About

I’ve read a lot of books in my life (upwards of 400, by my calculations). I just love reading, and I’ve been reading almost nonstop since I got my first library card. There are many stories I could share about my love of reading as a child, from that one Halloween where I dressed all in pink and called myself a “bookworm” (to the confusion of many of the neighbors) to the time in school when I got so absorbed in my silent reading book that I didn’t realize the class was leaving until I looked up and everyone was gone.

So I’ve done a lot of reading over the years, but it wasn’t always what you might call great quality. Sure, being obsessed with The Babysitter’s Club and Nancy Drew is fine when you’re a kid, but really they’re only a starting point. There’s a whole world of literature out there, and I want to find the really great stuff. The problem is knowing where to start, especially for someone who’s fairly new to the world of adult literature. For me, that’s where the list comes in. It’s like 1001+ recommendations, books from all over the world, from every time period. And that’s just one of many good reasons to follow the list.

The list I’m talking about is the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, from the book of the same name edited by Peter Boxall. I say 1001+ because there have been three updates since the original version, and each one has made changes. Some books have been removed. Others have been added. Many books on the 2012 version of the list hadn’t even been published yet when the first list came out in 2006. I follow all of the lists, which I’ve mashed together to make one big list of 1306, of which I plan to read 1001. That means I can do a bit of picking and choosing and not get stuck with books I know I’ll hate (or those few on the list that haven’t been translated into English).

I started following the list back in 2010, when I began posting to a thread on Librarything, which has a whole group of people following the list. You can find my thread at this link.

As you can see if you followed that link, I have other reasons for wanting to follow the list, one of which is that I want to be an author someday. I have found that my writing has gotten better since starting, which I think is at least partially due to the influence of all this great writing. I’ve more than doubled my original total of 16, and my number now stands at 61… which leaves only 940 more! It’s a good thing I’m still young!

Other Miscellaneous Info

A list of books included in the 1001 can be found here.

I try to be fair in all my reviews, but I rate books based only on how much I enjoyed reading them. My system goes from 1/2 to five stars (no zeros!). My most common rating is a three, which represents an average level of enjoyment. It goes up or down from there, 1/2 being reserved for those few books I actually hated, 5 being for those few that I absolutely loved. Usually, if a book gets five stars, it also means that I either want to or actually have read that book multiple times.

All photos on the blog were taken by me, although some pictures are drawn by my sister. See “About My Sister”.

Any post whose title ends with an asterisk, like so: “Title*”, contains spoilers. These posts can only be found through links on the homepage or through the “Spoilers” tab. I’m careful not to include any information that might be considered a spoiler in any of my regular posts.

And finally, please feel free to leave me comments anywhere! I love getting comments, and I also love knowing that people are reading some of my older posts along with my newer ones. Enjoy!