Anaïs Nin. I’ve probably read 95% of everything she has written publicly. Hermann Hesse, Pablo Neruda, and Marguerite Duras, I’m almost there as well. I’ve read both The Goldfinch and The Secret History but I haven’t pulled the trigger on The Little Friend.
Working on reading everything by Stephen King and Anne Rice but that is a LIFELONG ENDEAVOR 😭
ahhh SK and Rice will genuinely take an entire lifetime but I do love that goal!!! I love the range you have with your choices I need to dig into some of those I have only read The Lover 🖤
I am not an author completionist and I never thought about it before because like you said there are soooo many books out there. However, I am an accidental John Green completionist. Remember in the early 2010s when YA was all the rage haha. John Green was my go to author. Then a couple of months ago I read his non-fiction and I realized that I’ve read all his works.
oh yes i do!! I've only read Turtles of his and it was very enjoyable! But harder for me to read YA now. There is nothing like teenage obsession though I miss those days I could just get lost in one interest like that
I love this completionist idea. You may have given me the word and attitude I needed to read some authors I stopped reading a long time ago, but would love to revisit. I use to be a huge Philip Roth fan, and at last count I think I'd read 27 (!!!) of his books. Have several unread on my shelf. Other authors I urge myself to complete: Jennifer Egan, Tracy Chevalier, Ian McEwan...andddddd I'll have to keep thinking. Fun theme for a winter or summer holiday. "COMPLETIONIST SUMMER!"
27!!!!!! I mean just count yourself as a completionist at this point lol McEwan is amazing and someone I would also enjoy reading all his works. Completionist Summer might need to be a thing next year!!
Love the idea of being an author completionist -although I think aspiring to be one can pretty easily start to feel intimidating, especially when I feel like I have so many authors on my radar, and the list keeps growing. I do have a running list of authors I consider in my "5+ club" (if I've read 5 or more of their works), which, for me, is like the easy version of being a committed completionist. I've been planning to write a longer newsletter about who's on my list before too long, so thank you for the inspiration & the wonderful read
This is an achievable goal. Love it! Would be fun to have a list of the authors one has read 5+. It would take some noodling and digging through journals.
this is a great comment because I didnt really touch on that part, that it can feel overwhleming to consider too. I love the idea of a 5+ club since that feels like a natural way to say you are very intimate with an authors works!
Yes, I call myself an aspiring completist for many authors. I’ve completed all of Jane Austen’s novels including Sanditon (although have yet to read her smaller published works like Lady Susan, etc). I have read of all of John Green’s works as well including the nonpic Anthropocene Reviewed. I think it’s okay to continue to aspire, but allow myself the freedom to stop or pause or even skip a book if I hit one I particularly don’t enjoy. I have decided I want to read Ann Patchett’s works after enjoying Tom Lake so much. I think of it like I think of food, I won’t knock it until I’ve tried it, and I want to taste everything but not in equal amounts and no one is forcing me to eat. I am passionate only to the point where I don’t feel constricted.
I definitely didnt count her smaller works since at this point I look at goodreads and its hard to tell what is what. Having the freedom is crucial, the last thing we want is for reading to feel like a dang chore. That is a perfect analogy - I love burgers but i dont need one every day
Thanks for another provocative and fun post. Very cool to see the incredible range of writers that followers read—the beauty of literature, right? I go back and forth between completionist phases and never-read authors. I’ve read all or near-all of Dickens, Coetzee, McEwan, Brautigan, Pynchon, Hammett, Chandler, Proust, Bolano, Egan, and Whitehead. I love some of his earlier novels—John Henry, the Intuitionist, and Zone One. I am in a never-have-read phase and thanks to comments have some new ones—got to try Duras and Nin. Hats off to the James Joyce completionist.
agreed - i love my readers because everyone is so willing to tell me all about what they are reading, I learn so much.
THAT LIST. Proust how long did that take you??? I have read quite a lot of Hammett and Chandler and Dickens, but Brautigan is an interesting one! Bolano I need to read stat it just feels like more of a fall endeavour. and agreed about the joyce completionist!
I didnt even know they did a skiff race I love that! Aspiring is great I have quite a lot of aspirations in this front haha. And sometimes we just need something fun for our souls right!
Yes to Our Wives Under the Sea! I want to complete Ann Patchett and Emily St. John Mandel, though I’m only a few in in both but loved what I’ve read. I think I’m fairly close to having completed Emily Giffin thanks to pre bookstagram days and loving her books in college and therefore reading all her books before I knew what else to read. 😜
before i knew what else to read hahahhah that is sometimes how i feel about Bret Easton Ellis he is so agressive I dont know I would have read it all as an adult.
I’ve always wanted to be a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, or actor completionist as well. And game developer completionist. Ah, media. Ah, art.
I love this topic and am thinking of doing something similar with my reading life for the next 5-10 years. Pick an author and read their body of work, ignoring everything else in the meantime. I have one Tartt left (Little Friend as well) and a few non-Slough House series Mick Herron books. I have read all (4) books by Amor Towles and I highly recommend each one.
I was a Sweet Valley High completionist girlie when I was between the ages of 8-13, this hit me hard! Does it still haunt me that I have yet to finish reading all of Jane Austen’s books? Absolutely, yes! So I’m definitely in the same boat!
oh SWH just out here inspiring an entire generation of girls (in both good and bad ways im sure). It haunts me that I didnt know about the ONE MORE Bret Easton Ellis book I had missed until a few months ago otherwise I would have claimed him ahha
Jane Austen for me too!!!!! And Hanya Yanigahara (also an easy one cause she’s only got 3). I’m almost there with George Eliot (with her novels at least). It gets hard when authors you love also write essays and short stories. Are we counting those?!
its so much easier when they've only written three books! 😎I dont count the essays and short stories but you certainly could take it to that level!! and i would bow down to you
That moment that Suni landed her first combo and was beaming was so pure! Such a delight to watch their joy! I became an Alison Espach completionist this month. I read her newest book and then found her debut at the bookstore, so read that too. It was so interesting to see similar themes and plot lines in her debut novel and also notice how much she’s grown as a writer. I really enjoyed that. I would love to become an Ann Patchett and Anne Tyler completionist someday but I have many titles ahead of me before that happens 😂
that experience you describe with Espach is what I am looking for! I would be cool to start with a new author and start at their very first novel - I read Morrison's The Bluest Eye and thats her first so maybe thats my sign. and agreed on Patchett shes SO prolific like I dont even understand how she keeps up with herself
This sentence right here perfectly summarizes my ongoing book anxiety: “every book you choose to read is a choice NOT to read every other book in existence.” You might have to become my book therapist? Every choice feels so FRAUGHT, so…laden. Why do we have to die?! 😩
Oh, and I watched the women’s gymnastics all around finals live because disability frees up my days. I was so wound up by the end that I actually cried when Simone won. I had to release all that energy! (Plus, I miss being an athlete terribly - volleyball was my game).
Volleyball is a great game, I am always in awe of how they never ever give up on that ball. Misty Mae-Treanor went to my alma mater and was a legend there. and agreed I cried for Simone and a whole bunch of other times all alone on the couch just clapping my heart out haha
I fully agree! It does sometimes feel like the obsession needed to read an author back to back only exists when we are young - when I was a kid I could read ten RL Stine or King books in a row, but not now!
Anaïs Nin. I’ve probably read 95% of everything she has written publicly. Hermann Hesse, Pablo Neruda, and Marguerite Duras, I’m almost there as well. I’ve read both The Goldfinch and The Secret History but I haven’t pulled the trigger on The Little Friend.
Working on reading everything by Stephen King and Anne Rice but that is a LIFELONG ENDEAVOR 😭
Kitty is as delicious as ever!!!!!
Thank you for another BANGER 💥😍
ahhh SK and Rice will genuinely take an entire lifetime but I do love that goal!!! I love the range you have with your choices I need to dig into some of those I have only read The Lover 🖤
(fun?) fact: Hesse is my maiden name! And I’ve only read Siddartha (she says, shamefully 🤦🏼♀️)
SUCH A FUN FACT! 😍 I love that! I’ve always thought Hesse was/is such an elegant name. ❤️🔥
We barely literate Long Islanders didn’t pronounce the last e, so like “Hess,” but really it’s pronounced “Hess-uh” as you probably know.
I am not an author completionist and I never thought about it before because like you said there are soooo many books out there. However, I am an accidental John Green completionist. Remember in the early 2010s when YA was all the rage haha. John Green was my go to author. Then a couple of months ago I read his non-fiction and I realized that I’ve read all his works.
oh yes i do!! I've only read Turtles of his and it was very enjoyable! But harder for me to read YA now. There is nothing like teenage obsession though I miss those days I could just get lost in one interest like that
agree couldn’t read YA now
I love this completionist idea. You may have given me the word and attitude I needed to read some authors I stopped reading a long time ago, but would love to revisit. I use to be a huge Philip Roth fan, and at last count I think I'd read 27 (!!!) of his books. Have several unread on my shelf. Other authors I urge myself to complete: Jennifer Egan, Tracy Chevalier, Ian McEwan...andddddd I'll have to keep thinking. Fun theme for a winter or summer holiday. "COMPLETIONIST SUMMER!"
27!!!!!! I mean just count yourself as a completionist at this point lol McEwan is amazing and someone I would also enjoy reading all his works. Completionist Summer might need to be a thing next year!!
I’m a completist in regards to a lot of authors: Austen, Trollope, Joyce, DH Lawrence and others
Modern: Hakan Nesser, Henning Mankell, Ruth Rendell. Jo Nesbo and more and more
I mean EXCELLENT lineup!! I love Nesbo, Joyce is a flex!! Will have to check out some of the others
I’m Irish! We have to read him!!
fair!! I took an Irish lit class in college and it was one of the best experiences of my academic life
Love the idea of being an author completionist -although I think aspiring to be one can pretty easily start to feel intimidating, especially when I feel like I have so many authors on my radar, and the list keeps growing. I do have a running list of authors I consider in my "5+ club" (if I've read 5 or more of their works), which, for me, is like the easy version of being a committed completionist. I've been planning to write a longer newsletter about who's on my list before too long, so thank you for the inspiration & the wonderful read
Love the idea of a 5+ club! I’m going to borrow this!
So glad to hear it!!
Thanks for a great idea. Can look at book cases and easily see who makes this “have read a lot of X” list.
This is an achievable goal. Love it! Would be fun to have a list of the authors one has read 5+. It would take some noodling and digging through journals.
this is a great comment because I didnt really touch on that part, that it can feel overwhleming to consider too. I love the idea of a 5+ club since that feels like a natural way to say you are very intimate with an authors works!
Yes, I call myself an aspiring completist for many authors. I’ve completed all of Jane Austen’s novels including Sanditon (although have yet to read her smaller published works like Lady Susan, etc). I have read of all of John Green’s works as well including the nonpic Anthropocene Reviewed. I think it’s okay to continue to aspire, but allow myself the freedom to stop or pause or even skip a book if I hit one I particularly don’t enjoy. I have decided I want to read Ann Patchett’s works after enjoying Tom Lake so much. I think of it like I think of food, I won’t knock it until I’ve tried it, and I want to taste everything but not in equal amounts and no one is forcing me to eat. I am passionate only to the point where I don’t feel constricted.
I definitely didnt count her smaller works since at this point I look at goodreads and its hard to tell what is what. Having the freedom is crucial, the last thing we want is for reading to feel like a dang chore. That is a perfect analogy - I love burgers but i dont need one every day
Thanks for another provocative and fun post. Very cool to see the incredible range of writers that followers read—the beauty of literature, right? I go back and forth between completionist phases and never-read authors. I’ve read all or near-all of Dickens, Coetzee, McEwan, Brautigan, Pynchon, Hammett, Chandler, Proust, Bolano, Egan, and Whitehead. I love some of his earlier novels—John Henry, the Intuitionist, and Zone One. I am in a never-have-read phase and thanks to comments have some new ones—got to try Duras and Nin. Hats off to the James Joyce completionist.
agreed - i love my readers because everyone is so willing to tell me all about what they are reading, I learn so much.
THAT LIST. Proust how long did that take you??? I have read quite a lot of Hammett and Chandler and Dickens, but Brautigan is an interesting one! Bolano I need to read stat it just feels like more of a fall endeavour. and agreed about the joyce completionist!
I'm an aspiring completionist. I've read all of Kerouac's novels from the 50s but still have the rest of his collection to go.
Fave olympic moment so far was this morning's men's skiff race! My alma mater's sailing coach helped pull bronze for the USA team.
Currently reading Done and Dusted and loving it. I needed something cute and quick.
I didnt even know they did a skiff race I love that! Aspiring is great I have quite a lot of aspirations in this front haha. And sometimes we just need something fun for our souls right!
Yes to Our Wives Under the Sea! I want to complete Ann Patchett and Emily St. John Mandel, though I’m only a few in in both but loved what I’ve read. I think I’m fairly close to having completed Emily Giffin thanks to pre bookstagram days and loving her books in college and therefore reading all her books before I knew what else to read. 😜
before i knew what else to read hahahhah that is sometimes how i feel about Bret Easton Ellis he is so agressive I dont know I would have read it all as an adult.
I loved your sentiment about being a reader pre-bookstagram days, so relatable!
I’ve always wanted to be a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, or actor completionist as well. And game developer completionist. Ah, media. Ah, art.
there is just too much to love!!!
I love this topic and am thinking of doing something similar with my reading life for the next 5-10 years. Pick an author and read their body of work, ignoring everything else in the meantime. I have one Tartt left (Little Friend as well) and a few non-Slough House series Mick Herron books. I have read all (4) books by Amor Towles and I highly recommend each one.
Fun topic, thank you for writing!
I got a few chapters into Gentleman in Moscow and it kind of just fluttered out... I need to give it another try!
5-10 years is QUITE the commitment and I applaud you for even considering it
I was a Sweet Valley High completionist girlie when I was between the ages of 8-13, this hit me hard! Does it still haunt me that I have yet to finish reading all of Jane Austen’s books? Absolutely, yes! So I’m definitely in the same boat!
oh SWH just out here inspiring an entire generation of girls (in both good and bad ways im sure). It haunts me that I didnt know about the ONE MORE Bret Easton Ellis book I had missed until a few months ago otherwise I would have claimed him ahha
Jane Austen for me too!!!!! And Hanya Yanigahara (also an easy one cause she’s only got 3). I’m almost there with George Eliot (with her novels at least). It gets hard when authors you love also write essays and short stories. Are we counting those?!
its so much easier when they've only written three books! 😎I dont count the essays and short stories but you certainly could take it to that level!! and i would bow down to you
That moment that Suni landed her first combo and was beaming was so pure! Such a delight to watch their joy! I became an Alison Espach completionist this month. I read her newest book and then found her debut at the bookstore, so read that too. It was so interesting to see similar themes and plot lines in her debut novel and also notice how much she’s grown as a writer. I really enjoyed that. I would love to become an Ann Patchett and Anne Tyler completionist someday but I have many titles ahead of me before that happens 😂
that experience you describe with Espach is what I am looking for! I would be cool to start with a new author and start at their very first novel - I read Morrison's The Bluest Eye and thats her first so maybe thats my sign. and agreed on Patchett shes SO prolific like I dont even understand how she keeps up with herself
This sentence right here perfectly summarizes my ongoing book anxiety: “every book you choose to read is a choice NOT to read every other book in existence.” You might have to become my book therapist? Every choice feels so FRAUGHT, so…laden. Why do we have to die?! 😩
HONESTLY WHY. heaven is a public library
Oh, and I watched the women’s gymnastics all around finals live because disability frees up my days. I was so wound up by the end that I actually cried when Simone won. I had to release all that energy! (Plus, I miss being an athlete terribly - volleyball was my game).
Volleyball is a great game, I am always in awe of how they never ever give up on that ball. Misty Mae-Treanor went to my alma mater and was a legend there. and agreed I cried for Simone and a whole bunch of other times all alone on the couch just clapping my heart out haha
MMT is one of the GOATs for sure 🔥
I don’t think I’ve completed anybody who has written more than two or three books! The authors I’ve read the most of also have written a lot of books.
These days I have trouble focusing on one author back to back. Too much I want to read!
One who I’d like to be a completionist for, however, is James Baldwin. I’ve read 3 so far.
I fully agree! It does sometimes feel like the obsession needed to read an author back to back only exists when we are young - when I was a kid I could read ten RL Stine or King books in a row, but not now!