Tafadhali's 75 Book Challenge (2008)

So far this year (not counting books I've read twice this year, of which, thanks to school, there are too many) (starred books were for school):

1) Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
2) Good-bye, Stacy, Good-bye by Ann M. Martin
3) Going All the Way by Sharon Thompson
4) Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets *
5) It's a Bird... by Steven Seagle *
6) The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman *
7) Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets *
8) The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill *
9) The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
10) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams *
11) A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
12) Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald *
13) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller *
14) The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
15) Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud *
16) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee *
17) Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy *
18) Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet *
19) Fefu and Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes *
20) Torso by Brian Michael Bendis *
21) Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson *
22) Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard *
23) Golden Child by David Henry Hwang *
24) Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine *
25) Fun Home by Alison Bechdel *
26) Angels in America by Tony Kushner *
27) The Strange World of Quantum Mechanics by Dan Styer *
28) Q.E.D. by Richard Feynman
29) Tracking King Kong by Cynthia Erb
30) A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz
31) The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey by Trenton Lee Stewart

Cat's Cradle is an amazing book. Since then, I have read three more by Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird, Bluebeard and Player Piano. kurt Vonnegut is the modern George Orwell

32) Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert
33) The Fug Awards by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
34) The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss
35) Le roi se meurt by Eugene Ionesco
36) Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
37) Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
38) The Best Old Movies for Families by Ty Burr
39) The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein
40) My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
41) Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
42) All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison
43) Misfortune by Wesley Stace

44) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (oh god oh god I wish I were dead)
45) Watchmen by Alan Moore

46) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
47) Look Back in Anger by John Osborne *
48) Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare *
49) Saved by Edward Bond *
50) Blasted by Sarah Kane *
51) The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh

52) Some Explicit Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill *
53) Betrayal by Harold Pinter *
54) The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard *
55) The History Boys by Alan Bennett *
56) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare *

What did you think of Saved? I had to read that at university many years ago and found it very disturbing, but still very relevant today (in reference to the crime part).

I saw a production of The Pillowman a few years ago and thought it was brilliant, although again rather bleak.

Saved was not my favorite of the many bleak, disturbing British plays I've read recently, but I found it very interesting, and, though I thought Bond went in a bit too much for shock value, thought it did say some interesting things about crime and violence. I wrote a paper on its presentation of violence compared/contrasted with violence in Blasted (another very, very disturbing play) and it really increased my appreciation of the play.

57) Endgame by Samuel Beckett *
58) No Man's Land by Harold Pinter *
59) Tinker Belles and Evil Queens by Sean Griffin
60) Top Girls by Caryl Churchill *
61) The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg
62) Arcadia by Tom Stoppard *
63) The Wages of Sin by Lea Jacobs *
64) Fadeout by Joseph Hansen

65) A Number by Caryl Churchill *
66) Translations by Brian Friel *
67) My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan (or, apparently, Cathy Small)
68) The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh *
69) French Film Guides: La Haine by Ginette Vincendeau
70) King Lear by William Shakespeare *
71) Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg
72) The Tempest by William Shakespeare
73) Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
74) The Truth About the Irish by Terry Eagleton

Number 75, finally! And with just a few days to spare...

75) L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

Congratulations on reaching 75 books!
--BJ

76) Sammy Keyes and the Cold Hard Cash by Wendelin Van Draanen (a very different sort of mystery from the last)
77) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (and another sort all together from both the two preceding)