Aspirational reads for 2013

Inspired by a friend, I have decided for the first time this year to make a list of books I want to read in 2013. It is not an exhaustive list of all books I intend to read (baby and all!), but rather an aspirational list of a limited number of 'classic' books that I aim to get through this year. I put 'classic' in inverted commas here because they are classics by my own reckoning only, rather than by virtue of appointment by any Canon gurus - I ceased being dictated to by Harold Bloom et al the minute I finished my MA.

Here is the list I have come up with thus far:

• Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace (I love his essays and have wanted to read this for a long time; now that I have downloaded it onto my Kindle the sheer size of it and the unwieldiness of lugging it around ceases to be an excuse)
• In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust (not all of it, God no, but book one, or else a selection of excerpts as recommended by one of many experts - enough to give me a good taste)
• American Pastoral - Phillip Roth (I am embarassed I have not yet read this)
• Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (this is cited as an inspiration for so many of my favourite modern writers, including Paul Auster, and appears so regularly on 'best books' lists, that I feel I have to read it)
• Scoop - Evelyn Waugh (a Canon classic, as well as a Bibliofilly one, and I've read too little of his work, a situation that must be rectified)

And to re-read:

• The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
• Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger

Both re-reads are books I loved in high school, and which come up again and again in conversation. I need to re-familiarise myself with them.

Note that this is not at all a fulsome list of all the great good books that I would like to read - but it is more than enough for this year, which will be a busy, busy year. I hope to fit my reading of these works in and around other reading, of books that are lighter in character, or that are surprise recommendations, or that I happen to stumble across during the year. I will keep you updated on my progress.

How about you? Any aspirational reads for the year?