Completism

[JtS]

Completism

Raymond Chandler
Douglas Adams
Lee Child
Trying to work through all of Robert B. Parker

[Felicity, I guess so]

Completism

Lee Child, too.
Stieg Larsson
Michael Dibdin
James Ellroy
Richard Price
Manuel Vazquez Montalban (tho' not every newspaper column if it isn't in a book edition)
Alan Sillitoe (...apart from the last one or two)
Barry Hines
Didier Daeninckx
Jean-Patrick Manchette
JeaN-Claude Izzo
Sartre (novels and plays)
de Beauvoir
Kim Stanley Robinson
I think I've read all the Ballards except 'CraSH'
Peter Rundo ('who?' I hear you ask: official Dundee Utd historian)

[Sam]

Completism

Apart from poetry, I've read everything that is currently in print in the English language by Jorge Luis Borges, plus a couple which are out of print in English but which I've read in Spanish, and one that as far as I'm aware has never been translated. That includes The Total Library, which consists of practically everything non-fictional he wrote for various periodicals, magazines, newspapers and suchlike (including his film review of Citizen Kane, which he was one of the only fans if when it first came out).

Everything by Bryson up to and including Down Under, travel and otherwise.

I'm working my way towards completing Michael Chabon's back catalogue, and have yet to read anything that falls short of magnificent. The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay is the high point so far - as it would be in any writer's ouevre - but The Yiddish Policemens' Union was as close as anything's got.

Glen David Gold, as well. I read Carter Beats The Devil shortly after it came out and liked it so much that I waited three-and-a-half years for Summerland, his second novel. When that came out a couple of months ago I ordered it in hardback, I was that excited, though I've not yet started it.

I certainly know what you mean about the slight melancholy of knowing you'll never read that author for the first time again, but almost as good as that first discovery is sharing it with someone else, I find. I've got one friend who would never have read Borges or Chabon but for my lending him the books, and he now counts both among his own favourites. There's no better gift you can give someone than a book that'll change the way they read (which is certainly what Borges does for those who like him).

[Ginger Yellow]

Completism

As far as I know, I've read all the fiction and poetry published by Joyce and Kafka (well, Brod, but you know what i mean)
I've sought out everything published by PK Dick, but I haven't read it all yet. I'm pretty sure I've seen and/or read all of Stoppard's plays and most of his translations, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Levin]

Completism

I've read everything by Jon Courtney Grimwood. I think. I even tracked down a copy of NeoAddiX which is no longer in print.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Completism

Orwell, Camus, Wilde.

I'm not bang up to date with Bill Bryson any more, thus sparing me the pathos of having to write "Orwell, Camus, Wilde, Bryson".

There are other pop-cultural types of whom I may have become a completist without realising, eg Jon Ronson, Greil Marcus etc. Oh, and definitely Simon Reynolds.

[Wyatt Earp]

Completism

That would actually be pathos and bathos at the same time, wouldn't it? Which would be sort of cool in a way.

I's a Simon Price completist, I think, unless the Simon Price I'm thinking of and the ones who wrote "Religions of the Ancient Greeks" and "Aggregate Uncertainty and Consumers' Expenditure in the UK" are all the same guy.

[Ginger Yellow]

Completism

How cool would it be if they were, though?

[Ibn Pickthall]

Completism

I've tried this a few times but don't think I've successfully navigated all the works of any author that's published more than about 4 or 5 books.

Milan Kundera I loved but couldn't get through The Joke and it's provided a stumbling block to picking up other books of his since.

Louis de Bernieres - everything upto Captain Corelli's Mandolin but the hype did something to me and I never read CCM.

Irvine Welsh - lost interest in reading anything of his after the dreadful "Filth"

There are a number of authors of whom I would love to read their other works. Austen is No.1.