Twenty-Five Good Books

and the joy of lists

I WISH we were chatting face-to-face rather than connecting over a digital network, because then I would be able to detect any flicker of fear in your eyes when I tell you that for twenty-five years I have kept a list of every book I have read.

When the new millennium dawned it seemed like a moment of some significance, so my way of marking it was to start jotting down the name of every book that I read from cover to cover (no skimming, no bailing out half way through) with effect from 1st January 2000¹. My first entry was A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I had previously read my mother’s copy of The World According to Garp, and The Hotel New Hampshire which my husband bought me when we started dating, so I knew Irving was good. A Prayer for Owen Meany was a very worthy start to my twenty-first century literary odyssey, but no bellwether for the type of books to come, which ranged widely in quality and subject matter. We are only part-way through the twenty-fifth year of this exercise, but by the time this article is ready for publication I hope to have a suitable book I can select from this year’s batch to finish the job.