Today I made a list of books I plan to read by the end of this year. After doing the 50-book challenge in 2009, I decided I'd do it slightly differently: rather than aim for a specific number of books, I'd get to work on all the books on my shelf that I've been meaning to read for ages, but through busyness or laziness haven't got round to yet. Also, some of them (i.e. all the Norwegian ones) are books I have to read for my "101 things in 100 days" challenge (see link).

My original plan was to alternate a book on the list with a book not on the list, but I've ended up with 32, so it'll probably be more like two on the list followed by one not. Anyway, here's the list, in no particular order*. Asterisks indicate books I've read before. I'll be interested to hear comments on my list and comparisons with yours.

*OK, it's actually the order I saw them in on my bookshelves. My point is that I don't plan to read them in any particular order. You can see that's what I meant, right?

The Last of the Mohicans – J. Fenimore Cooper
Dracula* – Bram Stoker
The Penguin History of New Zealand – Michael King
Njál's Saga – Anon. (one of the Íslendingasögur or Sagas of Icelanders)
King Harald's Saga – Snorri Sturluson
Raw Spirit – Iain Banks
A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell* – Susanna Clarke
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Dune – Frank Herbert
On the Road – Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
The Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Pretty Monsters – Kelly Link
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Sandman Papers – Joe Sanders (ed.)
The Sandman: King of Dreams – Alisa Kwitney
My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring* – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers* – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King* – J.R.R. Tolkien
Ringdrotten: Ringens brorlag – J.R.R. Tolkien (tr. Eilev Groven Myhren)
Ringdrotten: Dei to tårna – J.R.R. Tolkien (tr. Eilev Groven Myhren)
Ringdrotten: Kongens atterkomme – J.R.R. Tolkien (tr. Eilev Groven Myhren)
(The three above are The Lord of the Rings in Norwegian, or more precisely Nynorsk)
Naiv. Super. – Erlend Loe
Kvinnen som kledte seg naken for sin elskede – Jan Wiese
Bytt Beite! – Roald Dahl (tr. Peter Magnus)
The Lost Gospels (i.e. of Thomas, Judas etc.)
The Apocrypha
A True Story – Lucian of Samosata

Let me know if there's anything you think I should ditch, and what I should replace it with.

Happy reading for 2010!