The beginning is the most important part of the work - Plato

Last night, in an attempt to quell my thoughts of deepest darkest despair regarding employment (or lack there of) my boyfriend asked me; if you could do anything in the world, what would you do? My answer was quite simply to sit in a quiet, cosy room filled with books, to be still, and to read. As Mark Twain once wrote; Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

Thus inspired by the film Julie and Julia (no I have not read the book, however you must remember I am a student of film as well as literature, so this is perfectly acceptable) I have decided to give myself a project to hopefully stop me from completely losing my mind.

In 2008 I went to the ‘Friends of the Library’ book sale in Warragul (Gippsland Victoria) and proceeded to fill a green bag with old and new books for a grand total of $7. While I have read some of these books, the majority have been sitting in a pile which has been added to as birthdays and Christmas’ have passed.


My goal

To complete the 21 books currently sitting in the pile before the next book sale which I believe will take place on Friday 5th November 2010. If any books happen to be added to the pile, through purchase or gift, those too must be read.

Currently there are 21 books to be finished and 281 days remaining.


The Books (in no particular order)

1. My Family and Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
2. Travels with my Aunt – Graham Greene
3. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
4. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
5. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
6. The Magic Pudding – Norman Lindsay
7. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
8. Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters – Jane Austen and Ben H Winters
9. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies – Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
10. Coastliners – Joanne Harris
11. Five Quarters of the Orange – Joanne Harris
12. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
13. The Tempest – Shakespeare
14. A Spot of Bother – Mark Haddon
15. Perfectly Correct – Philippa Gregory
16. Friend and Philosopher – Noel Braun
17. Dirt Music – Tim Winton
18. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Berniéres
19. An Equal Music – Vikram Seth
20. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
21. Peter Jackson a filmmakers journey – Brian Sibley