10 Books Update: Throwing in the Towel

So after 8 months and 2 and a half books, I am calling time on my 10 Books project for this year.  As much as it pains me to call it quits, I am absolutely swamped with varsity reading.  Last semester we did a novel a week plus secondary material and this semester is shaping up to be more of the same.  While I am sad to have less time to read for pure pleasure, I am enjoying the sheer variety of subjects covered by my courses.  

Last semester I did Writing Across Worlds which focused on writers who had left their country of origin either by choice or by force.  This displacement allows them a very unique double perspective on the world and one which is particularly interesting to read.  I enjoyed the course because it not only gave a name to a genre that I particularly enjoy (magical realism) but it also had a particular resonance with the goings on in my family (they are preparing to relocate to France).  This semester I am doing a course called Gender and Writing and although it's still early days, I can already appreciate the opinions and texts that it's exposing me to.  One thing that I can say is that early attitudes to woman are frighteningly ignorant and I am grateful for every inch of freedom that we have today even if things are not quite perfect yet.

Anyway, I haven't given up on my list entirely and I will still try and get through as much as I can before the end of the year.  I think I may have made a mistake when I chose to read Moby Dick third because I have battled to make progress with it.  I think the combination of complicated readings for varsity and a complicated reading for pleasure was not a good one.  Just to recap, here is what was on the list and what I managed to get through:

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
2. Moby Dick - Herman Mellville (Roughly halfway through)
3. Please Kill Me:  The Uncensored Oral History of Punk - Legs McNeil
4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
5. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
6. South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
7. More Baths, Less Talking - Nick Hornby The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
8. Less than Zero - Brett Easton Ellis
9. N.W. - Zadie Smith
10. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Who knows, maybe I will still finish these before the end of the year but I decided that the pressure to finish them just to write about them was not something that I need right now.  Now, on a lighter note, have any of you guys read anything new and awesome lately?