One down, forty-nine to go

Can I read fifty books this year? I'm not sure. I was going to shoot for a hundred but I think this should be more than plenty.

Let's set some ground rules:

1) They have to be started this year with the exception of the following three, which I've cracked but haven't made sufficient progress on: William James Biography, The World Without Us, and the collection of Mahfouz short stories. Other than those, I'm starting on chapter one.

2) Graphic novels do count but only as one book per month and they must be at least, say, 300 pages.

Some of my selections will be:
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy -- underway currently, I'm on about pg. 140)
East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Ravelstein, Dangling Man, Humboldt's Gift (Bellow)
Underground (Murakami)
Fortress of Solitude (Lethem)
Yiddish Policemen's Union (Chabon)
What is the What? (Eggers)
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
The New York Trilogy (Auster - I think this should count as three.)
All The King's Men (Warren)

I'll post pictures of the empties as I go. I'm proud to say the first of the year was the epic (for a comic book, anyhow: 500+ beautiful pages) Apollo's Song by Osamu Tezuka.