The Lemon Fool

I saw this list in my local library. It was probably meant as a series of new year resolutions but I thought it was worth sharing.

A book published this year
A book you can finish in a day
A book you’ve been meaning to read
A book recommended by your librarian or bookseller
A book you should have read at school
A book recommended by your spouse, partner, sibling, child or best friend
A book published before you were born
A book banned at some point
A book you previously abandoned
A book you own but have never read
A book that intimidates you
A book that you’ve already read at least once

Cinelli

Doesn't a list like that make reading into a chore?

I wonder if we could think of a few more:
- a foreign-language classic[1]
- a foreign-language modern work[1]
- a work beloved of the chattering classes (eg a booker prize winner)
- a work sniffed at by ditto (like fifty shades of grey)
- a work so controversial it carries risks if you're seen with it in the wrong place[2]
- a work known/reputed to be seriously challenging (like Finnegans Wake)

[1] In translation if necessary.
[2] Excluding the playground, where being seen with any book could be a risk.

Picking one out at random -
A book you can finish in a day
I highly recommend 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' - R.L. Stevenson 1886- a book that everyone 'knows' but few (?) seem to have read. It's surprisingly short, and a very good read.

Old man and the Sea - Hemingway.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922).
And I second DiamondEcho's rec of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

Jack's Return Home - Ted Lewis

Monte Walsh - Jack Schaefer

Steinbeck 'Of Mice and Men'

Dod

Indeed Dod10 - and Steinbeck's shorter Tortilla Flat