Too Much Time on my Hands

      I've realized that I'll never have so much free time again.  I can think of no better way to spend the dwindling days of my time in high school than to read a bunch of books.  During the first week of last month (March 2012) I decided to begin reading each of Time's Top 100 Novels.  This list includes what the magazine's book critics, Lev Grossman and Richard Lecayo, consider to be the best and most important pieces of fiction since Time Magazine began in 1923.  At first I planned to finish the list by the end of the school year.  Unfortunately this dream was dashed quickly when I realized that 100 books is likely more than I've read in my lifetime. 
http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/#all

      Before last month I had read 8 of the 100 books.  Most of these were read in English class but a few (Blood Meridian and A Clockwork Orange) were just for fun.  These eight books, which I may or may not reread for this blog, are as follows:

1. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (4th Grade, 2004)
2. Watchmen - Alan Moore  (Summer, 2008)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (9th Grade, 2009)
4. Animal Farm - George Orwell (9th Grade, 2009)
5. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (Summer, 2009)
6. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (10th Grade, 2010)
7. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (10th Grade, 2010)
8. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (Summer, 2010)

     Since I officially began my attempt at the list I have finished ten more books.  I will dedicate entries to each of these. Since March I have read:

    9.  The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen (March 2012)
   10. Light in August - William Faulkner (March 2012)
   11. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway (March 2012)
   12. Play it as it Lays - Joan Didion (March 2012)
   13. Portnoy's Complaint - Phillip Roth (April 2012)
   14. Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin (April 2012)
   15. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (April 2012)
   16. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (April 2012)
   17. Falconer - John Cheever (April 2012)
   18. Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov (April 2012)
 
   My 19th selection from the list is Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road. I will do my best to post entries on the first 9 books before I finish number 10.  I think undertakings like this are the kind Drake and Lil Wayne had in mind when they said YOLO.  With the words of those two legends in my mind I go forward in my quest.  Foolhardy as it may seem I'm more than motivated to read 82 more books, whether I finish by the year's end or not.