Some candidates:

• Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. I got my first copy of this when I was about 12, at the annual public library book sale. I read it a few years later, and remember being amazed and baffled by it. It was pretty far over my head at the time, but made a deep impression on me. When Stewart and I put all our books on the shelf we found that we both had two copies of each of Hofstadter's books. Everybody I know loves this book. Not realistic, however. I only have two or three days of actual reading time, since I'll probably be busy either skiing or declining proffered fruitcakes.
• In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. Because I still haven't read it, and it always comes up whenever I compile a list of books I want to read. Before the Nielsen ratings, when people reported what they were watching, they were always watching Masterpiece Theatre and the Discovery channel. But after Mr. Nielsen plugged in the set-top boxes, it turned out that no one was watching costume dramas -- they were watching Teenage Mud Wrestling Bimbos Live! instead. Since this blog is entirely self-reported, my reading list will never include:
• Sex Lives of the Rich and Famous by Andrea Love. I went to my friend Lovisa's house for spring break from college one year, planning on reading the great Renaissance epic The Faerie Queene, but what we actually read, with much giggling, was a drugstore copy of Sex Lives of the Rich and Famous which someone had left in the guest room where I was staying. It probably left a more indelible mark on my memory than three thousand lines of Spenser's poetry.

LINK | 5:26 PM | TB

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