Quarter-Century Resolutions

My birthday is coming up next week. It's kind of a big one, in an I've-been-alive-for-a-quarter-of-a-century kind of way. And one thing I like to do on my birthday is to make resolutions. Like last year I resolved to start learning French, take some yoga classes, and get back into tae kwon do. Along with these resolutions usually come writing goals—to work harder on my writing, to finish this or that project, etc.

This year, I've decided to make some reading goals. I've got a personal reading list with well over a hundred books on it, and I figured that there are at least a few lengthy novels on there that I should get through before I turn the big three-zero.

Thus, I present to you my Five Year Reading Goals:

Ulysses by James Joyce

 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

 

 The Way by Swann's by Marcel Proust

  

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Judeo-Christian Bible by various authors

Of course, these aren't the only books I want to read in the next five years. But they are all books I've read sections of before, and books that I think will challenge me. I certainly don't think that they are necessarily more important than other books in the Western canon, but I think that setting them as goals will make it more likely that I will actually follow through and finish them (I've read the first hundred pages of Moby Dick twice before but became distracted both times by more contemporary, fast-paced novels, despite actually liking Melville's narrative).

So, how about you—do you have reading goals? Or novels that challenge you? What are some of those classic books that you never seem to get around to reading?