60 Books for 60 Years

What Is to Be Done?, as Nikolay Chernyshevsky wrote in his influential 1863 utopian novel, a response to Ivan Turgenev's novel, Fathers and Sons. Vladimir Lenin stole the title for his revolutionary pamphlet of 1902. I'm not thinking utopianism or revolution, I'm thinking about how to deal with the somber fact of turning 60 years of age - today, July 17! Or as Billy Bragg sang:

I don't want to change the world / I'm not looking for a new England / I'm just looking for another girl

Well, I'm not looking for another girl but I am looking for a few good books to read. That's a constant in my six decades - the satisfaction and pleasure of finding and completing a really good read. Alas, I'm not the world's fastest reader, so I've missed out on more than a few good reads. And now the hour is getting late! 

So, inspired by the ambitious reading projects of friends and fellow readers, plus Ian Brown's book, Sixty: A Diary of My Sixty-First Year, I embarked on a reading project at the start of the 2024. With 60 Books for 60 Years, my goal is to read a book published in each year of my life, starting with my birth year of 1964 and advancing up to 2024. I began with Saul Bellow's 1964 novel, Herzog, back in January. As of this birthday day writing, I've made it into the 1980s, plus a few out-of-sequence titles from later on.

These are books, mostly fiction, mostly novels, that I meant to read, should have read, bought and never read - critical faves, recommendations by friends and family, canonical tomes, worthy reads and so on. Books I missed for one reason or another that seem to deserve a second chance. In creating the list - which continues to evolve - I consulted many best-of lists and my own bookshelves! I added books I have read to the list, which has helped me understand what I've missed. Here's how the full list looks like, for the 1960s.

I've fallen behind in my reading (damn you, Midnight's Children!) but summer is for reading, am I right?