[summer reading list 2012]

Greetings, fellow book lovers!
I am taking a break from my regularly scheduled programming to give you my projected summer reading list for Summer 2012.
I say projected because as every reader knows, it's entirely too easy to be distracted from a book...by another book.
Anyway, I have dubbed this my Summer of Classics (and other books I own).
Why?
Because now that I have been out of school for a year, I am going to truly put my Bachelor's Degree in English to good use!
And because I have a myriad of book on my Kindle that are just begging to be read.
And because the top two shelves of my living room bookshelf are full of some incredibly beautiful books (some vintage and/or first editions) that have been calling my name for a long time now.

Of course, this is going to be difficult for me.
Not because I don't want to read the classics and other old books.
But because this basically prohibits me from making trips to the library for books.
I'll still allow myself to check out movies.
But not books.
An entire summer not checking out library books?
After working at a library for the past four (five?) summers...this will be challenging.
But I own so many good books.
That's why I am making myself do this. 

Before I begin reading all my old books, however, I have two newer books to read and review.
I have been waiting to read these for awhile now.
One is The Fault in Our Stars; the other Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
And then I shall continue to read Vanity Fair, which I started in...January.... (To be fair, it's on my Kindle, and when I went to the library, I completely forgot I was reading it. Oops. Such an excellent story, though!)

So, without further ado, I present my projected reading list for summer 2012.
(I'm not going to number this list because I'm sure I won't read them in the order I list them.)

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Summer of Classics (and other books I own) 2012

• Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (This is a re-read; may wait till closer to December.)
• House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
• Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
• Anthony Adverse, by Hervey Allen
• Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
• From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne
• Now or Never or, The Adventures of Bobby Bright, by Oliver Optic
• Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
• The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
• Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero, by Henryk Sienkiewicz
• Ulysses, by James Joyce (Okay, this is more wishful thinking, because I have tried reading this before and just couldn't get into it....but I am so willing to try again!)
• The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan
• Utopia, by Thomas More
• History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding
• Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte
• Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
• The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe

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There you have it.
Perhaps a rather long list, since most of the above are very long books.
But just because I don't make it through my planned reads doesn't mean I can't read them later!
And I'm sure I will end up reading a few newer books somewhere during the summer.
It's just what I do.
Not to mention I still have that nonfiction book (The German Genius) I keep forgetting about.

If anyone has any suggestions to add to my reading list, please comment!