Getting Anal About Books

When I nipped into my email account yesterday, waiting for me was a message from my old mucker, Madam Miaow. In it, she challenged me to have a go at the sort of literary atrocities her and brother Splinters have been inflicting on leftyblogland. As the comrade puts it:

The challenge: to tell the story of the tragic demise of the Respect party through satire and vulgar abuse of the literary classics or whichever other cultural medium floats your boat.

As much as I'd like to participate, I'm afraid I'm far from qualified to do so. Whereas some comrades are deeply steeped in literature and verse, I couldn't begin to tell the difference between an iambic pentameter and a haiku. In short, I am too much of a Philistine.

That said, I have been endeavouring to affect the appearance of a cultivated literary type. Nearly five years ago, I started reading genres beyond my then usual staple of sci-fi and academic works. I even joined a book group run out of the local library, where we consumed such classics as Great Expectations, Crime and Punishment, The Old Wives Tale, etc. So, keen to see how my progress from a canonical point of view was going, I recently picked up 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Leaving aside the arbitrary and problematic nature of producing a canon, this at least was compiled by figures heavily involved in the literary field. There are some dodgy entries (Ardal O'Hanlon, anyone?) but at least there isn't any Jeffrey Archer. You can see the entire list here.

I'm partly satisfied to learn I've worked my way through 111 of the books, so still some way to go before I can effortlessly perform any kind of literary atrocity. How many have you read? If you want to retain your modesty or are ashamed, the comments box is open to anonymous contributions ...