisphillips

22-Jul-2010, 14:42

Somewhere in the region of 30-40 books a year is ample for me in terms of volume. For 2010 I resolved not to read more than one book per author and I've stuck to it so far. This was with a view to taking my favourite authors of 2010 and delving deeper into their works in 2011. So next year will heavily feature Roth, Fallada, Amis and Saramago amongst one or two others, as well as lots of releases from the lovely New York Review Of Books Classics range I'm completely taken with. In actual fact, browsing my 2010 list reveals I've not read a single thing by a female all year! This is quite undeliberate, but one to put right in 2011 also.

Eric discussed Riga earlier in the thread; a favourite city of mine also. A beautiful old town, good local beer and lots to look at. The Museum of Soviet Occupation is excellent; one of the finest museums of the period in, I'd venture. I was alarmed to read that the authorities were considering moving the collection to elsewhere in Riga. Its current location, in an albeit ugly building, is perfect due to its immediate proximity to the Red Army Riflemen statue, one of the last remaining Soviet era statues in Latvia.

http://photos.igougo.com/images/p490604-Riga-Occupation_Museum.jpg

The museum is the black building you can see there. Great views from the platform at the top of the spire in the background there, too. I've been to Riga twice; I'd wager there will be a third time before too long.

Daniel del Real

21-Dec-2010, 22:26

I have several, and as always some may never come to reality, but I'll try:

1.- Read one classic a month. 2009 was dedicated entirely to XX century or contemporanean writer. I read only 3 or 4 older books. This has to change for 2010 since there are many classics I still have aside. I want to read Melville, Dostoievsky, Dumas, Stoker, Dickens, Zola etc, so although I'm still going to dedicate my reading time mostly to XX century and contemporary writers, I want to get a little space for XIX century novel

2.- Finish Bola?o's works. As may of you already know, I love what Bola?o does. So far I've only read 7 of his works (5 novels, 1 short stories and one poetry) so there are a lot of them I have to read: Nocturno de Chile, Amberes, Una Novelita Lumpen, Monsieur Pain, La Pista de Hielo and his "new novel" to be released in 2010, El Tercer Reich (all novels) Putas Asesinas & El Gaucho Insufrible (short stories) and some books dedicated to his conferences, and diaries (La Universidad Desconocida, Entre Par?ntesis & El Secreto del Mal).

3.- Keep on with contemporary writers in Spanish Language. I developed a high taste for writers like Mar?as, Vila-Matas, Mars?, Castellanos Moya, Bellat?n, Volpi, Zambra, Nettel and of course Bola?o. Hope to follow that path that brought me so much joy, for 2010.

One year later it's interesting to see which ones I completed. Let's see

1.- FAILED. Didn't read Zola, Mauppasant, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy etc. A total failure for this one.
2.- COMPLETED. Well, almost. I'm still missing two or three books, but during this year I read By Night in Chile, The Insufferable Gaucho, The Third Reich, Una Novelita Lumpen, Killer Whores, The Skating Rink, Antwerp, Monsieur Pain & The Secret of Evil.
3.- A GOOD ADVANCE. I read most of them, some with really good results, some of the not as good as I thought they'd be. I still plan to read most of them but it won't me my priority this new year.

Not that bad for my purposes. I'll check for this new year ones.