Books to read 2018

This morning I was at the gym with my wife (see I really am working on those resolutions!). I was on the treadmill listening to an audio-book of Stephen King's On Writing, and he mentions the importance of reading. It makes sense; how can you expect to be a writer if you don't read?

So I decided to make an effort to read a lot more this year. I guess this is an amendment to my list of resolutions, but its my blog and I can do things like that. Anyway, this afternoon I run across a blog post by one of my favorite authors (indeed one of my favorite people), Patrick Rothfuss (ok, he's my hero). In this blog he posts a list of books/series that have influenced him. I thought, "Wow, how handy is that?"

So here is the list (I struck-through the ones that I have previously read). I plan to begin knocking these out posthaste:

1. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
2. The Last Unicorn By Peter S. Beagle
3. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
4. Stranger In a Strange Land Robert Heinlein
5. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
6. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
7. Dragonriders Of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
8. Dune by Frank Herbert
9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
10. The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett
11. The Chronicles of Amber–Roger Zelazny
12. Brave New World–Aldous Huxley
13. Wizard of Earthsea By Le Guin
14. Sandman  – Neil Gaiman
15. The Fisher King Trilogy by Tim Powers
16. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams
17. The Riddlemaster of Hed series by Patricia McKillip
18. Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P Lovecraft
19. Neuromancer by William Gibson
20. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
21. 1984 – by George Orwell
22. Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
23. Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
24. The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, by Barry Hughart
25. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
26. The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
27. Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
28. The Odyssey by Homer
29. The Last Herald-Mage trilogy – Mercedes Lackey
30. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
31. River World Series – Phillip Jose Farmer
32. One Thousand and One Nights
33. Riftwar Saga by Feist
34. The Dark Tower series – Stephen King
35. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
36. Belgariad series by David Eddings
37. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
38. Michael Ende – The Neverending Story
39. The Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
40. The Shannara Trilogy – Terry Brooks