November 2018 Group Challenge

Talk1001 Books to read before you die

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November 2018 Group Challenge

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1japaul22
Oct 22, 2018, 8:38 am

Each month I’ll post a challenge as a way to pick your next book, discuss books you’ve read, and get to know each other’s reading. Let’s keep this “no rules”, so use the challenge as you like in any way that helps inspire your reading. Feel free to PM me suggestions of challenge ideas you have or comment on the following thread. http://www.librarything.com/topic/295242

November 2018 Challenge: Read a book added to or removed from the newest edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

Since a new edition of 1001 Books is being published, let’s read a book that was added to the list in 2018 OR removed from the list. Since many of us read from the cumulative editions, it should work for most of us and gives us 20 books to choose from, found here. http://arukiyomi.com/?p=6545

If you’d like a broader challenge, read any book added or removed from the several editions published since the original. That includes hundreds of books. I found that a google search pulled up several places to find “changes” made. Here is one place to start: http://bucketlistbookreviews.com/the-lists/differences-between-the-original-and-... . Goodreads also has “shelves” of updates: https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/970-boxall-s-1001-books-you-must-read-...

Feel free to discuss the merits of the book added or removed and if it moved the list in a direction you were happy to see. Also, if you’ve already read any of the books that were added/removed from this recent list, you are welcome to comment on them here.

2soffitta1
Oct 22, 2018, 5:16 pm

Fab -I have A girl is a half-formed thing on my shelf, picked up a second hand copy before I saw the updated list. I am sad to see a number of the books Going, but I did love the Neapolitan series of books.

3DeltaQueen50
Oct 22, 2018, 6:26 pm

I also have A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing on my shelves so I will also go with that one.

4amerynth
Oct 22, 2018, 8:48 pm

Nice challenge! I'm going to go with The Flamethrowers because someone (in real life) recently recommended it.

5Yells
Edited: Oct 22, 2018, 10:37 pm

I just finished The Mars Room and really liked it so I will try The Flamethrowers next.

6BentleyMay
Oct 23, 2018, 8:42 am

I am about half way through volume 3 of the Neapolitan Books, so I will probably finish vol 4 in November.

That's kind of cheating though, so maybe I'll read one of the other newly listed books. I have a few of them already. I also recently purchased The Blind Side of the Heart by Julia Franck. so maybe I'll give that a go.

7amaryann21
Oct 23, 2018, 1:29 pm

Oo, nice one! I also acquired a copy of The Flamethrowers recently, so I'll queue that one up.

8japaul22
Oct 27, 2018, 11:22 am

I found A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing while browsing my library's shelves, so I'll read that as well.

9gypsysmom
Oct 27, 2018, 5:44 pm

I just finished reading H(a)ppy by Nicola Barker for the October challenge which would have also worked for this challenge. I do really want to read Americanah so maybe I will see if I can get my hands on that.

10japaul22
Nov 4, 2018, 7:37 am

I tried reading A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and I will admit to having a really hard time with it. The combination of the odd, disjointed language and the extremely dark plot really alienated me. I'm impressed that she was so ambitious with her first novel, but I really dislike reading books that are so hopeless.

I'll be curious to hear what others think since several of us were planning to read it.

11DeltaQueen50
Edited: Nov 4, 2018, 11:54 am

>10 japaul22: I am struggling on with A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing. I have never really been taken with "Stream of Consciousness" books and this one is extreme. I am reading this book a few pages at a time, and then putting it down for easier reads. I can see the brilliance of the writing, but so far I am not really appreciating it!

ETA: "Dark" doesn't even begin to describe the misery and degradation of this book!

12Tess_W
Nov 4, 2018, 12:16 pm

I always plan to participate in these, but it has never panned out! I can't read more than 2 books at a time and I have a compulsion to finish each and every book I read. I should be "free" of one book I'm reading in a week and I have Half of a Yellow Sun on my ereader. This book wasn't on the original list but has since been added.

13japaul22
Nov 4, 2018, 1:06 pm

>12 Tess_W: That happens to me a lot with group reads! I think it's fun with these monthly challenges to share what you would read, even if you don't end up having time to read it.

14DeltaQueen50
Nov 6, 2018, 11:23 am

I have completed A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing and believe me, I was very happy to see the end of that book. Probably my most difficult read of the year, I can see the brilliance but I fail to appreciate it.

15amaryann21
Nov 14, 2018, 8:58 pm

The Flamethrowers is over. I guess I'm glad I checked it off the list. I think my opinion won't likely be the prevailing one, but it just didn't resonate.

16Willoyd
Edited: Nov 15, 2018, 7:19 pm

Also, if you’ve already read any of the books that were added/removed from this recent list, you are welcome to comment on them here.

I've read two of the new books, one of which is H is for Hawk. It's non-fiction, so, much as I like the book, I don't really understand its inclusion.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
This is a combination of what I would normally regard as opposites: 'misery memoir' (Mark Cocker, The Guardian), a genre I usually abhor, on one side; natural history, a genre I usually love, on the other. Somewhere intertwined with this was a semi-biographical account of TH White, focusing on his own attempts to train a goshawk as recounted in The Goshawk. All in all a complex book trying to pull off a balancing act between the three relationships (Dad, White, Mabel) that could so easily have found itself weighed down too heavily in any one direction, but actually succeeded. I had some minor issues with aspects of the book, but overall this proved a thoroughly rewarding read.

The Circle by Dave Eggers
Dystopian novel set in Silicon Valley. The premise is interesting, but it proved to be a book I disliked intensely, rating it at the time I read it (last year) as as one of the worst written books I'd read for a long time. The reviewer in 1001 Books suggests "Dave Eggers is the George Orwell of the internet age". On this evidence, I'd beg to disagree!

17amaryann21
Nov 16, 2018, 10:40 am

>16 Willoyd: I do find it interesting that a number of memoirs are included on the list, as it seems to be touted as fiction. That said, I have appreciated a few. No Hawk for me yet, thanks for the review!

18Willoyd
Edited: Nov 16, 2018, 3:09 pm

>17 amaryann21:
I do find it interesting that a number of memoirs are included on the list, as it seems to be touted as fiction.
I've identified two other 'non-fiction' books: In Cold Blood and Wild Swans. The latter is I understand genuinely non-fiction, so, again, I don't know why it's included here. On the latter, I remember reading somewhere that there are elements in his book that Capote fictionalised; it's also been described as a 'non-fiction novel', whatever that means, but the combination of the two means that I can see why it's been allowed in this list. For the same reasons, I also included it in another challenge I'm doing, a tour of the USA, with 51 novels set in each of the 51 states.

I may have missed others, but I'm completely mystified as to why these two books (H is for Hawk, Wild Swans) are included. As soon as the list is opened up to memoirs, then the exclusion of so many other outstanding examples seems a bit of a nonsense. And if memoirs are allowed, why is other non-fiction excluded? Very odd. Have I missed something?

19amaryann21
Nov 16, 2018, 4:10 pm

>18 Willoyd: I went through just the books I've completed and found a few more memoirs- Cider with Rosie, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Survival in Auschwitz (also titled If This Is a Man), and Christ Stopped at Eboli.

There are a few others that are might fall into a grey area: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Before Night Falls and Walden. While not novels, they aren't memoirs, necessarily, either.

I have no insights into why these are included and I'm not sure what the reasoning is to include them. That said, I (for the most part- I'm looking at you, Walden) appreciated reading them!

20Willoyd
Edited: Nov 16, 2018, 6:09 pm

>19 amaryann21:
Thanks for that - a goodly list. I've also found Testament of Youth

As you say, one or two grey areas. Cider with Rosie, for instance, has to be partly fictional, or at least imaginative - could he really have recalled so vividly things that happened when he was three and four years old? (For other reasons, it's grossly overrated in my opinion too, but that's another issue!) Fear and Loathing was I gather primarily fictional; on the other hand, the Angelou was pretty much pure memoir.

I have to admit, I do find the inclusion of non-fictional memoirs detracts from the list: either it's fiction or it isn't, and if it isn't, then there's suddenly a whole massive range of superb literature that's been missed out arbitrarily.

21ELiz_M
Nov 16, 2018, 8:09 pm

"There is no consensus among readers and critics about when the novel as a form came into being; there is no definite boundary that separates a novel from a short story, from a novella, from a prose poem, from autobiography, witness testimony, or journalism, from a fable, or a myth, or a legend......

....Prose fiction lives in so many guises, and different languages, across so many nations and centuries, that a list like this will always, and should always, be marked, formed, and deformed by what it leaves out."

--Peter Boxall, Introduction to the 2008 edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

22amaryann21
Nov 16, 2018, 11:36 pm

>21 ELiz_M: Thank you for that. I don't own the book, so I appreciate when you include information from it.

23Willoyd
Nov 17, 2018, 8:43 am

>21 ELiz_M:
Thanks for that - I've just found that at your prompting in my copy. It makes interesting reading, but for me it comes as a complete cop-out, and a contradiction of what he writes elsewhere. There may be a grey area around myths, legends etc, but there are books either side of that grey area where it's surely very straightforward.

Boxall on several occasions in his introductions emphasises that this is about fiction, and novels are, by definition, fictional. Books like H is for Hawk and Testament of Youth simply aren't novels (at least not deliberately). Indeed Vera Brittain tried to write Testament as a novel, and felt she couldn't. They are both great books, but, IMO, with a fistful of others just shouldn't be on this list of 'novels', alongside the other greats of history, travel etc.

24ELiz_M
Nov 17, 2018, 9:13 am

>23 Willoyd: I thought it was a list of books that showcased the development of the novel. Just as you can't tell the history of a nation without occasionally including information about other conquering nationalities, you can't show the development of the novel without occasionally including other prose works that greatly influenced the form/idea of the novel

25Willoyd
Nov 17, 2018, 10:01 am

>24 ELiz_M:
I wasn't aware of that, and, having trawled closely through the introductions, I have to say that I can't find any indication other than this is meant to be a list of 1001 novels, and nothing in the entries to suggest what influence they might have had, if any (has there even been time for 'H is for Hawk' to influence the novel?). Given that they're almost all of one very specific genre, I am even more doubtful; does that mean no other book of any other genre has had any significant influence? Sounds more to me like a distinctly idiosyncratic definition of a novel, almost as if anxious to create room for a favoured genre.

26soffitta1
Nov 17, 2018, 4:11 pm

Just bought 10:08 on Kindle- there was a big discount on the price.
A girl is a half formed-thing was not an easy read, it was relentless, but I did find myself sucked into the narrative.

27puckers
Nov 17, 2018, 5:31 pm

>26 soffitta1: Thanks - its discounted to $2.84 (so around US$1.60) on the Australian kindle store also so I've added it to my Kindle TBR. However I think you were out by 4 (minutes, seconds??) - it's 10:04.

For my November challenge I read H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. As others have mentioned it is a work of non-fiction, partly auto-biographical and partly biographical of T H White. The latter writer has one book on the Boxall list so the background to this tortured man was interesting. I found the book itself a little repetitive and dry, but with some nice observations, particularly around the futility of humanising animals thoughts and actions.

28soffitta1
Nov 18, 2018, 9:34 am

I wondered why the touchstones weren't working! Thanks!

29japaul22
Nov 20, 2018, 12:20 pm

I also just finished Winter by Ali Smith. I liked it - Ali Smith's work is always clever and this has the added bonus of relatable characters. As in Autumn (the first in a quartet that isn't on the list), she confronts current events including immigration and refugee status. But it isn't as big a part of the book as I expected.

I've also read her book There but for the that was removed from the list when Winter was added. Though I personally didn't like There but for the, I think it's a more appropriate novel for the list than Winter. It's much more experimental and "novel". I'm perplexed by this change.

30amerynth
Edited: Nov 22, 2018, 8:13 pm

I've just about finished The Flamethrowers and I'm pretty unimpressed by it. No idea why this was added to the list -- it seems like a standard novel and there is nothing new or interesting about it. The couple of books I've read that were removed in the latest edition (including Dirty Havana Trilogy, which I really hated but at least has an unique voice to it) seem way more deserving to be on the list than this one.

31Henrik_Madsen
Nov 24, 2018, 3:46 pm

I finished The Flamethrowers which I generally enjoyed, but my interest was very unevenly distributed. I loved the parts about motorcycles, racing, and how Reno felt liberated and independent when she rode it. I also enjoyed her exploits in Italy but the parts depicting the New York art scene was a bit long in the tooth.

32staci426
Nov 30, 2018, 2:25 pm

I ended up reading one of the new additions, The Circle by Dave Eggers, for this challenge. I did not enjoy this at all. It was one of the most difficult books to get through for me in a long time. Normally I would have abandoned the book, but I found this book so ridiculous, I had to see how it ended.

I had also read one of the deletions, There but for the by Ali Smith, earlier this year. I really enjoyed this one. It was a strange little story, but something about it really grabbed me. I enjoyed this one more than Smith's other book from the list which I've read, The Accidental. I was hoping to get to her new addition, Winter, for this month, but wasn't able to.

33annamorphic
Dec 1, 2018, 4:47 am

Well, I am half-way through The Story of a New Name which is the lengthy book 2 of the 4-book series that ends in The Story of a Lost Child. So while I did not truly complete this month's challenge, I at least made progress toward that end!