Sadly, I started reading Literature (short stories, novels and the like) when I was 14. I started out with The Perfect Storm for a book report, and I couldn’t explain how it became some sort of a reading frenzy. I just like reading books–it’s like living another life, feeling things I haven’t felt yet.
I’m not expecting myself to read a lot these years: as a BA Communication Arts student I don’t have much time in my hands to read novels–heck, we read a lot of handouts and discourses and shit, and my eyes sometimes hurt.
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2005
The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger
Over the Edge of the World, by Laurence Bergreen*
Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand***
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K Rowling
A Walk to Remember, by Nicholas Sparks
Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom
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2006
The Little Prince, by Antoine de-Saint Exupery
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho*
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K Rowling
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk(e-book)*
Politika, by Tom Clancy*
Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
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2007
The Good German, by Joseph Kanon
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D Salinger
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K Rowling
Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk
Flight of the Intruder, by Stephen Coonts*
Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown
The King of Torts, by John Grisham
Twisted 6, by Jessica Zafra
Deception Point, by Dan Brown
Nine Stories, by J.D Salinger*
Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K Rowling
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Sleepers, by Lorenzo Carcaterra
A Movable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway*
Brick, by Rian Johnson
The Winter of our Discontent, by John Steinbeck
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2008
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Franny and Zooey, by J.D Salinger
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Constant Gardener, by John Le Carre
Beautiful Boy, by David Sheff
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens*
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason*
Anything Goes, by Madison Smartt Bell*
After Dark, by Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
Friction, by E.R Frank
You are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett
Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
18 Best Short Stories, by Edgar Allan Poe*
Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami
Midnight All Day, by Hanif Kureishi
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
Harp, by John Gregory Dunne
Grammar for Dummies, by Geraldine Woods
Out-of-Print Publications, by J.D. Salinger*
Fear of Flying, by Erica Jong*
Speak, by Lauren Halse Anderson
Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
Animal Farm, by George Orwell*
Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger
Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk
Pissing in the Snow (and other Ozark Folktales), by Vance Randolph
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2009
Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff
This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
The English Patient, by Michael Oondatje
Veronika Decides to Die, by Paulo Coelho
Gigantic, by Marc Nesbitt
The Muse Asylum, by David Czuchlewski
Twisted 7, by Jessica Zafra
Peter, by Kate Walker
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In the Nighttime, by Mark Haddon
Anil’s Ghost, by Michael Oondatje
Lit Life, by Kurt Wenzel
An American Dream, by Norman Mailer
When You Are Engulfed In Flames, by David Sedaris*
Detour, by Lizzie Simon*
Othello, by William Shakespeare*
Catch, by Will Leitch
1995 Best American Short Stories
Vintage Amis, by Martin Amis
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
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2010
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Train Man, by Nakano Hitori*
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez*
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami*
The Woman Who Had Two Navels, by Nick Joaquin
Strange Pilgrims, by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
Be More Chill, by Ned Vizzini
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The World of the Short Story (Anthology), edited by Clifton Fadiman
Fiction (Anthology), edited by R.S. Gwynn
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Raise The Roof Beam High, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, by J.D. Salinger*
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen*
Looking for Alaska, by John Green
The Dark Hours, by Conchitina Cruz
Elsewhere Held and Lingered, by Conchitina Cruz
Killing Time In A Warm Place, by Jose Dalisay Jr.*
Atlantis, by Mark Doty
Zero Gravity, by Eric Gamalinda
* - unfinished
*** - tried to finish for three times yet I can’t see why I’m reading it, so I snapped it back to the bookshelf
I would always try to finish a book that I’ve started but recently, with all the fickle-mindedness I have been developing for the past few months, I tend to abandon those books and thought about reading them again at the “right time”. And when I read it when I feel like reading it, and not just forced or coerced by oftentimes irrational motives and reasons, that should be the “right time” to read the book.