staci426 reads the 1001 lists

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staci426 reads the 1001 lists

1staci426
Edited: Sep 10, 2023, 5:40 pm

Hi everyone! My name is Staci. I’m from NJ. I’ve been working on the list since around 2008 and feel like I haven’t been making as much progress recently as I would like. I’ve been a member of this group for a while now, but haven’t really participated. I’m hoping that creating a thread and trying to participate here more will help improve my progress. I’m currently at 232. I am working on all of the combined lists. I will post my completed list below. I count a book as read even if I didn’t finish it, as long as I made a decent amount of progress before abandoning it. I’ve also counted books that I read back in school, even though I probably don’t remember much of the story. I would eventually like to reread most of these.

So far this year I’ve only finished 4 books and re-read 3. I will keep a running tally of the books I've read since starting this thread:

229. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte ****1/2
230. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson ***1/2
231. On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev ***1/2
232. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers ***
233. There But For The by Ali Smith ***1/2
234. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset *****
235. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino ****
236. A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul ***
237. The Circle by David Eggers **1/2
238. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh ****
239. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid ****
240. Quicksand by Nella Larsen ***1/2
241. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, DNF
242. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino 3.5*
243. Oronoko by Aphra Behn 3.75*
244. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan, 3.5*
245. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz 3.25*
246. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 3.5*
247. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym 4*
248. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto 4*
249. Legend by David Gemmell 3.75*
250. Under the Skin by Michel Faber 4*
251. Falling Man by Don DeLillo 3.5*
252. Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev 4*
253. Contact by Carl Sagan, 4*
254. On Beauty by Zadie Smith, 3*
255. The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, 4*
256. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, 3.5*
257. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, 3.5*
258. Mao II by Don DeLillo, 4*
259.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 3.75*
260. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, 4*
261. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous, 3.5*
262. Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera, 3.5*
263. Wise Children by Angela Carter, 3.5*
264. July's People by Nadine Gordimer, 3*
265. The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor, 4*
266. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan, 3.25*
267. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, 3.5*
268. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan LeFanu, 3*
269. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, 4.5*
270. Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis, DNF
271. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, 3.5*
272. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, 4*
273. War With the Newts by Karel Capek, 4*
274. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, 4*
275. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett, 3.5*
276. Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 4*
277. Parable of the Blind by Gert Hofmann, 3.5*
278. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, 4*
279. Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee, DNF
280. The Dark Child by Camara Laye, 3.5*
281. The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad, 3.5*
282. The Bitter Glass by Eilis Dillon, 3.5*
283. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, 5*
284. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado, DNF
285. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan, 3*
286. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner, 4*
287. Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee, 4.5*
288. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym, 3*
289. The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, 4*
290. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, 4.5*
291. A Question of Power by Bessie Head, 4*
292. Cane by Jean Toomer, 4*
293. Cheese by Willem Elsschot, 3.5*
294. Silk by Alessandro Baricco, 3.5*
295. The Nose by Nikolai Gogol, 3.5*
296. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 4*

Rereads:
1. Invisible by Paul Auster *** (not really a reread, I had started a while ago, my library audio download expired, and I finally got around to finishing it, but had already counted it as read)
2. Animal Farm by George Orwell ***1/2 (originally read in 8th grade)
3. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck ***** (originally read in 9th grade, decided to give a reread now because my 14-year-old nephew mentioned having to read it for summer reading)
4. Le petit prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 5* not sure first time read, maybe in college, wanted to try it as an audio in French
5. The 13 Clocks by James Thurber, 4.5* I had this marked off as a DNF, but don't remember anything about ir, or why I wouldn't have finished it. I enjoyed this quite a bit.

3staci426
Edited: Sep 2, 2023, 10:52 pm

1800s

16. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
17. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
18. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
19. Emma by Jane Austen
20. Persuasion by Jane Austen
21. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
22. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
23. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
24. Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
25. Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac
26. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
27. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
28. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe
29. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe
30. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
31. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
32. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
33. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
34. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
35. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
36. Adam Bede by George Eliot
37. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
38. On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev
39. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
40. Silas Marner by George Eliot
41. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
42. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
43. The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley
44. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
45. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
46. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
47. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
48. Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola
49. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
50. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
51. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
52. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
53. Middlemarch by George Eliot
54. Erewhon by Samuel Butler
55. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
56. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
57. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
58. King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
59. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
60. She by H. Rider Haggard
61. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
62. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
63. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
64. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
65. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
66. Dracula by Bram Stoker
67. The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
68. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
69. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
70. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
71. Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. by E. Somerville

4staci426
Edited: Sep 2, 2023, 10:57 pm

1900-1949

72. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
73. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
74. The Hound of the Baskervillesby Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
75. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
76. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
77. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
78. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
79. A Room With a View by E. M. Forster
80. Howard’s End by E. M. Forster
81. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
82. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
83. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
84. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
85. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
86. Summer by Edith Wharton
87. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
88. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
89. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
90. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
91. Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf
92. The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
93. Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
94. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
95. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
96. Billy Budd, Foretopman by Herman Melville
97. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
98. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
99. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
100. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
101. Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
102. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
103. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
104. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
105. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
106. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
107. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
108. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
109. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
110. The Last of Mr. Norris by Christopher Isherwood
111. At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
112. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mtichell
113. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein
114. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
115. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
116. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
117. Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day by Winifred Watson
118. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
119. Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
120. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
121. Animal Farm by George Orwell
122. The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
123. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
124. Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazamtzakis
125. The Victim by Saul Bellow
126. Cry, the Beloved Country
127. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

5staci426
Edited: Sep 2, 2023, 11:03 pm

1950-1999

128. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
129. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
130. Gormengahast by Mervyn Peake
131. The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
132. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
133. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
134. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
135. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
136. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
137. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
138. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
139. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
140. Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet
141. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
142. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomassi di Lampedusa
143. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
144. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
145. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
146. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
147. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
148. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
149. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
150. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
151. One Day in the Life of Ivan enisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
152. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré
153. The Graduate by Charles Webb
154. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
155. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
156. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
157. Silence by Shusaku Endo
158. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
159. Chocky by John Wyndham
160. Do Androids Dream of Electirc Sheep by Philip K. Dick
161. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
162. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
163. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
164. Fifth Business by Robinson Davies
165. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
166. Lives of Girls and Wome by Alice Munro
167. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
168. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
169. The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
170. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
171. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
172. The Shining by Stephen King
173. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
174. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
175. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
176. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
177. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
178. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
179. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
180. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
181. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
182. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
183. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
184. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
185. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
186. Possession by A. S. Byatt
187. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
188. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
189. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
190. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
191. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
192. Veronika Decides to Die by Paolo Coelho
193. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
194. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
195. Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
196. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

7puckers
Sep 16, 2018, 3:48 am

Welcome Staci!

8paruline
Sep 16, 2018, 9:26 am

Welcome!

9DeltaQueen50
Sep 22, 2018, 12:39 pm

Hi Staci, great to see you here!

10staci426
Sep 28, 2018, 10:55 am

Thanks for the welcome!

I've finished my first new addition to my list:

233. There But For The by Ali Smith ***1/2
Unabridged audio from the library, read by Ann Flosnik, 7 hour 44 minutes

This was an interesting story. A man decided to lock himself in the guest room of the hosts of a dinner party he attended. The story is told from the point of view of several people who know him in some way or other. I chose this one for the September streak challenge. This gives me a 6 book stresk: 1300-1305.

I've started number 234, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. So far, I'm really enjoying it.

11staci426
Oct 29, 2018, 11:55 am

I've checked a few more off the list in October:

234. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset *****
235. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino ****
236. A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul ***

I'm slowly making my way through an e-edition of Wild Harbour by Ian MacPherson. I have vision problems, so reading print editions is much slower for me than listening to audio, which is how I do most of my reading.

12staci426
Jan 10, 2019, 9:13 am

As I've suspected, I've fallen behind in keeping this thread up to date. I managed to finish three more books from the list in 2018:

237. The Circle by Dave Eggers **1/2, did not care for this at all
238. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh ****
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid ****

I enjoyed those last two quite a bit.

So far this year I've finished one book:

240. Quicksand by Nella Larsen ***1/2, read this for the group challenge and enjoyed it.

13Yells
Jan 10, 2019, 1:31 pm

>12 staci426: I liked The Circle as a fluff read but I am at a loss to explain how it made the list.

14staci426
Jan 10, 2019, 3:36 pm

>13 Yells: I'm glad you at least enjoyed it. I normally would have given up on it, but kept holding out hope that it would redeem itself at the end, it being on the list and all. But, no such luck, in my opinion. I agree as to having no idea as to why it should be on the list. There have been other books that I haven't enjoyed from the list, but could at least see the merit as to why they would have been included, but not in this case.

15staci426
Jun 1, 2023, 5:49 pm

I forgot about this group, haven't posted here since arly 2019 and recently rediscovered this thread. Never did much posting here before, but would like to try to keep this thread up to date with my reads from the list. I was at number 240 with my last post and have only made it up to 285 since then, most of those being read last year and the first half of this year so far. My goal for this year is to make it to 300, which I think should not be a problem at the rate I've been going.

Here are the books I've read since my last post:

241. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, DNF
242. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino 3.5*
243. Oronoko by Aphra Behn 3.75*
244. Enduring Love by Ian McEwan, 3.5*
245. A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz 3.25*
246. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 3.5*
247. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym 4*
248. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto 4*
249. Legend by David Gemmell 3.75*
250. Under the Skin by Michel Faber 4*
251. Falling Man by Don DeLillo 3.5*
252. Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev 4*
253. Contact by Carl Sagan, 4*
254. On Beauty by Zadie Smith, 3*
255. The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch, 4*
256. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, 3.5*
257. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, 3.5*
258. Mao II by Don DeLillo, 4*
259.One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 3.75*
260. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, 4*
261. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous, 3.5*
262. Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera, 3.5*
263. Wise Children by Angela Carter, 3.5*
264. July's People by Nadine Gordimer, 3*
265. The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O'Connor, 4*
266. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan, 3.25*
267. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, 3.5*
268. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan LeFanu, 3*
269. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, 4.5*
270. Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis, DNF
271. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, 3.5*
272. The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, 4*
273. War With the Newts by Karel Capek, 4*
274. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, 4*
275. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett, 3.5*
276. Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 4*
277. Parable of the Blind by Gert Hofmann, 3.5*
278. The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, 4*
279. Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee, DNF
280. The Dark Child by Camara Laye, 3.5*
281. The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad, 3.5*
282. The Bitter Glass by Eilis Dillon, 3.5*
283 The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, 5*
284. Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado, DNF
285. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan, 3*

I also just finished a re-read of Le petit prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry which doesn't count towards my total, but wanted to give it a mention.

16staci426
Jun 1, 2023, 5:55 pm

So far this year, I have been using a random number generator to pick a book off the list for each month and then picking other options based on different challenges or whatever mood I might be in at the time.

For June, my pick is Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. Not sure when I will start it.

I am also working on Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco which I started last month. This one has been a struggle and I am on the verge of giving up on it, but want to give the audio maybe one more hour before making that decision.

17annamorphic
Jun 3, 2023, 6:43 am

When do you decide not to finish a book? Some of your dnf books I liked and some I hated so I am curious.

18staci426
Jun 3, 2023, 11:31 am

>17 annamorphic: It varies depending on the book. I usually try to make it at least a third of the way or further before making that decision. Sometimes I might go back and give it a second chance if I feel like maybe I just wasn't in the right place at the time I picked it up. Two specific ones like this that come to mind, Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, enjoyed both of these quite a bit on a second read.

Are there any you recommend that I should give a second chance?

19annamorphic
Jun 6, 2023, 3:58 am

I really liked The Man Who Loved Children, although it’s been a long time since I read it.

20staci426
Jun 11, 2023, 12:34 pm

>19 annamorphic: Interesting. That was one that I really was not enjoying and feel like I wouldn't want to go back to. I guess we all have different tastes.

21Yells
Edited: Jun 11, 2023, 1:25 pm

>20 staci426: I gave that one 2 stars if that means anything. I finished it but it wasn't my cup of tea (neither was Money by Amis although I gave it a slightly higher rating).

I love Coetzee and enjoyed Elizabeth Costello (gave it 3 1/2 stars) but I had to look it up as I don't remember anything about it. His other books stand out a lot more.

Tastes are funny, aren't they? It looks like we have similar ratings for the ones on your list that I have read, but your top book, The Summer Book is one of my least faves. Can't remember why though!

22staci426
Jul 4, 2023, 5:22 pm

I finished two more books in June:
286. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner, 4*
This was a book that was not on my radar from the list that I picked for the monthly challenge and am glad to have gotten to it. I really enjoyed the writing and characters she created here.
287. Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee, 4.5*
This was another book I had never heard of before the list and am so glad to have discovered. Lee's writing was beautiful, he paints such a vivid picture of his childhood growing up in the English countryside during the time between the wars.

Not sure what I will pick up next off the list. I was going to try to read the group pick, Sorrow of Belgium, but can't find a digital copy, so won't be able to read this one.

23JayneCM
Jul 10, 2023, 1:53 am

>22 staci426: I am having the same problem with the group read - I can find an extremely expensive paperback but that is all. As I get further into the list, I can see this becoming more of a problem.

24BentleyMay
Jul 10, 2023, 10:42 am

Try the Internet Archive (archive.org). They have tons of digital stuff including The Sorrow of Belgium for free. It has saved me a lot of money.

25staci426
Jul 10, 2023, 9:41 pm

>24 BentleyMay: Thanks for this info. I was not aware of this site. I am legally blind and cannot read print books and noticed that they also have a feature for print disabled access, so this will definitely come in handy and will hopefully be a good resource for finding some of the more obscure titles from the list.

26JayneCM
Jul 12, 2023, 10:42 pm

>24 BentleyMay: Wow! Thank you so much for this resource. I have been missing many of the group reads as they are not available at my library and are too expensive to purchase. This will be invaluable.

27BentleyMay
Jul 14, 2023, 11:01 am

I'm so glad you are both finding that site useful. Someone in this group mentioned the site a few years ago. Since then I have been using it for a lot of the hard-to-find titles and ones that aren't available through kindle. The digital reader is a little clunky, but it's FREE!

28staci426
Jul 31, 2023, 9:08 pm

I did not get to the group read this month, even with the discovery of this great new resource.

I only managed to finish one book in July:
288. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym, 3*

29staci426
Aug 31, 2023, 8:06 pm

I had a better month in August:

289. The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, 4*
290. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, 4.5*
291. A Question of Power by Bessie Head, 4*

Not sure what will be on deck for September. I'm not interested reading the group read choice right now, so I'm going to pass on that one. Maybe I will find something for the group challenge instead.

30staci426
Sep 25, 2023, 5:19 pm

I have been plowing through shorter books from the list this month and haeve hit my goal of getting to 300 read this year.

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber, children's fantasy 4*, had this marked read, but as a DNF for some reason, not sure why I wouldn’t have finished it.
292. Cane by Jean Toomer, fiction 4*
293. Cheese by Willem Elsschot, fiction 3.5*
294. The Nose by Nikolai Gogol, classics 3.5*
295. Silk by Alessandro Baricco, historical 3.5*
296. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, fiction 4.25*
297. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, fiction 4*
298. Vathek by William Beckford, classics 3*
299. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, fiction 4*
300. Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal, fiction 3*
301. The Cubs and Other Stories by Mario Vargas Llosa, short stories 3*
302. Blind Man with a Pistol by Chester Hines, crime 2.5*
303. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch, fiction 3.75*
304. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, fiction 4*
305. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, fiction 4*
306. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare, fiction 2.5*

And I am currently working on:
The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

31puckers
Sep 26, 2023, 12:09 am

Congratulations on reaching your goal for the year - on to 400 now!

32staci426
Oct 30, 2023, 2:10 pm

Definitely slowed down in October.

307. Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matos, 3.5*
308. Corell's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, 5*

I've taken a break from The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd. Not sure why I'm struggling with this one, it's not very long and I've made it over half way through so far, I'm just wanting to listen any time I start up again. I will wait a few weeks and see if I can get it finished.

Not sure what I plan to pick up next.

33staci426
Nov 29, 2023, 5:43 pm

Finished a few more books:

309. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
310. Metamorphoses by Ovid, 4*
311. Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, 3*
312. The Information by Martin Amis, this was a DNF, but I made it about 30% in which is enough for me to count it
313. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric, 3*

I did start Melmoth the Wanderer for the October group read but didn't like either of the narrators on the two different audio editions I found, so didn't make it too far. I was enjoying the little bit I was able to get through so want to find another way to get through this one eventually.

I have not been having much luck with the group reads recently, so hopefully December's will work out better. I had found it at my library shortly before it was chosen, so maybe that will be a good sign.

34staci426
Jan 2, 8:14 pm

Finished three more books in December to end the year with a total of 46 books read for the year. I think this is the most I've read so far in one year since starting this.

314. Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo, 3.5*
315. The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström, 3.5*
316. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster, 4*

I have a few books that I started earlier in the year that I never finished, but do want to get back to them, hopefully early this year:
The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

And to kick off the new year I have started The Magus by John Fowles.

35amaryann21
Feb 21, 9:03 pm

>34 staci426: I kinda loved The Magus. I hope you like it!

36staci426
Feb 24, 2:43 pm

>35 amaryann21: I found it to be a bit of a difficult read, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I did really enjoy it.

37staci426
Feb 24, 2:56 pm

I have not posted any of the books I've finished yet here.
I feel like I'm off to a bit of a slow start for the year considering I've already finished 36 books so far this year and only five have been from the list. I want to start increasing that number.

317. The Magus by John Fowles, 4*
318. As If I Am Not There by Slavenka Drakulic, 4*
319. Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, 2*
320. Neuromancer by William Gibson, 3*
321. The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin, 3.5*

38amaryann21
Mar 6, 11:44 am

>36 staci426: I agree that it was difficult- I needed to be in the right space (mentally and physically- no noise, when usually I can read with any background noise at all) to get into it. Once I was in, though, it got easier.