I read an insane amount. I shop for books like some women go after Manolo Blahniks, and enjoy the smell of a good bookstore as much as those women do the smell of leather.
Books, magazines, blogs: to me the written word is a constant source of delight. When someone asks me what I do for a living, I say I’m a writer. But if someone asked me “What are you?” I’d have to answer that I’m a reader.

Last year, I read more than 50 books. I read about five magazines a week – some for pleasure, but most just because I have to keep track of what people are writing about in the publications in which I aspire to be published.

One of my goals is to read at least one book by every author who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read a lot of prize winning books, but those – Orange Prize, National Book Award, the Booker – refer to a single work. The Nobel is about a body of work by a single person. You’d think that those people would have staying power. But it’s funny: look at the list of Nobel winners and I dare you to know who most of the winners from the first 30 years are. The first prize was awarded to René Sully-Prudhomme in 1901. Who? He was a French poet and philosopher. I have yet to find a book of his in translation, although I’ve read some of his work through a series of Nobel publications, the Nobel Prize Library.

His award was considered a coup for the first presentation, as he was a member of the Académie Française. It was kind of sad, though: he was too sick to come pick up his award himself. Rather than a member of the Académie in his full academic uniform, they got a minister in a regular suit. He put aside the money for young writers, and I believe a prize in his name is still awarded in France. I don’t know how widely he’s read, though.

To say the diary entries are tedious is generous. His poetry is very florid – full of “Alas!” and “O blissful”. But I like at least one of his poems:

The Broken Vase

The vase that holds this dying rose,
Tapped lightly by a lady’s fan,
Cracked at this slightest of all blows,
Though not an eye the flaw could scan.

And yet the line, so light, so slight
Etched ever deeper on the bowl,
Spread to the left, spread to the right,
Until it circled round the whole.

The water sinks, the petals fall,
Yet none divines, no word is spoken;
The surface seems intact to all;
Ah! Touch it not – the vase is broken.

Thus oft the heard is lightly bruised
By some slight word of those we cherished;
Yet through the wound our blood has oozed and lo! The flower of love has perished.

Though to the world our life seems whole,
The hidden wound is unforgot;
It grows and weeps within the soul;
The heart is broken – touch it not.

I’m probably at a bit of a loss for divining good poetry from bad, though, since I didn’t study it in school.

That list of winners, it haunts me. Before I die, I want to read something from every winner. They did something to merit the attention of the world. Should they really be forgotten, or unknown?

The latest winner: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (in translation – my French reading skills have diminished significantly since I got my very practical masters degree in French Revolutionary History), and something by winner number two: Theodore Mommsen, a German classicist and historian who specialized in Roman Law. I’m afraid already.

In 2006, I discovered the winner from 1955, Haldor Laxness, who I never would have heard of if I hadn’t printed out a list of winners. He’s from Iceland and you can see the old Icelandic saga in his work. I liked Paradise Reclaimed better than Under the Glacier, but I see the man’s talent in both. I wonder why such obvious talent is lost. You’d think a Nobel prize would guarantee some sort of longevity. Last year I searched out S. Y. Agnon. Actually, that’s what spurred the list search: I read about him in the autobiography of Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. I’d never heard of him, so I found the list of laureates.

I dare you to count the number you’ve heard of and how many of those you’ve actually read. Me? I’m off to see what Mommsen’s got to offer. And I’m open to suggestions on Jean-Marie.