Required Reading: NOVEMBER

It's my birthday month! :D

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Forgive the over-excitement, but since this is actually my first post for November, which happens to be, well, my birthday month, I just had to shout that out. Yay! Also, my very first attempt at moderating a book discussion - on- and offline - is also happening this month, so double yay! Are we excited yet? :)

As per usual, the titles that comprise the reading list for November were chosen haphazardly for the sake of variety. Two titles were no-brainers, as I wanted to go thematic (you know, Halloween and all), while the other two were picked for me by my bookish friends via a Twitter conversation. But before I proceed to the November reading list, here's a recap of October:

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Read 10%, shelved for now
• The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - In Part Four now, will finish asap!
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - Reacquainting myself with Dracula. 4/5
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell - Japanese and Dutch histories. [September list, carried over to October] 5/5
• Click-Clack the Rattlebag* by Neil Gaiman - #ScareUs for charity. 5/5

Eeep. It looks like another book will be joining my ever-increasing reading lists backlog, which stands as follows: 

• The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst - [August] untouched 
• An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro - [August, carried over to September] untouched. Oh my dearest Ishi, forgive me! :(
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - newest addition

Of course, I know I will pick these books up and read them eventually. As to when that will be, however, is the bigger question.

Anyway, on to this month's reads! 

Here they are:

• Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman - Been meaning to read this compendium of scary short stories by one of my most favorite storytellers. I think now's the time to do that. My favoritest of all of Neil's short stories (so far), Snow, Glass, Apples, is included in this collection. 
• Dracula by Bram Stoker - Reading this as a companion to Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. F2F in a couple of weeks! Excitement!
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart - I enjoyed the first two books in E. Lockhart's Ruby Oliver series, and since I'm looking for something fun and light to read for variety, I picked this up. Thanks to my awesome bookish mommy friend Maria for suggesting it, despite her personal reservations about the book. ;)
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Movie adaptation will be released soon, so I have to read this soon, as well. Bookish lawyer friend Lynai suggested it - thanks! :)

I will be quite busy preparing for my "show" in a couple of weeks, but I'll definitely try to squeeze in some reading in between formulating questions and moderating the online discussion. Any thoughts on this month's choices for the reading list? :)

*Not included in any reading lists, as I learned about it a mere couple of days before I downloaded and read listened to it. :)