englishrose60's ABC

Will read authors and books in alphabetical order, eliminating the, a and an. Good idea for a challenge.

Author Alphabet

A
Cesar Aira The Hare 29/08/2009
B
Simon Brett Murder in the Museum 31/08/2009
C
Edgardo Cozarinsky - The Moldavian Pimp 01/09/2009
D
William Dampier - Piracy, Turtles and Flying Foxes 04/09/2009
E
Lynn Erickson - The Eleventh Hour 08-09-2009
F
John Farris - The Uninvited 11/09/2009
G
Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza - The Silence of the Rain 14/09/2009
H
E.W. Hornung - Raffles the Amateur Cracksman 17/09/2009
I
Henrik Ibsen A Doll's House 19/9/2009
J
Jerome K Jerome Three Men in a Boat 22/09/2009
K
Ryszard Kapuscinski The Cobra's Heart 22/09/2009
L
D H Lawrence The Virgin and the Gipsy 23/09/2009
M
Alistair Maclean Circus 26/09/2009
N
Vladimir Nabakov - Mary 30/09/2009
O
Maggie O'Farrell - My Lover's Lover 05/10/2009
P
Nani Power - Crawling at Night 17/10/2009
Q
Ann Quin - Berg
R
Patrick Redmond - All She Ever Wanted 28/10/2009
S
Jerry Spinelli - Wringer 02/11/2009
T
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces 17/11/2009
U
John Updike - The Woman Who Got Away 18/11/2009
V
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca - The Shipwrecked Men 21/11/2009
W
James Wilcox - Modern Baptists 30/11/2009
X
Xinran - Miss Chopsticks 02/12/2009
Y
Ma Yan - The Diary of Ma Yan 03/12/2009
Z
Eve Zaremba - Work for a Million 05/12/2009

Book Alphabet

A
Affinity by Sarah Waters 29/8/2009
B
The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vazquez Montalban 01/09/2009
C
The Camomile by Catherine MacFarlane Carswell 03/09/2009
D
The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith 07/09/2009
E
Egg Dancing by Liz Jensen 08/09/2009
F
Family Portrait by Graham Masterton 12/09/2009
G
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin 16/09/2009
H
Hunt for the Southern Continent by James Cook 16/09/2009
I
Inferno by Patricia Melo 18/09/2009
J
A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire by A.P. Chekhov 19/09/2009
K
Kiss the Girls Goodbye by Lillian Harry 23/09/2009
L
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis 25/09/2009
M
Magnetism by F. Scott Fitzgerald 26/09/2009
N
Nothing - Except My Genius by Oscar Wilde 01/10/2009
O
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey 12/10/2009
P
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James 17/10/2009
Q
The Question of Max by Amanda Cross 20/10/2009
R
Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Herrigan
S
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh 02/11/2009
T
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson 16/11/2009
U
Unchained Melanie by Judy Astley 19/11/2009
V
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery 27/11/2009
W
Want to Play by P.J. Tracy 30/11/2009
X
The Xmas Factor by Annie Sanders 02/12/2009
Y
The Years by Virginia Woolf 04/12/2009
Z
Zorro by Isabel Allende

Welcome on board :)

Thank you Annie. Looking forward to this challenge. Do we start straight away?

It's up to you - no time constraints at all so as long as you have a book that fits, you can start :) I am finishing my current book and will see if my next one can get me started here as well.

OK! That's good Annie. Off to look at my tbr's.

I have chosen my first two books. I shall date them after reading and post a comment on each one.

Affinity by Sarah Waters. Really good book weaving the stories of Selena, a spiritual medium imprisoned for fraud and Margaret a 'lady' who is a prison visitor. Recommended.

The Hare by Cesare Aira. I did not like this book very much. Not to my taste I think.

Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett. An easy to read and enjoyable murder mystery set in the English countryside.

The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vazquez Montalban. Private detective travels from Spain to Argentina to find his cousin who has 'disappeared'. Well written if a bit too long.

The Moldavian Pimp by Edgardo Cozarinsky. Short but full of detail about Jewish pimps in Argentina and the girls they exploited. Very good.

Piracy, Turtles and Flying Foxes by William Dampier. Once I got used to the style of writing I enjoyed this book of extracts from Dampier's travels.

The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith. Very funny send-up of life in suburbia in late 19th Century.

The Eleventh Hour by Lynn Erickson. Jack Devlin is on Death Row, accused of killing his wife. Public Defender Eve Marchand believes he is innocent and it is a race against time to find the real killer. Good plot.

Touchstone not working

Hi. Piracy, Turtles and Flying Foxes sounds really interesting. I having been eyeing up the Penguin great travels series and that looks like a good place to start. Thanks.

Hope you enjoy.

Egg Dancing by Liz Jensen. Jensen's humour lifts this satire on genetic engineering,television evangelism and psychotherapy to make a very entertaining read about very contentious subjects.

The Eleventh Hour by Erickson. Good crime novel about a man on death row, convicted of killing his wife, and Public Defender who is trying to find the real killer.

The Uninvited by John Farris. Not my favourite genre but I think horror fans might enjoy this one.

Family Portrait by Graham Masterton. An imaginative story about a family who have surendered their souls which are contained within a family portrait while their bodies need new skin to hide the corruption underneath. Murder and horror. References to Oscar Wilde and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Not for the squeamish.

I like your really diverse group of books. Good luck to you with your challenge.

Thanks Carmenere! I have lots to choose from among my tbr mountain. Trying to read a varied selection especially those I do not want to keep (not enough shelves).

The Silence of the Rain by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. Good detective story set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. Passionate love affair between David and Giovanni ends when Davids girlfriend returns to Paris with tragic consequences. Very good.

Hunt for the Southern Continent by James Cook. Cook's exciting account of his search for Antartica.

Raffles The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung. Tales of a gentleman burglar. Very good.

Inferno by Patricia Melo. Very good story about drug trafficking as Kingie, an eleven year old boy, has to grow up among the poverty and violence in Sao Paulo, Brazil

The Cook book sounds very good. I think I may have read something similar a few years ago and it was actually quite a harrowing story.
belva

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. This play was very enjoyable to read. Very good characterisation and a deep understanding of the stifling effect marriage could have on women.

A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire by A.P. Chekhov. An illuminating account of Chekhov's travels and his meetings with those who had been exiled to an inhospitable region of the Russian Empire.

The Virgin and the Gipsy by D.H. Lawrence. A love story. Good.

Kiss the Girls Goodbye by Lillian Harry. London, 1940s. Compelling novel of girls working in a Lyon's Corner House and their families during the horrors of WWII.

I love Lilian Harry! Have you read the others in the trilogy - Corner House Girls and P.S. I Love You? All are very good.

^No! I have only one other Lillian Harry book. It's from the Street at War Series - The Girls They Left Behind on my tbr pile.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. Quite an enjoyable read. Well written with some very funny moments.

Circus by Alsiatair MacLean. An exciting thriller.

Magnetism by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Four love stories, all good. My favourite was 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair'.

Mary by Vladimir Nabokov. Full of interesting characters and suspense. very good story.

My Lover's Lover by Maggie O'Farrell. Quite good suspense novel.

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. Good plot and characters. Good read.

WOW englishrose60 - you are making amazing progress on your challenge! Good job!

Thank you! Mind you some of the books are under 200 pages :-)

Hey... progress is still progress, anyway you slice it! ;-)

Crawling at Night - Good debut novel.

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. Very good.

The Question of Max by Amanda Cross. A murder mystery with lots of literary allusions. When one of her graduate students is found dead amateur sleuth Kate Fansler starts an investigation which takes her to Oxford, England. Liked this a lot.

Berg by Ann Quin. I enjoyed most of this book about a young man (Berg) who leaves home to go and find his father who abandoned him and his mother when he was a little boy. His intention is to kill his father but.......... a very eerie ending.

All She Ever Wanted by Patrick Redmond. This psychological thriller was a real page-turner. Kept me in suspense as to what the outcome was going to be. Shows what effect bullying and lack of parental affection can have on the minds of children and how it follows them into their adult life.

Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan. Loved this. Two women's stories of their marriages. Tressa, in New York, and her grandmother, in Ireland. Their lives are interwoven in this captivating novel along with some traditional Irish Recipes.

Wringer by Jerry Spinelli - a rites of passage story of a boy who does not want to be a wringer (of pigeons' necks) when he reaches 10 years of age at the annual pigeon shoot in his home town. Didn't think I'd like this one but it reels you in.

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh - witty satire on the Press.

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson. I was drawn into this tale of a Minister who did not believe in God, until one day after an accidental fall into a gorge he meets a man who might be the Devil.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Funny in parts but I did not warm to any of the characters.

The Women Who Got Away by John Updike. Short stories.

Unchained Melanie by Judy Astley. Chick Lit story of Melanie who after years of marriage is looking forward to an unfettered life after divorce. OK.

The Shipwrecked Men by Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca. An interesting account of how a group of Spaniards became shipwrecked and subsequently crossed south-western North America, with the help (or not) of Indian tribes. c.1530.

The Shipwrecked Men sounds like a winner and I'm adding it to my wishlist.
Am I correct in thinking that this book is non-fiction?

Carmenere, Yes you are right. It is non-fiction.

#53 Shipwrecked Men does sound very interesting - I'm adding it to my wishlist, too.

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery. This was a re-read for me and I have enjoyed it more this time.

I'm adding The Shipwrecked Men to my list too. I also hope to get to a reread of Vanity Fair. Interesting reading.

arubabookwoman. My alphabet reading is a mixed bag from my tbr pile, some of which were given to me by a friend. I have enjoyed reading them, and VF which was a reread.

Eight more to go to finish this challenge which I hope to finish this year.

Want to Play (Monkeewrench)by P.J. Tracy. A very good murder mystery.

Modern Baptists by James Wilcox. Did not enjoy this one.

The Xmas Factor by Annie Sanders. A lighthearted and amusing story centred around Christmas. Enjoyable chicklit.

Miss Chopsticks by Xinran. A story of three sisters who leave the countryside to seek work in the city. I enjoyed this very much and learnt a lot about women in China.

The Diary of Ma Yan. Very moving account of how poor people living in the Chinese countryside struggle not only to survive, but strive to send their children to school so that they may ultimately have a better life than their parents. The book has much additional information on the conditions in rural China. Recommended.

The Years by Virginia Woolf. Loved it.

Congratulations Englishrose, I can see you are just about finished this challenge. Are you planning to do this one again, or are you moving on to another challenge?

Zorro by Isabel Allende. Enjoyed this immensely. Great adventure story giving the background of Zorro from his birth to adulthood. Wonderful characters, good plot and lots of historical interest.

DeltaQueen, I have now completed this Challenge and I shall now have a break from challenges until January. I have loved doing this one and have made a little dent in my tbr pile.

Wishing everybody good luck and enjoyment with this challenge. Happy Christmas to everyone and hope to see some of you in the 1010 Challenge in January.

Congratulations, Englishrose! You sailed through this challenge as well. See you in January!

Thank you! See you next year!

Congratulations on finishing the challenge! Looking forward to seeing you in the 1010 next month.

Thank you! See you soon.

Congratulations!!! See you around the 1010...

Congratulations! I've picked up several good recommendations here.

BTW, if you're interested in more reading on China, I read The Good Women of China by Xinran, which is nonfiction, several years ago, and it is excellent.

^Thanks for the recommendation. I shall be reading books about China sometime on my way around the world.

^Thanks for the recommendation. I shall be reading books about China sometime on my way around the world.

Thanks for the recommendation