Reassessing the List

Sean,

per our conversation about the future of the List, I think you're right. I don't feel comfortable advocating books for inclusion in advance of having read them, even with the 'classics' (although those are usually a safe bet). From a practical standpoint, I think it is necessary to have A list, if only to have a guide of books to read each year, but that doesn't have to be synonymous with THE List. Hopefully, this will allow us to read potential List books, but I think I've found more books I want on the List from my random selections than those we had originally planned to include.

One such example of this is the book I'm currently reading, Reinventing Knowledge. I highly recommend we include it in the List, as it is essentially a history of the List; specifically, the making and preservation of the Western Canon. I'm only halfway through, but definitely imppressed; in addition to the subject matter, it's well-researched, and (to me) even more importantly, well-written. It's a thick little book - 275 pages with only six chapters and a conclusion, but I honestly have a hard time putting it down. If I wasn't stealing time to read right before bed (and losing sleep because of it), I'd have finished the book already.

I'll write a more through review of Reinventing Knowledge later, after I finish it, but it's the type of book I want us to include on the List. And I discovered it the way we probably will most List books - by trolling the history section of my library. I added it to my personal reading list only because I thought it would be interesting reading for a project on knowledge management I'm doing at work. At the time, I was looking for Boorstin's The Creators, another in his series with The Discoverers, which was recommended by many for the List. I think I've told you, but if not, The Discoverers bored me to tears. I could not make myself read it, and I am definitely a completionist when it comes to reading! The Creators is still tentatively on the List plan for this year, but I don't expect it to make the final cut.

I have to dig out my reading list from last year since it has my final notes, but I think that I'll continue this year much the same as I did the previous one - reading anything that catches my fancy, and trying to include as much of the List's planned entries as possible. At the end of this year, since it will mark the end of the first 'era' of the List, you and I should sit down and review 10-30 books for inclusion in years 1&2 (I am counting them as a unit, so averaging 15 books a year, not 60 total). In the mean time, this is what I'm reading:

Reading 2009

Non-Fiction
Trivium- Joseph
Royal Nonesuch- Phillips
Ideas that Conquered the World
Discover Your Inner Economist
Fifth Discipline- Peter M. Senge
Future and Its Enemies- Postrel
Cyberprotest- Dahlgren
Reckless Mind- Lilla
Living High and Letting Die
Always On – Baron
Future Imperfect – David Friedman
Distracted – Jackson
Cognitive Diversity – Scott Page
Inventing Human Rights - Lynn Hunt
Crowd-Sourcing
This Is Your Brain on Music
Reinventing Knowledge
Farewell to Alms
Bottom Billion
Hackers and Painters

Fiction
At Swim-Two-Birds
Bangkok 8
Evidence of Things Unseen- Wiggins
Devil Wears Prada
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
Middlesex
Acts of Faith- Caputo
27th City- Franzen
Passage
Last Cavalier- Dumas, trans. Lauren Yoder (carry over from last year's reading)
Carry On, Jeeves

The List (potentially)
A Brief History of Time
A Little History of the World - Gombrich
A World History - McNeill
An Urchin in the Storm
Art of the Novel- Milan Kundera
Big History
Biography: A Brief History- Nigel Hamilton (carry over from last year)
But Is It Art? – Freeland
Clan of the Cave Bear
Critical Mass – Ball
Curtain: Essay in Seven Parts- Milan Kundera, trans. Linda Asher
Golden Bough
History of God
How to Read a Book - Adler
How to Read and Why - Bloom
I Have Landed Introducing Aesthetics – Kul-Want
Perennial Philosophy – Huxley
Power of MythReligions of Man
Six Great Ideas – Adler
Story of Us Humans
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
The Creators
The Overflowing Brain
The Rhetoric of Fiction
The Stuff of Thought
Varieties of Religious Experiences
Walking on Water- Jensen
What Good Are the Arts?- John Carey
Your Inner Fish

Other/Additional (as in, will/*should* be the last to be read)
One Economics, Many Recipes - Rodrik
Origins: A Memoir - Amin Maalouf
Ethical Shopping - Young and Welford
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism - Baumol
Not Buying It
Letters to a Young Activist
Bad Modernisms- Mao and Walkowitz
Peasants, Traders and WivesAnthropology, Development, and the Post-Modern Challenge- Gardner and Lewis
Plowshares and Pork Barrels- Pasour
I Write What I Like- Biko
Africa Unchained
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
When Things Fell Apart - Robert H. Bates
On Being Certain
After War
Love the Work, Hate the Job - David Kusnet
Enterprise 2.0
Momentum
Everything Is Miscellaneous
Groundswell
Fear and Trembling - Kirkegaard
Wikinomics

An Introduction

Hi, all, and welcome to The List.

My name is Sean and I live in China. So as I noted in the other half of the The Awesomeosity Project (TAP)—Blogworthy, if you are ever reading an entry where I seem like I’m not trading in the same cultural currency you are, then it’s because I’m not.

For me, The List is an especially bold undertaking, since I’m going to have a hell of a time getting the books I need for it—reading material on-demand in China is out of the question at this point, so I have to rely on a planned trip home in May, meaning that I’ll be far behind on the novels. In the meantime, I’ve started tackling the only fiction that’s on The List for Year 1: Tolstoy’s War & Peace, so you can expect some posts on that soon, and Mariel has been generously sending me the essays as she obtains them, so I can also keep up there.

In the meantime, for me, The List is not so much about a sense of accomplishment as it is about the absolute drive to know everything. Of course I don’t expect to obtain omniscience, but if you were to look at my Facebook profile under interests, you would find the intentionally ubiquitous word “everything.” And it’s true. So as far as my minor contributions to the literary content of The List goes (I’ll probably have a lot more to say once we start working out the Music and Movies part), I’m much more interested in literature that operates as a mirror of the human experience and a repository of collective knowledge and the simple necessities, such as The Odyssey. Music and Movies will also reflect that interest as well, I hope.

And that’s my biography pertaining to my participation here. I hope you all join in, and if you’d like to contribute, either to the blog or a view on some media that should be added to The List itself, please contact us at our addresses listed on the side.

I’ll post again by Tuesday with something resembling my Booklust 2008. ‘Til then, happy reading!

-S

Book Lust; Mariel's Version

Everything else I'm reading this year (for now)
* italicized denotes already read

Non-Fiction
The Bestiary - Nicholas Christopher
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language - Seth Lerer
Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote
Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt - Hornby
Songbook - Hornby
Super Crunchers - Ayres
Trivium - Joseph
Foreign Aid - Lancaster
Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humors - Noga Arikha
Inventing Human Rights - Lynn Hunt
Long Road Home - Martha Raddatz
Walking on Water - Jensen
Discover Your Inner Economist - Cowen
Logic of Life - Harford
Politics of Freedom
Tipping Point - Gladwell
Walking on Water - L’Engle

Fiction
Last Cavalier - Dumas, trans. Lauren Yoder
Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano, trans. Natasha Wimmer
Lost City Radio - Daniel Alarcon
Mr Sebastian and the Negro Magician - Daniel Wallace
Uncommon Reader - Bennett
Not Enough Indians - Harry Shearer
Q & A - Swarup
Slam - Hornby
Everything Is Illuminated

- M