In a "Talk of the Town" item from The New Yorker's 28 January issue, much was made of the reading list of folk-rock icon Art Garfunkel. Since 1968, Garfunkel has kept a record of every book he's read — all 1023 of them, all in chronological order. Given today's profusion of frantic schedules and the apparent decline of interest in the written word, his average of just over two books a month is laudable and impressive. It also got me thinking about my own reading habits and why I've not kept a list of my own.
Having taken to avid reading at a young age, there have been very few times in my life when at least one book was not to been seen atop my desk, beside the bed, or in my hands at some stage of mid-read. By age twenty, keeping my bookshelves from overflowing was already a struggle: if left to the voracious acquisitiveness of my literary appetite and perpetual willingness to learn, the shelves would become unruly and start to bow under the weight. Every few months, with a judicious eye, I would grudgingly pull the titles most recently purchased, and weigh their importance, and ask the hard questions. Do I absolutely have to have this copy of
When my selection diminished nearly seven years ago, a result of what I call my "abduction," the escapism of literature became correspondingly more tantalizing. I've since read several books I'd never otherwise have considered, which is not necessarily a bad thing. T.K. Kennett commented once that those of us who do not read that which we might find objectionable "are no better than those who cannot read at all," and I happen to agree. (A couple of dime-store novels never killed anyone, even if reading one sometimes might feel like a slow death.) Certainly a few have broadened my horizons in thoroughly enjoyable ways.
Reading about Art Garfunkel's voluminous list inspired me to compile my own, retroactively. Friends are always asking what I'm reading, and they are almost as often surprised that a prison library should be so well appointed (though never quite well enough, if you ask me). The list that follows is incomplete and, instead of chronological, ordered alphabetically, as it was brought forth entirely from my imperfect memory. It covers only the years of my incarceration. Also, it does not include any title I did not read in its entirety, simply because listing such would be disingenuous. To appease curiosity and, perhaps, to show off a little, here is my imperfect list. Thanks for the inspiration, Art.
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Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe • Life, the Universe, and Everything • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish • Mostly Harmless
Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Tariq Ali, Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties
Dante Alighieri (Elio Zappulla, translator), The Inferno: A New Verse Translation
Isaac Asimov, It's Been a Good Life
Andrew Behrman, Electroboy
John Biguenet, The Torturer's Apprentice
David Blaine, Mysterious Stranger: A Book of Magic
David Bodanis, Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Arthur Bradford, Dogwalker
Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group
Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Malcolm Bull, The Mirror of the Gods: How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors • Dry • Sellevision
James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
George Carlin, Brain Droppings • Napalm and Silly Putty
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Dan Chaon, Among the Missing
Clay McLeod Chapman, Rest Area
Susannah Clark, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama • 2001: A Space Odyssey • 2010 • 2061 • Imperial Earth • The Fountains of Paradise
Billy Collins, Nine Horses: Poems
Eddy Joe Cotton, Hobo: A Young Man's Thoughts on Trains and Tramping in America
Jim Crotty, How to Talk American
Deborah Curtis, Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Revolutions
Cathy Day, The Circus in Winter
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Phillip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said • VALIS • Counter-Clock World • The Man Who Japed • The Zap Gun
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground • Crime and Punishment
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo • The Three Musketeers
Umberto Eco, Baudolino
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Stefan Fatsis, Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players
David Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and The Daring Quest to Live Forever
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera • One Hundred Years of Solitude
Martin Gardner, Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries?
Mary Ladd Gavell, I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly
William Gibson, Neuromancer • Idoru • Mona Lisa Overdrive • Pattern Recognition • Spook Country
Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking • The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Stephen Jay Gould, I Have Landed
Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
John Gribbin, The Birth of Time:How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe
Richard Hack, Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos, and Letters
Daniel Hall, Under Sleep (poetry)
M. John Harris, Light
Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time • The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe
Robert Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon • A Door into Summer • Friday
Ernest Hemmingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Frank Herbert, Dune • Dune Messiah • Children of Dune
John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America
Franz Kafka, The Trial • The Castle
A.L. Kennedy, Original Bliss
Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
Rudyard Kipling, Kim
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Dennis Lehane, Coronado
Jimmy Lerner, You Got Nothing Coming: Notes from a Prison Fish
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Matthew Lewis, The Monk
Russ Madison, Chapter 11
Roger McDonald, Mr. Darwin's Shooter
James McKean, Quattrocentro
Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do
Cornelius Medvei, Mr. Thundermug
China Miéville, The Scar
Adrienne Miller (editor), Esquire's Big Book of Fiction
Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
Haruki Murakami, After the Quake • Kafka on the Shore
Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind
Anaïs Nin, Henry & June
Wendy Northcutt, The Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action
The Onion, Our Dumb Century • Finest News Reporting
Susan Orlean and Robert Atwan (editors), The Best American Essays, 2005
George Orwell, 1984 • Animal Farm
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club • Lullaby • Choke • Rant
Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Michael Paterniti, Driving Mister Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Terry Pratchett, The Thief of Time • The Fifth Elephant • Night Watch
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
Harvey Rachlin, Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Trust Us, We're Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with your Future
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead • Atlas Shrugged • Anthem
Fredrick Reuss, The Wasties
Richard Restak, MD, The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety Is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love
Yasmina Reza, Desolation
C.S. Richardson, The End of the Alphabet
Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
Phillip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint • Goodbye, Columbus
Davy Rothbart, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Salman Rushdie, Fury • The Moor's Last Sigh • Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 • The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Marquis de Sade, Justine
Carl Sagan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are (with Ann Druyan) • Contact • Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, Actual Innocence: Five Days to Executin and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted
Nina Shandler, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus,
Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things
Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man
K.M. Soehnlein, You Can Say You Knew Me When
Dana Spiota, Lightning Field
John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Lesley Stern, The Smoking Book
Mark Strand, A Blizzard of One (poetry)
Darin Strauss, Chang and Eng
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit • The Lord of the Rings
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero-Tolerance Approach to the English Language
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court • The Diaries of Adam and Eve
Jules Verne, Mysterious Island • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle • Slaughterhouse-Five
Brad Watson, Last Days of the Dog-Men
H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds • The Time Machine
Elie Wiesel, And the Sea Is Never Full • Night
Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature • Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Mark Winegardner, That's True of Everybody
Richard Wolfson, Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified
