a ridiculous raw youth: "Volumes to Go Before You Die"

As a warning, this post might be unsafe for work environments

Recently, the New York Times reviewed an book titled 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and the author of the article basically made the point at what a skewed, biased book this is, a parlour game for snotty pseudo-intellectuals to see who can come up with the most obscure classic. It's a coffee-table book to set up literary based arguements for English majors who don't do anything but sit at home and read books and need an outlet to express their superiority.

Being a snotty pseudo-intellectual, I immediately checked the book out from the library and counted to see how many books on the list I had read. The reviewer estimated that he had read 303 titles, which I totally thought I could beat, seeing as how I average about three books a week.

Unfortunately, I was schooled. Schooled hard. After making checkmarks in the index, I realized that I have only read 212 of the 1001 books I need to read before I die. That's a measly 21%.

Fortunately, my current crop of books covering the naughty bits of hot guys include five books on the list, so at least I'm on the right track. I had started all of them before I found the article, and the sixth is non-fiction.

Now if 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die had been made my way, using mostly naked men, there's a coffee table book I would actually buy.

War and Peace by Tolstoy, trans Bromfield