2017 Reading Resolutions

Hi everyone! Our 2016 thread about our reading resolutions was a fun way to make goals and check in to see how we were doing, so lets do it again!

What are your reading goals for 2017 concerning the 1001 books to read before you die list? Did your 2016 reading push you to try a different method or were you happy and just want to repeat your goal? Are you planning to list specific books to read? Reading off your overflowing shelves? Trying to knock out a certain author off the list? Focusing on a specific region represented on the list?

Share your expectations for 2017 here!

Still just gonna shoot for 20+, no specifics preplanned aside of the titles that are in my TBR Challenge list for the year.

I'd like to get through 52 books in 2017. I'm not working next year so I have lots of time for reading.
Goals:
* read the first 10 in the list ( have read 4)
* read the books I've already purchased this year but didn't get to
* read more from the new titles in the list.
* read from my list based on peoples reviews

I really enjoy this group and love reading everyones reviews. I am constantly writing down titles that people recommend so I want to get more of those books read in 2017.

My goal is to stay the course, and continue with my program of reading the books in perfect order, to always have the next one in hand, to polish off 20-25 books during the year, to rank at least one higher every time the Progress Index is updated, and to find a shortcut to my projected finish line of September 2059.

I have too many books on my TBR shelf (actually, shelves) so my goal this year is to read through things I already own rather than pursuing new things that sound interesting when you all recommend them. It would be wonderful go get down to a single TBR shelf, although (as I count the books) not really very likely. Also I hope to participate in group reads whenever I haven't read the book already.

I read far fewer books off of the list in 2016 than I intended to. In 2017 I'm going to try to get back to reading 25 books in the year. That's only about 30% of my reading in a typical year, so I really should be able to do it. To motivate myself I made a list of 25 books that I really want to read. Not sure how many of those I'll actually read, but I'm hoping it keeps me focused. I think in 2016 I tried to read too many books that I picked up at library sales (even if I wasn't excited about reading them) or ones that just happened to be available on audio at my library. Audio really isn't working for me personally, so that slowed me down.

Hopefully 2017 will be a successful and fun reading year!

Here's my list:
Love in Excess
Balzac, Cousin Bette?
The Charterhouse of Parma
Adam Bede
He Knew He Was Right
Zola, L'Assomoir
Bel-Ami by Maupassant
Jude the Obscure
Summer by Edith Wharton
Virginia Woolf
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
All Quiet on the Western Front
To the North
The Radetzky March
Tender is the Night
Summer Will Show
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Under the Net
The Dispossessed
House With the Blind Glass Windows
The Diary of Jane Somers
The Radiant Way
The book about Blanche and Marie
Cider With Rosie
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I aim to read a few more books off the list than this year (being a full-year participant should make i possible). My goal is 24 books (two per month) + at least one more volume of In Search of Lost Time.

The 24 should consist of at least:
1 before 1700 (currently I haven't read any)
3 by new authors with numerous books on the list (numerous = at least three)
Anniversary books originally published in
1817
1867
1917
1942
1967
1992

I usually do the anniversary thing each year and might as well combine it with list reading. (This year has been subpar, as I still haven't read books from 1966 and 1991)

japaul22
what? All of Virginia Woolf?

Don't want to be too pessimistic but that selection doesn't look too much "fun" to me. Hopefully the few I haven't read yet will be!

I only completed 12 books off the list last year which was a significant drop for me. Next year I would like to complete 20 with at least 10 of them being off my shelf.

Here are some that I plan to read:

Northanger Abbey
Silence
The Red Queen
Never Let Me Go
Invisible
The Sea
Suite Française
Anna Karenin
Beloved
The Trial

>8 arukiyomi: No, that list is basically just reminders, so it means "get to another Virginia Woolf". I've been trying to read all of them as she is a favorite of mine, but will only read one next year.

I tend to love the classics and women writers most which is why that list is heavy on them and also on other books by authors who I've already read and loved (Zola, Trollope, George Eliot, Wharton, Doris Lessing, etc.). I'm curious, though, about which ones specifically you read and didn't like since this is supposed to be a list that will get back my enjoyment of list books!

I think my 2017 resolutions are going to be essentially the same as last year:

1 book by Dickens
1 larger project (this year will be the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Mishima)
at least 35 list books

Like others, I will be trying to get to some of the authors with a number of books on the list, but I'm limited on selection so I just have to do what I can manage to find.

>5 annamorphic: Oh no, if I ever got down to only a single shelf of books to read I would be in a panic! My current "TBR shelf" is three BILLY bookcases plus a handful of squares in the EXPEDIT! Lol.

>6 japaul22: All Quiet on the Western Front is one of mine for this year also. :)

I'll plan to read 25 again this year.

These are my 'most books left' authors that I've never read (actually I've read 1 Coetzee), so I'll try to read at least three of them.

J.M. Coetzee - 9
Samuel Beckett - 8
Don DeLillo - 8
Paul Auster - 7
J.G. Ballard - 7
Saul Bellow - 7
D.H. Lawrence -7

I'll read one pre-1800's and a tome or two - starting with Les Miserables. And like everyone else, I'll try to read books already on my shelf!

The trouble with all these resolutions is I want the freedom to pick and choose and read on whim. :-)

>6 japaul22: >12 .Monkey.: I'll also try for All Quiet on the Western Front - which doesn't actually fit into a single one of my resolutions, so there we have it.

>14 streamsong: Hahaha. It's one I selected several mos back for my 2017 TBR Challenge :))

Oh Lord 7 Austers. That means I've got 4 left...

>14 streamsong:, >15 .Monkey.: maybe we can get it as a group read!

>9 Lynsey2: I've read all but one of these and you are in for a GREAT year of reading!

Even though I read more books in 2016 than I intended I am still going to stick to planning to read 10 from the combined lists. If I get to more then that's a bonus. At some point in 2017 I should make it to 250 books read so I will have to think about which one that will be. I am leaning to reading one of the Canadian books from the list that I haven't read yet since it is Canada's 150th birthday and I have already decided to read lots of books by Canadians this year.

>18 annamorphic: Thanks for the encouragement! Last year was a rough reading year for me so I am hoping for more 4 star reads. A few 5's would be great too. :) I did however meet my goal which was to read less! :)

I've read

Adam Bede
L'Assomoir
Bel-Ami
Jude the Obscure
(all but one) Virginia Woolf
All Quiet on the Western Front
To the North
Tender is the Night
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Under the Net
The Radiant Way
Cider With Rosie

none were real crackers except for All Quiet and some Woolf (To the Lighthouse and The Waves are suuuuuuperb but can be hard work if you're not ready for them)

Trollope is safe ground though I haven't read that particular one and L'Assomoir was pretty good.

Under the Net and Bel Ami I could not stand. The first almost killed my current love of Murdoch.

It will be really interesting to read your reviews though and see how you find each of these.

>21 arukiyomi: Thanks for the detailed reply!

I think I've probably read the best of Woolf. I've LOVED The Wave, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and Mrs. Dalloway, but was unimpressed with The Voyage Out and Jacob's Room. I want to complete hers, though, so on I go.

Maybe I'll skip Bel-Ami for now! And now I'm curious about Under the Net, because I really liked The Bell and The Sea, the Sea.

I'm going to try for 32 list books this year.... we'll see how that goes. That would put me at a nice round 350.

Some of the books I'll likely try to read are:
Bleak House, which I've now returned to the library twice because I ran out of renewals before I finished. I'm just going to buy a copy this time.
Phineas Finn, which I read half of before I had to return it to the library.
Dusklands
Don Quixote and
The Moonstone

>22 japaul22: I liked Bel-Ami a lot, because it showed me why the 19th-century English thought the French were decadent!

I really enjoyed reading through an alphabet of surnames in the second half of 2016 and will continue to read in this fashion. I am hoping to be able to complete 52 books in this fashion.

Low end of the goal clear 200.

Goal 52 books.

In addition to the previous 2, high end of the goal, complete all authors with a surname starting with A from the complete list.

My reading of list books has slowed down the last few years -- just 8 this year and 9 the year before. And now I'm going back to work full time, so my reading might drop way off. I'm going to try for 5 books, and I'd like to finally get around to Brideshead Revisited.

I finished the year with 95 list books read and I should be able to achieve similar numbers in 2017 taking me to around 650 total. I'll continue with my alphabetical trawl through the authors on my bookshelves from F to maybe K. Tentatively planning one of the Great Chinese Novels for 600.

I liked Bel-Ami as well. He was so completely selfish it fascinated me.

>6 japaul22: To encourage you, I liked a lot of the books I have read from your TBR, for example Bel Ami, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Radetzky March, Breakfast at Tiffany's, House with the Blind Glass Windows and Cider with Rosie. And I heard The Diaries of Jane Somers is also great, I am planning to read that one as well this year.

>12 .Monkey.: Three Billy's? That would make me panic! I've got about 1 and a half and sometimes can't bear to even look at them.. it feels like they are all shouting out at me for attention!

>13 streamsong: You have some nice authors among them, in my opinion. I like Lawrence, Auster, DeLillo and Ballard. Coetzee, Amis and Bellow are bearable as well... at least your list scares me not as much as my own to-be-read-authors does, but that's probably why I haven't read them yet!

My own resolution is to read 50 books from the list, hopefully from the ones I already own. Besides, I still have this challenge with myself to read a book by writers with 4 or more books on the list of whom I haven't read any. These are:

- Heinrich Böll
- William Faulkner
- André Gide
- Wyndham Lewis
- George Perec
- Thomas Pynchon
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
- Anthony Trollope

I am encouraged to read Trollope and Böll but the others still look as scary as a year ago!

>29 Simone2: I have read two Bölls and I really liked both of them - Billiards at Half Past Nine and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. The second one is short and super easy to get into, with dry, satiric humor. The former is completely different, dense but fascinating.

I read and liked Gide's The Immoralist but I seem to be a bit in the minority on that. No idea what to tell you there. :)

And for Pynchon, I read The Crying of Lot 49 (short!) and it was an experience, but I have some trepidation about his larger works.

>29 Simone2:, >30 ursula: Gide is a beautiful writer. The Immoralist is shortish and lovely, Strait is the Gate is a little more straight-forward and sad, but I thought The Counterfeiters was stunning. I am saving Fruits of the Earth so I am not stuck with books I don't want to read at the end.

My one resolution this year is to finish off a beautiful hardback illustrated edition of Burton's translation 1001 Nights which a friend has lent me. Three volumes at 1000 pages each give or take a few. I'm on night number 25 at the moment.

>30 ursula: >31 ELiz_M: Thank you both. I own Billiards at half past nine and The Counterfeiters and am now encouraged to read them. As for Pynchon, now I know that The Crying of Lot 49 is short, I'll start with that one!

>29 Simone2: Hahaha yep! From early Sept - one and two (six cubbies of actual books; BILLY next to it is read stuff, along with another one to the right of the door). :P (Links so they don't clutter the thread unnecessarily ;))

>34 .Monkey.: Well, they look great! I would love to spend some time with them. Nothing beats browsing through someone else's Billy's :-)

After a much slower reading year in 2016* I plan to dial back my targets to the basics. Try for 50 books and 20,000 pages as usual. Plus one Dickens and I've carried Against the Day over from last year. I'm also carrying over my challenge to read a book by each 4+ author I have left which is now only 4 (Sebald, West, Oates and Rousseau)

I don't want to set any other specific goals but I do have a few at the back of my mind in case I get stuck on what to read next. I'd like to start chipping away at the authors with high numbers of books to bring my maximum number down. This will need to start with Coetzee and Woolf. I also have some specific decades with no books read so I might look at those.

(*I seem to be developing a pattern of one year on, one year off...which bodes well for 2017)

I don't have any solid exact numbers lying around, and nowadays it seems I choose my readings more on other criteria and then just mark it here when it fits...which still means that I will probably get a bunch of books over the year done.

12 books from the list is definitely doable, 18 is pushing it, so I say 18 books.

This year I'm mixing methods - I'm tidying up all the 1001s from the 75ers challenge American and British authors challenges that I have missed over the last few years (or not yet finished)

Elizabeth Bowen The House in Paris
William Golding Rites of Passage
Henry James The Ambassadors
Barbara kingsolver The Poisonwood bible
A.S Byatt The Children's Book
Bruce Chatwin On the Black Hill
Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes were watching God
John Irving A Prayer for Owen Meany
Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses
Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Iris Murdoch The Sea, the sea
Rebecca West Harriet Hume
Doris Lessing Shikasta
Don DeLillo Falling Man or Mao II
E.L Doctorow Ragtime

I suspect my biggest hurdle will be The Ambassadors. I am NOT a James fan.

I also want to throw in some Murakami and finish off The Golden Asse which has been hanging around for a while...

#6 I've read about 10 of your list too - I think I had more fun than Arukiyomi - though that said I haven't read the Murdoch (gulp). But The Diary of Jane Somers is in my Top 10 books list.

Well my main goal will be to reach #400 on the Combined List - I am at around #331 atm.

That might mean I'll have to avoid the longer books especially if they are part of a long series. Although I was planning on reading Swanns Way this year...

Other than that I hereby declare that I will read House of Leaves :-)

House of Leaves is weird and wonderful and oddly enough, reads quite fast (some pages only have a word or two on them). My santathing gave it to me one year and I was really surprised at how fast I read it (and rather enjoyed it's weirdness). Good luck!

ursula - I'm interested to follow your thoughts on the Mishima books. His writing is beautiful, and I loved the first two. The third and fourth books? Lots to discuss there.

I failed miserably at my 1001 resolutions in 2016, so I'm keeping it simple this year and reading 20 books of the 1001 list. That'll get me over 400. In the last couple years I have finished The Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace, which I'd started and stopped multiple times, so I don't have any specific books in mind for this year. Maybe
1) One Dickens novel (I usually read one per year)
2) One or two of the older ones
3) Something by Thomas Mann
4) More by Muriel Spark!

And like many here, I hope to read several that are currently on my shelves.

>41 jfetting: Now I'm even more intrigued! I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Also nice to see someone else who takes their annual Dickens like medicine. :)

>43 ursula: Usually in February, because February isn't miserable enough (also it's his birthday month).

Half the year is over - so I thought it would be a good time to check my results so far-

My goal is 24 books (two per month) + at least one more volume of In Search of Lost Time.
So far I'm on pace. I have read 12 list books. Proust is still not read, though.

The 24 should consist of at least:
1 before 1700 (currently I haven't read any) - Done: The Golden Ass
3 by new authors with numerous books on the list (numerous = at least three) - Done: Pynchon, Edgeworth, Gaskell, Zola
Anniversary books originally published in
1817 - Done: Ormond
1867 - Done: Therese Raquin
1917 - Done: Growth of the Soil
1942 - Done: Embers
1967
1992

So, things look pretty good. Now I just got to stay the course.

I've had a slower first half than expected. Not that I'm reading less; just lots of long non-list books thrown into the mix. 35 list books so far. I thought I'd achieve around 95 for the year and while I expect to read more list books in the second half than in the first, my target of 650 by year end may turn out to be a stretch.

I'm having a much better year than last year. I want to read 25 books and have read 13, not counting the first 3 volumes of Proust that I've completed.

This year I made a small list to help narrow down my choices. The ones I've read so far are crossed out and at the bottom are books I've read that weren't on my list.

Goals:
Love in Excess
Balzac, Cousin Bette?
The Charterhouse of Parma
Adam Bede
He Knew He Was Right
Zola, L'Assomoir
Bel-Ami by Maupassant
Jude the Obscure
Summer by Edith Wharton
Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
All Quiet on the Western Front
To the North
The Radetzky March
Tender is the Night
Summer Will Show
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Under the Net
The Dispossessed
House With the Blind Glass Windows
The Diary of Jane Somers
The Radiant Way
The book about Blanche and Marie
Cider With Rosie
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Alternate Choices:
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Eline Vere by Louis Couperus
Everything That rises must converge by Flannery O'Connor
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

My goal was to make it the #400 mark which was rather ambitious and for the first part of the year I thought I wasn't going to get anywhere near it. However my reading has definitely picked up and I'm reading quite a few enjoyable books - my current total is 363 read. My attempt at only reading new books and avoiding the longer and more difficult ones is however long since dead in the water (I'm reading Pynchon for fecks sake! AND Thomas Mann!).

So probably is my read of House of Leaves. The way things are going it will wind up being the last one on the list!

My goal is a simple 20+, and I've read 8 so far, and another started that'll probably be done today as well. And seeing as how the first of those was only read in April, I'd say I'm nicely on track. :)

I starred this topic and have just realized that I didn't make any 1001 plans for this year, oops! My focus this year is catching up on and completing some of my series books, and I didn't pick any 1001 books that are part of series, so I guess that would be why I didn't set a 2017 goal.

I did want to read a few though. I have read two so far this year: Castle Rackrent and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. I piled up all of the Virago Modern Classics that I own that are also 1001 books, and I will call this pile my goal for the rest of the year:

After the Death of Don Juan
The Birds Fall Down
The House of Mirth
The Passion of New Eve
The Well of Loneliness
The Optimist's Daughter

I may still be focusing on series next year and if so, I'll put Pilgrimage and Kristin Lavransdatter on the list. And there are quite a few more books that are part of larger series on the 1001 list - has anyone seen a thread on that subject here?

I am also in the middle of a large series - Book 5 (in the Second Movement) out of 12 in A Dance to the Music of Time.
I have finished Book 1 of Pilgrimage. Ooops, that is not the correct touchstone...

I have read 21 books this year so far, 19 of which are on the combined list. My total is 358. I'd like to get to 375 by the end of the year.

Due to eye problems, I'm not doing too well on my resolutions in >13 streamsong:.

I've only read 6 of my resolved 25 so far.

Only one has been from my pile of 'owned, need to read' books. I am listening to a second one now, Memoirs of a Geisha.

I haven't yet gotten to Les Miserables, although I did read a different tome, Bleak House.

I haven't read any of my 'most books left to read by an author' list.

All of this means I will have lots of good reading in the second half of the year when the eye problems are (hopefully) resolved.


Edited to add: >50 LisaMorr: I'm currently reading Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal, so reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is high on my list.

>52 streamsong: Sad to hear about your eye problems. I hope they get well soon 8-)

I've read 5 out of the 10 books that were my goal so I am right on track. I have my next one picked out for my #250 and I hope to start on it this weekend. I'll keep you in suspense about it.

Oh my - I'm also very sorry to hear that Streamsong. Is it something that would be helped with electronic books that you can increase the font size with?

Oh, I dread ever having eye problems that stop me from reading. Big hugs! Do you get on with audiobooks?

>53 Henrik_Madsen: >55 M1nks: >56 Nickelini: Thanks for the good wishes! But please, please, please don't let me highjack this interesting thread.

The short story is that I had a problem with an optic nerve becoming unresponsive. It gave fits to my other eye causing a lot of double vision. After about six months, the nerve has become responsive again and I am now having cataract surgery - the first last week and the second this upcoming week. And so I am looking forward (grin!) to much more normal vision in the second half of this year.

What a situation - I've retired and my reading is limited. Reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode where the world ended giving the protagonist unlimited books and time to read and he then broke his glasses.

>55 M1nks: Minks, I've never used electronic books. I'll keep your suggestion in mind if I continue to have trouble. Books with larger print are definitely easier right now.

>56 Nickelini: I do like audio books and a good part of my 'reading' has been with them. I don't do well with them with rich, deep language and stories - they never go at the right pace or allow me to savor. I like them for Narrative Nonfiction and light fiction. Even mysteries are hard for me to listen to, as I want to go back and reread key passages. Memoirs of a Geisha, which I'm listening to now, is perfect.

Oh dear. At the halfway point, things are looking shaky.

I resolved to:

read one Dickens book (not done yet).
read a bigger project (halfway through the Sea of Fertility)
read at least 35 list books (uhhhh.... I have read 7)

It doesn't look good for that number goal, but we'll see how far I can get.

>57 streamsong: That episode of The Twilight Zone was always horrifying to me!!!

>57 streamsong: Good luck with the surgery and recovery.

>57 streamsong: Good luck with your eyes and fingers-crossed for much-improved vision and lots of reading. I remember that Twilight Zone episode very well also. Enjoy Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit when you get to it.

Still roughly on track for me, have read my A to Z of authors and have started my second run. Don't think I will manage to polish off all the authors with surnames starting with A, not sure how good a goal this was over all. Cleared my low end (get my total over 200).

My partially updated goal is to try and clear my own shelves of any unread 1001 books by the end of the year (I don't have many but a few are tomes).

Good luck all.

There were times when every other book I read was a 1001 book. Now I am more or less forcing myself to fit them in between other reads. I am not sure why, maybe it is my midlife crisis?!

Anyhow, so far I only read 11 of the 50 I expected to read this year. I am into Proust though and I did read a Gide, The Counterfeiters, both authors of whom I was a bit scared but I do actually enjoy them.

I'm slightly off pace for reading 32 list books this year, though not ridiculously so.... I've read 14, rather than 16. I got bogged down in a series of longer books earlier this year, but have been catching up with shorter ones.

Of the books I specifically mentioned for this year:

Bleak House
Phineas Finn
Dusklands
Don Quixote and
The Moonstone

I've read two so far: Dusklands and Bleak House. (Edited as I got my Dickens confused.... I read Bleak House this year already, have Great Expectations coming up in my pile.)

As we close in on the end of 2017, I'm wondering how everyone did with the goals they set?

I'll start a thread for 2018 goals soon.

I set myself the goal of reading 95 list books this year, and as of yesterday I'd read 95 list books! I'll likely end with around 100 for the year taking me to 657 in total, just over half way through the complete list of 1305. I largely stuck to my "alphabetically by author" approach but only got through F, G and H (I thought I might get to K - hopefully next year).

I wanted to read 20 or so off the list (hoping to break 400). I've actually read 7. The best of these was The Girls of Slender Means followed by The Driver's Seat.

I am 3 books away from 400. Maybe I can get that in before 2018. I need to find 3 short ones.

>67 jfetting: There are some short Edith Whartons on the list. Have you read those already?

>68 japaul22: I've read Summer. I'm not sure what the others are - I'll go look.

#69 I've read Amok and The Wonderful O this year - both very short - both good in exceedingly different ways! Wharton is a quick read and imo good read.

I'm happy because I broke 400 this year. Not happy because I have read very few of my planned reads. on the plus side I have finished Devil to pay in the backlands (excellent) and The Ambassadors (have I mention I hate Henry James?), so not too shabby.

I think I'm on 29 1,001 for the year - hoping to add another couple before year end, but mid-tome on a few which will definitely be taken into the new year.

Aimed for 20+, only on 13 now (may get another one in but, won't count on it). :| But, given that it's made up 25% of my reading (which has, clearly, been abysmal this year), I suppose that's not too awful.

Well, I'm currently reading sixth book of the year off the list, so I am not really meeting resolutions...(except that the book I am reading is Heat of the Day, which is the last unread book by Elizabeth Bowen on the list).

I've been reading quite a lot (well over hundred titles this year), and many of the books have been worthy, they just haven't been the ones on the Boxall list.

I read my 10 planned for plus 2 extra. But one of the books I read was a reread so although I count it toward my goal it didn't up my total number read. Still, that's a pretty good result for the year.

Struggled with my second read through the alphabet but happy with some of the authors I've come across this year (Graham Greene who I'd never read before and John Irving who I hadn't read for a while and felt like a rediscovery). On balance I think my total number read was in line with my goal and would be happy if I can continue to read through the list at this pace.

>47 japaul22: In 2017 I set a goal of reading 25 books and actually picked a list of 25 possibilities. This ended up working really well for me. I just finished book #25 for the year (last year I only read 16). I think having a small list felt less overwhelming. I ended up reading 13 of the books that I pre-picked and following my reading whims for the other 12.

Also, I read the first 4 volumes of Proust and might finish volume 5 before the end of the year. I'm hoping to wrap up the whole thing by February.

I read 23 books so far and might squeeze another one before the end of 2017, which keeps my annual mean at around 2 per month.

My goal was to read 24 books off the list + 1 volume of In search of Lost Time. I never got round to Proust but managed 26 books so I'm pretty pleased with that.