Back in June, Jessica from the Quirky Bookworm blog posted her “Literary Bucket List” and challenged her blog readers to come up with their own.  This is something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile, ever since my blog pal Eagle-Eyed Editor came up with one.  But between my library misadventures and Audiobook Week, I’m only just getting around to this now – oops.  So, to make up for the delay (which, let’s be honest, no one but me cares about), I thought I’d do mine in two parts.  Obviously, I lurve to read, so Part I of the Bucket List will focus on the books I want to read.  And since I love to travel almost as much as I love to read, Part II will list the literary places I’d like to visit someday.  So here I go with Part I, the ultimate TBR:

1. The Complete Works of Charles Dickens – I have them all, a complete set gorgeously bound in forest green leather.  My grandmother bought them, read them all, and then handed them down to me.  It’s a massive undertaking, but I really want to read every last one, just like she has.  I’ve read A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities, so obviously I have a long way to go.

2. Read all of the Russian works translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky – Pevear and Volokhonsky are a husband-wife translation team who do absolutely brilliant work.  I’ve never seen Russian classics as readable as theirs.  I read their translations of Anna Karenina and War and Peace and loved them – especially War and Peace.  They’ve collaborated on some of my favorite Russian works, like Dead Souls and The Master and Margarita.  I read other translations of those and loved them, but I’m very keen to read them again, in the versions with the fingerprints of my favorite translators.  And there are other Russian works, like The Brothers Karamazov, Doctor Zhivago, and The Enchanted Wanderer, that I want to read anyway.

3. The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Richard Pevear – Pevear also does occasional translations on his own, from languages other than Russian.  I want to read The Three Musketeers anyway, and I have a copy of Pevear’s translation that I’m itching to get to work on.

4. Middlemarch, by George Eliot – This is one that’s been on my list for a long, long time, and I just need to make time for it.  I have a gorgeous Penguin Clothbound Classics edition, so that should provide some motivation.

5. The Professor and Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre is my all-time favorite book, and I also loved Villette when Beth from Too Fond hosted a read-along in May and June.  I need to read the rest of Charlotte’s work!

6. Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace – Because, David Foster Wallace.

7. Read all of Shakespeare – Because, Shakespeare.  Also, it’s there.

8. Read the Really Old Stuff – Homer (The Iliad and The Odyssey), Virgil (Aeneid) and Ovid (Metamorphoses).  I’ve always wanted to read these, especially The Odyssey.

9. Conquer the Rory Gilmore Reading List and The Guardian‘s Top 100 Books of All Time – I have both of these in Word files on my computer and I cross books off in each as I go.  I’m about a third of the way through Rory’s list and not even that far through The Guardian‘s.

10. Read my childhood favorites, like the Anne of Green Gables and Little House series and books like Gone-Away Lake, The People of Pineapple Place and Island of the Blue Dolphins, to Peanut – I hope she’s an avid reader.  I’m planning to do everything I can to encourage her to read, and I’ve got some great material to show her as soon as she’s ready for it.

I think ten is probably enough for the bucket list, at least for now!  Next week, Part II – my literary travel dreams.

Do you have a literary bucket list?  What’s on yours?