First Past the Post...

Hey All,

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you may know what I’m up to here. In a nutshell:

I asked people, on Facebook only, to recommend one book for me to read. I plan to read those books within one year, beginning on October 1st, 2010. This blog is about my thoughts on those books, as I read them. And maybe after I read them, too. It’s also a place where I plan to work on my writing, which, in the last while, has gone down the corporate drain. Mostly because I work in a corporate environment.

Here is the list of books I will read over the next year (and the person who recommended it to me):

1. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay (Debbie Murphy)
2. Linchpin by Seth Godin (Kim Gardner)
3. Orange Crush by Tim Dorsey (Dan Pelosi)
4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Sasha Kumar)
5. Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahnuik (Katelyn Foster)
6. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Keltie Neville)
7. Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (Jocelyn McEachern)
8. Josephine B. Trilogy by Sandra Gulland (Erica Zeman)
9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (Kristine Sorrento-Evans)
10. The Cave by Jose Saramago (Ines Ortiz)
11. Beautiful Boy by David Sheff (Nicole Callahan)
12. Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (Okame Musume)
13. Stroll by Shawn Micallef (Kris Williamson)
14. Songbook by Nick Hornby (Andrew Eaton)
15. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Amy Bea)
16. Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh (Teena May Smith)
17. Still Alice by Lisa Genova (Aaron Stewart)
18. The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Marukami (Mark Van De Ven)
19. The Englishman’s Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe (Chaz Sullivan)
20. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (Scott Harmer)
21. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk (Graham Dalseg)
22. The Stranger by Albert Camus (Danny Gorman)
23. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Chris Roy)
24. The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (Philip Wilson)
25. ‎Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Martina Smith)
26. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (Tim O’Connor)
27. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (Mariona Blanch)
28. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (Curtis Maloley)
29. Night by Elie Wiesel (Shauntel Jaclyn-Ann Daley)
30. The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot (Robyn Nepean)

I do not yet have a methodology to the order in which I will read them, but I know two things:

1. I am starting with the Alchemist, at the behest of Sasha Kumar.

2. I will alternate between heady, heavy works of fiction based on Keltie Neville`s belief that “all good works of fiction are depressing“.

Also, if any of you who have made a recommendation (or anyone else, for that matter) have these books and want to lend them to me, please feel free. I will buy you a coffee (or make you one in my home) in exchange for the book.

-Bryan