Sunday Salon

Additions To My Library

1. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt (Recommended by Marginal Revolution.)


2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


3. The Decameron by G. Bocaccio


4. The Castle of Otranto by H. Walpole


5. Sex in History by R. Tannahill (Cited in I Don't by S. Squires)

Wow ... my book "bender" continues. And while certainly not as harmless as a real bender, I told my wife that I want to go to a "one to one" on reading to purchasing. That is, I can purchase a book for every book I own that I read in that week. That way, I will stop stockpiling books that I haven't read yet.

Finished Reading This Week

1. After Dark by Haruki Murakami (Japanese Lit. 2 Challenge)


2. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (What's In A Name Challenge)


3. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Japanese Lit. 2 Challenge)

Currently Reading

• The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Still reading ...


• Out by Natsuo Kirino. Reading it for the Japanese Lit. 2 Challenge

Challenges Update

I have also started the Man Booker Challenge (six Man Booker winners, short/long listed):

1. The Sea by John Bainville -- Winner 2005 (done)


2. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell -- Short List 2004 (done)


3. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes -- Short List 1984 (done)


4. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan -- Winner 1998 (done)


5. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood -- Winner 2000


6. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch -- Winner 1978

The Seconds Challenge (Read 4 books by authors that you have only read one other.)

I will pick from the following:

• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan


• Black Swan by Nassim Taleb


• Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton


• Number9Dream by David Mitchell


• The History of the World in 10 1/2 Books by J. Barnes


• Silk by A. Baricco


• Dearly Devoted Dexter by J. Lindsay


• Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde


• The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

The Japanese Lit Challenge 2

1. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Done)


2. After Dark by Haruki Murakami (Done)


3. Out by Natsuo Kirino (In progress.)