A Reading Soundtrack

In a reflective mood tonight. Just thinking about several things, not all of them bad, but they are rather heavy thoughts. Thought about making a sort of "personal" soundtrack, something full of music that would speak to my particular mood (or perhaps moods is better, since it's not a dominant thought or feeling I've been having lately), before realizing that while such music soundtracks are commonplace, I hadn't done a reading version. Why not post a list of books that I would consider reading when certain moods are upon me? Why not let some try to apply some sort of Rorschach Test to this and see what they make out of it? Why not encourage others to create similar lists, to see what is chosen?

Below are 32 books, not necessarily my all-time favorites, that I would like to think reflect part of me and how I relate to the world. As for a music soundtrack? Well...it'd include at least two Bob Dylan songs, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and "Every Grain of Sand." Oh, and Joan Manuel Serrat's adaptation of Antonio Machado's poetry, "Cantares." Now for the reading soundtrack list, in no particular order:

Stendhal, The Red and the Black

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony

Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell

Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad

Roberto Bolaño, 2666

Ernesto Sabato, El túnel

Antonio Machado, Poémas

Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph

Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Rumi, The Essential Rumi

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

Jack Keroac, On the Road

Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

F. Scott FitzGerald, Tender is the Night

Sinclair Lewis, Main Street

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

Allen Ginsberg, "Howl"

William Thackerey, Vanity Fair


Now I have some more reading to do before I attempt sleep. This past week's reading list will be up in the early afternoon, along with some more book porn and a few other things, either later today or by Tuesday.