I love reading and this year I have resolved to do less aimless internet surfing and more reading. This has gone very well so far and I have managed to read 36 books since the start of the year. However I am very well aware that none of those books are classics or classified as even remotely challenging. Like most readers I have a hard pile. A pile of classics and other books which sit and look at me and make me feel guilty about reading something more lightweight. Now I am back in slightly better habits I am working on the hard pile.

The rules of the hard pile are:

1. The book is complicated, the ideas and language are more difficult than the average pulp fantasy novel e.g. anything pre-twentieth century.

2. The language and are ideas are easier but are emotionally or intellectually challenging – such that when I get home from a long day at work I don’t feel I want to tackle them e.g. anything with sustained emotional violence or prison rape.

3. The genre of the book isn’t something I usually read – meaning that it is far less appealing to me than my usual SF/fantasy/detective fiction. Several popular novels fall into this category but I do want to read them because I like to have a foothold in general pop culture. I think it is important to understand some of the themes and trends of the time I am living in.

So my current hard list:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love in the Time of Cholera

Toni Morrison – Beloved

Guy Deutscher – the Unfolding of Language

Zoe Heller – Notes on a Scandal

Franz Kafka – Contemplation

Rousseau – Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Leonardo Padura – Havana Red

Donna Tartt – The Secret History

Lily Hyde – Dreamland

Gaston Leroux – The Phantom of the Opera

Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment

So to the reading pile, lets try and cross all these off by this time next year!