In June I listened to Andy Miller read his book The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life. It was excellent! As you may know from some of my Weekend Thoughts posts, I’m a big fan of the Backlisted podcast, where Miller and John Mitchinson talk with guests about books, particularly the old ones. They’ve influenced my thinking about books over the past several years, in a good way, and this book was a wonderful continuation of that. Miller’s book is about his “list of betterment,” a list of books he he set down to read at a time when finishing a book — which, he says astutely, is a skill to be honed and practiced — was difficult. These were books he’d always intended to read; indeed, they were books he often pretended to have read. It’s an exceptional book because it is about the books as well as about the effect they had over that year of his life. I strongly recommend picking it up, or, even better, because Miller does such a good job narrating it himself, get his audiobook.
I got to thinking, what would my own list of betterment look like. What fifty books have I been meaning to read, that have already kind of become a part of my life, but that I keep putting off to save them in some misguided form of reverence? It was a lot of fun to sort through these and put together this list. I actually ended up putting a few books on here that I have read in the past, but that I don’t remember well enough to feel I have read them — To the Lighthouse, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, A Heart So White, and The Master; I think about them often and call them favorites, but in all honesty I don’t remember them well at all. Many others I have picked up and started reading at one time or another in my life, but they remained unfinished or even just sat unstarted on my nightstand for a month or two or more before finally finding their way back to the bookshelf. I look forward to having a named goal — List of Betterment, I like it! — and hope it will continue to inspire me to take the time to sit and read.
Reading these in 2021 is not a goal I have; I am confident this will take me some time, and if I were to make it my goal I’d just get behind and give up. I’d like to pick at this list in between other projects and whims, but pick through it I will do. I’ve already started The Folded Leaf.
Anyway, here is the list I came up with, in order of original publication date. What, if you’ll share, would be on your list?
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë
- Villette, by Charlotte Brontë
- The Warden, by Anthony Trollope
- The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
- Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
- Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
- The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, by Joaquim Machado de Assis
- La Regenta, by Leopolda Alas
- The Illustrious House of Ramires, by Eça de Queiroz
- Customs of the Country, by Edith Wharton
- Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust
- The Professor’s House, by Willa Cather
- To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
- South Riding, by Winifred Holtby
- Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
- Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
- The Robber Bridegroom, by Eudora Welty
- The Folded Leaf, by William Maxwell
- I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
- Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym
- Wise Blood, by Flannery O’Connor
- The Bell, by Iris Murdoch
- Memento Mori, by Muriel Spark
- Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
- Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, by May Sarton
- A Long Way from Verona, by Jane Gardam
- If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
- Correction, by Thomas Bernhard
- Song of Solomon, by Toni Morison
- Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy
- Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess
- The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
- Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner
- The Messiah of Stockholm, by Cynthia Ozick
- Libra, by Don DeLillo
- A Heart So White, by Javier Marías
- The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields
- Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon
- The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño
- Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald
- The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor
- Servants of the Map, by Andrea Barrett
- The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
- The Wizard and the Crow, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
- The Master, by Colm Tóibín
- The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
- The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich
- The Barley Patch, by Gerald Murnane
Trevor,
Thanks for the awesome list. Was wondering why you picked “Mason & Dickson” for Thomas Pynchon instead of “V” or “Gravity’s Rainbow” except that M & D tie in with actual American history rather than England almost invaded by Germany in World War II. You always remind us of the classics. Writing of favorite best books I am almost halfway through Madhuri Vijay’s “The Far Field” published in 2019. It makes me think of Charles Dickens, the protagonist, Shalini’s mother though modern, evolving into an old Miss Havisham had she lived long enough. There is a gentle tender sensitivity in this novel more usual in Charles Dicken’s best characters juxtaposed again the mental and physical cruelty of terrorism, war and poverty when there was just the cruel poverty of Dicken’s 19th century London. We should maybe read more optimistic longer view betterment novels like those on your list. Thanks again for this awesome list!
A great list, Trevor! I recommend James, Dickens, and Woolf so very highly! Many other names call to me.
W.G. Sebald is just very, very challenging. Wikipedia mentions that in his youth, “Sebald was shown images of the Holocaust while at school in Oberstdorf and recalled that no one knew how to explain what they had just seen. The Holocaust and post-war Germany are central themes in his work.”
I read “The Emigrants” some time ago. I noticed that he uses photographs that are misunderstood in the novel, but the level of misunderstanding is profound, such that if I had not actually seen “Gingkakuji” myself – I might not have gotten the lie built into the narrative. “Lies”, in the plural, (plus authorial misleading) I should say. Don’t know about Austerlitz.
I recommend Bolano’s 2666. There are echoes of Sebald, I think., regarding truth and memory, but also a fierce investigation into violence and government.
Thanks Larry and Betsy! It is so nice to see you both here! I look forward to the new year and hope we are all in touch throughout!
Larry, you ask why I chose Mason & Dixon for Pynchon. It is mainly due to my interest in the material. I have not read Pynchon and so I chose one that appeals to me for reasons other than “by Pynchon.” I hope I like it! Let me know how you end up feeling about The Far Field!
And Betsy, certainly one of my other goals is to get back on track with Munro. We have only a few of her books left! I have read several books by James, Dickens, and Woolf, including To the Lighthouse itself, but I feel a strong desire to get back to them! I have also begun Great Expectations (one I’ve started a few times in the past) and I’m enjoying it so much this time around. I do love Sebad, and The Emigrants, though I don’t remember it well enough right now to comment on the photographs. I’d love to get your thoughts on this! As for 2666, it’s one I’ve read twice now! An important work and one of the few books of that size that I’m sure I’ll read again in the next few years.
I hope the New Year is starting out well for you both!
Trevor,
The New Year is good for picking out the books one wants to be reading based on what looks the most promising. Hope you like Thomas Pynchon’s “Mason & Dixon”. I just finished, “The Far Field” and I have mixed feelings about it. Madhuri Vijay’s characters are so real and endearing and I found myself caring a lot about them and (not always allowed) I wanted so much for everything to turn out okay. But in a once heavenly place like Kashmir good intentions give way to cruel unchangeable harsh realities. And betterment of any sort seems impossible. But I am glad to have met the people of this novel. Sometimes things just can’t go the way want them to. But fictional characters can remind a reader of people similar yet different they might have met in real life. I would definitely recommend this novel as a compelling fictional learning experience. But since it concerns Kashmir it is a bit of a huge heartbreaker. So I can see how reading “Mason & Dixon” might be a better choice in the reading for betterment department.
Larry
Thanks for returning and letting me know, Larry!
Interesting to see the Bronte’s represented by relatively less read choices rather than Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I’d probably put some short story collections in there, myself but “Great Books” is often a category which assumes novels. In that category, I might but the canonical Isaac Bachevis Singer and Chekhov but also Denis Johnson, Mary Gaitskill and Julie Hecht.
There really wasn’t a desire for representation of the Brontë so much as a desire to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (I’ve already read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights a few times so no need to go back to them for this list).
But you’re right that I probably should have included a few collections of short stories here. I didn’t on purpose, but it’s not a decision I’m confident was correct! The good news is that I do not intend for my reading to be exclusively from this list until it is done. I’ll keep dipping into the collections. Which reminds me that I need to do more Singer and Chekov. I have several of their books, saved for “that day”!