No. 3: A portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce

James Joyce's kinda sorta autobiography-disguided-as-a-novel comes in on our charts at number 3.

Stephen Dedalus wants to be an artist, but there's one BIG thing standing in his way: he's Catholic. And it's hard, in early 20th century Ireland, to be both Catholic and an artist. But Stephen? He's gonna make it after all.

This novel is told in 5 vignettes that stand together as a loosely linear narrative. My favorite vignette by far was the one where Stephen hears a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon and decides to repent of all his sins including but not limited to prostitute patronage.

I realize this all comes off as super glib, but I only kind of mean it that way. Because, while Portrait might be influential in the 20th century, there are far "better" books on this list. Or, perhaps, books I liked better.

The Modern Library Top 100 challenge

On the eve of my 30th birthday, I decided to start reading (or, in some cases, re-reading) the Top 100 novels of the 20th century as determined by the board of the Modern Library.

I'm not sure what prompted me to do this other than the fact that I have not read a lot of the classics. The idea of reading 20th century classics seemed appealing to me.

I usually don't break 50 novels a year, so I figure it'll take the first two years of my 30s to read all of these books.

I'm going to post my thoughts on each novel I read as well as keep track of what I've read in the sidebar.

The one where Mrs. Dude hopes to embrace non-fiction

Over time, I've noticed that I read much more fiction than non-fiction. I really like learning new things, but I can't read non-fiction very quickly.

It's discouraging, so I end up reading a lot less non-fiction than I want to. I don't even start the book, knowing that it will take me several months to finish it.

In an effort to challenge myself, I have resolved to read one non-fiction book per month.

This month, I'm reading The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World as my January non-fiction challenge.

Of course I waited until the last week of the month to start it. Of course I've read three novels before this one.

I have a week to eek this out, though.

I guess that's part of the challenge.

Love is mix tape by Rob Sheffield

I've seen Rob Sheffield on many of those VH1 shows where they count down the top 100 or 50 of some genre of song. My favorite of those, of course, is the Top Soft Rock songs. But I digress...

Sheffield wrote and amazing book called Love is a mix tape: life and loss, one song at a time. It's this book about about falling in love and learning to lose love the most graceful way one can. It's about music and how music colors memories. It's about mix tapes and the 90s. Mostly, it's achingly perfect in tone and in execution.

It reminded me of Nick Hornby's High Fidelty for all of the right reasons. I fell in love with Renee and Rob and their relationship in much the same way that I fell in love with Hornby's Rob. And when I finished reading Sheffield's book, I handed it to my husband. I can only hope he enjoys it as much as I did.

Sprinting towards the New Year

Every year I keep a journal with a list of books, their authors, and the number of pages. Each month is a new page and I total the number of books and pages I've read each month. I can't explain why I do it, but it helps me challenge myself to read more books (and more pages) as each year passes.

I am trying to finish the book I'm reading by the end of the year (For the record, it's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging...by Louise Rennison). It would make me happy to have another 200 or so pages under my belt for the year.

The problem? I hate this book. I really, really hate this book.

I don't like giving up on a book, though, so I'll see it through to the end and hope that I can finish by New Year's Eve.

On a completely different note, I am loving "Bookmarks" magazine. It's a magazine full of book reviews, suggested reading for book clubs, and articles about authors. At lunch I read an interesting article about A.S. Byatt. I know that The Dude has a copy of Possession on his bookshelf, and I looked in Whatsamatta U.'s catalog and saw that we have a few copies of various titles.

Mrs. Dude abides...