Nathalie's (Deern's) books in 2011 - Part 3

Welcome to my 3rd thread in 2011



Picture taken from the first "Reading in Public" event in Merano: "StadtLesen"

These books and reviews can be found on:
my first 2011 thread :

1. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
2. The Complete Sonnets by William Shakespeare
3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
4. Beowulf (Seamus Heany translation)
5. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
6. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
7. At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman
8. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Reread)
9. A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne
10.Germania by Simon Winder
11.Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys by Amelia B. Edwards
12.Candide by Voltaire
13.La Pancia Degli Italiani by Beppe Severgnini
14.A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
15.Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist
16.If this is a Man by Primo Levi
17.Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
18.King Henry VI Part I by William Shakespeare
19.Facebook Fan Pages
20.Flawed Dogs: The Novel by Berkeley Breathed
21.Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
22.Mustn’t Grumble by Joe Bennett
23.Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
24.Matilda by Roald Dahl
25.Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
26.Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
27.Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
28.Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
29.Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom
30.War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
31.Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
32.Der Duft des Kaffees by Gerhard J. Rekel
33.Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane
34.Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
35.The Seas: A Novel by Samantha Hunt
36.Dinge, die verschwinden by Jenny Erpenbeck
37.Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

Thread #2 :

38. The Path to the Spiders' Nests by Italo Calvino
39. Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant
40. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
41. Le Ventre de Paris by Émile Zola
42. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
43. Die Walsche by Joseph Zoderer
44. Topographien by Waltraud Mittich
45. Heimsuchung by Jenny Erpenbeck
46. Pierre et Jean by Guy de Maupassant
47. The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
48. Che pasticcio, Bridget Jones! by Helen Fielding
49. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
50. Stufen by Hermann Hesse (poetry)
51. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
52. Manuale di resistenza al lunedì by resistenzaumana.it
53. Zeitoun by David Eggers
54. Der Himmel über Meran by Joseph Zoederer
55. Italians by Beppe Severgnini
56. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
57. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
58. Hospital Sketches by Louisa M. Alcott
59. Kindertransport by Olga Drucker
60. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
61. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White - my first real audiobook!!
62. Das Klingsor Paradox by Jorge Volpi
63. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
64. La Fortune des Rougon by Émile Zola
65. Daisy Miller by Henry James
66. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
67. Professor Unrat oder Das Ende eines Tyrannen by Heinrich Mann
68. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
69. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
70. The Pigeon by Patrick Sueskind

Reviews still missing (will be added to this thread):
72. La Curée by Émile Zola
76. Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher by Walter Moers
119. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (audio book)

Reviewed in this thread:
71. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
73. Wer bin ich - und wenn ja, wie viele? by Richard David Precht
74. Watership Down by Richard Adams
75. A Moveable Feast: Restored Edition by Ernest Hemingway
77. Cat's Cradle/Ghiaccio-nove by Kurt Vonnegut
78. Suite francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
79. The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks
80. Destins de Chiens by Sebastien Perez and Benjamon Lacombe
81. Narziss und Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
82. L'amante inglese by Marguerite Duras
83. Anständig Essen by Karen Duve
84. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
85. L'amore ai tempi del colera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (re-read)
86. Ansichten eines Clowns by Heinrich Boell
87. Dubliners by James Joyce
88. The Human Stain by Philip Roth
89. La Bella Lingua by Dianne Hales
90. Il Mio Dante by Roberto Benigni
91. La Divina Commedia / Die Göttliche Komödie by Dante Alighieri
92. Love Will Find You by Kathryn Alice
93. The Humbling by Philip Roth
94. Uomini e Topi (Of Mice and Men) by John Steinbeck
95. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
96. Sandokan: le tigri di Mompracem by Emilio Salgari
97. Lieutenant Gustl by Arthur Schnitzler
98. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
99. Senilità (When a Man Grows Older) by Italo Svevo
100. Atteggiamento sospetto/ Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
101. Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
102. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day (audiobook) by Winifred Watson
103. Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard
104. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
105. Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull by Thomas Mann
106. King Lear by William Shakespeare
107. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
108. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by E.T.A. Hoffmann
109. A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas
110. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
111. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
112. I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga
113. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
114. The Third Man (audio book) by Graham Greene
115. The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann
116. Fanny Hill by John Cleland
117. Hyperion by Friedrich Hoelderlin
118. Der Sprachverführer (non-fiction) by Thomas Steinfeld

Currently reading:
Il Cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery) by Umberto Eco. This one will take forever, it's a bit intimidating
Arabian Nights: The Thousand and One Nights This will be another very slow read
Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerloef

On hold (way too many now...):
A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin for 1001 (page 1002 of 2550)
Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor for 1001 (short story books take me forever)
One, No One and One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello for 1001 (have to finish my library books first..no, that's a cheap excuse. I'm bored to death. I HATE Italian experimental writing!)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway... just 200 pages, but I don't see a single reason to read on
La Storia della mia gente by Edoardo Nesi (pretentious, overblown writing, a real disappointment)
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

tbr "soon":
Radetzkymarsch by Joseph Roth for 1001
Decameron and Das Dekameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Checking in!

Hi Stasia! :-)
I thought with now 10 reviews waiting I should better start a new thread.

I'll now add some placeholders for missing reviews so everything stays in order and then I'll try and write something for the last books I finished. But it's very questionable I'll get much done, because there's a "Dorffest" around the corner of my house and I can't escape to take a walk because it's raining.

Just imagine:
4 small stages around one small piazza and a brass band on each. They are all playing at the same time, different songs logically. They do not go well together. I have no idea why they are doing this, the place is so small, one stage would have been sufficient.

They have been playing yesterday from 10 am to midnight and they are planning to do it again today for another 14 hours. And it really is your classical oompah stuff - polka and marches. I can deal with it if it's just one band and they are not playing for more than 2 hours (they are doing weekly concerts here in summer). But 4 bands and 28 hours?? I guess you have to be born here to enjoy this!

Yikes! The ''Dorffest'' would get on my nerves quickly! Ack!

Nathalie that's funny because we are not sitting there listening to it. Hope the rain stops soon and you can escape!!

Hey, I just read a story in the NZZ about the Mayor of Cittadella banning the sale of kebabs in the town because they are un-Italian. It said it's in the Veneto - is that vaguely near you?

#5: Italians love to do things like that. Banning whatever is not Italian or inventing new words so they don't have to use the English expressions. It's really funny sometimes. Veneto starts about 1 hour from my place, but I wouldn't put it past our mayor here to do something similar. Maybe ban that new sushi that no doubt has a bad influence on Italian culture.

Oh dear, why can't it be raining into those trumpets and tubas?

71. Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

When I first read about this book, I thought it might fit in well with Tender is the Night which I had just finished. It was a pleasant surprise to find VB now in my library – and even better it’s the English version! Reading it was even more pleasant.
I was wrong about “Tender..” – the books are both set between the wars and deal with the easiness of the young generation, but apart from that they don’t have much in common.
Vile Bodies is not tragic/ bittersweet, showing us the abyss behind a glittering surface like “Tender..”. It is glittering surface, it’s fun and it is intelligent writing. The book is full of wonderful and bizarre characters with original names (I didn’t get all the puns but native speakers certainly will). There’s the main character, a young author who constantly gains or loses high amounts of money, and depending on the state of his purse promises marriage to his girlfriend or breaks it off again. There is a girls’ choir (“angels” with wings), the members having such great names as Chastity, there is the keeper of a Westend hotel whose main occupation seems to be opening champagne bottles….
I think this is the first book I’ve ever really wanted to own as an audiobook, because there is so much brilliant dialogue. I don’t know what else to say – I really enjoyed this one.

Rating: 4 stars

Placeholder for 72. "La Curee"

73. Wer bin ich – und wenn ja, wie viele? by Richard David Precht

A non-fiction book, an easy-to-read compendium of philosophy, a highly praised book, must-read, best-seller in Germany, also translated into English. I have to say I was not terribly impressed.

The book is divided into three parts and I rated them differently. The first part is about the question ‘Who am I?’, RDP lists all the famous philosophers and tries to give answers by explaining the results of modern neurology in an easily understandable way. I found this part very informative, BUT: Somebody must have advised him to write like Bill Bryson. He sure tried his best, but he fails miserably. For every paragraph of real information I had to plough through 2 pages of “I don’t want to make if difficult for my readers” easy reading, in the style of “hey, remember that episode from Star Trek, where Spock falls in love?” No, I don’t, and I am not interested, but I get a full episode summary, just to learn at the end of the chapter that it’s all about Dopamin and Serotonin. Rating here: 2,5 stars

The third part of the book discusses the question if God exists (maybe, maybe not) , what is ‘Glück’ (this untranslatable German word which is a mixture of happiness and luck) and how we can attain it. This part was nice, quite informative and mainly neutral. Rating: 3 stars

Which leaves part 2, and those 130 or so pages made me so angry that I wanted to throw the book out of the window. Now it is certainly a difficult part, because it deals with the question ‘What is good?’, asking questions like: is abortion okay? How about euthanasia? Should we eat meat? And so on. And guess what? In the end the German law situation (it’s a German book) is perfect in all of those questions. Nothing speaks against abortion in the first three months (he doesn’t say what makes it so much worse in month 4), direct euthanasia (as practiced in the Netherlands) is not good, but the indirect way (putting someone in a coma and then let them starve) is okay. Hey – and for the meat there’s no law, so decide for yourselves. Many of those issues are so critical that an answer from a philosophical point of view (and it is a book about philosophy) should be left open.
Rating: 1 star

I saw this guy in an interview a while ago and quite liked him, but now after reading this book I changed my mind. Another thing: the writing is not good, typical modern sloppy style. But this might be in line with the whole ‘Bill Bryson’ approach, so maybe it wasn’t his fault. And I don’t need those personal bits. I mean – it’s nice for you if your brain makes you find the way to your house even if you are so drunk you can barely walk. But please – I don’t want to know that! Then I’d rather read more about Mr Spock.

Rating: 2,5 stars

74. Watership Down by Richard Adams

Reading a so-called childrens‘ book can be a liberating experience!
When I was 9 years old, the trailer for the movie Watership Down was shown in our local smalltown theater. I vividly remember the picturesque beginning, lovely meadows and cute rabbits playing. Rabbits were my favorite animals then. Then suddenly there was that field ‚red with blood‘, ‚evil rabbits‘ with ‚evil eyes‘ attacking the cute rabbits, a dog catching and shaking a rabbit... the following Disney movie could not really distract me from the horrors I had seen. Some of my classmates went to see the movie and came back half-traumatized. Until now I avoided the movie and the book with it. Now I thought that finally the time had come to get over those old fears and so I decided to join the group read.

It was a great decision. WD is certainly not a book for little children, but it is beautifully written, with lovely characters, and even the motives of the ‚evil‘ ones are well explained. There is violence, yes, but much less graphic than what was shown in the movie trailers. I was more affected by the ‚scary‘ chapters (especially thinking of the big warren here). Often things are more hinted at than really described in detail. The author must really have spent a lot of time watching rabbits, it‘s amazing how detailed he describes their every move. I also loved the fairy tales and how the rabbits later used those stories for their own adventures.

I watched parts of the movie now on youtube (where you can find the complete movie divided into 10 parts). I like the old handmade animated films, but in this case they added violent scenes that were not in the book at the cost of other important scenes (big warren again) and they showed more blood than was needed.

Now that I finished the book, I hope the nice but sugary „Bright Eyes“ song will finally leave my brain again.

Rating: 4 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4,5 to 4 stars due to new rating rules.

75. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

I can‘t say why, but I have always been prejudiced against Ernest Hemingway's books. Maybe it was the bull fights in Spain, the fishing in the Caribbean, the women, the suicide, maybe I watched The Old Man and the Sea at a too young age... I kind of avoided his books, only read the „Old Man“ in order to check at least ‚some‘ Hemingway off the 1001 list. But Ilana‘s review of this book here made me curious and there was also a glowing review on the German „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ (for which, as I learned from this book, Hemingway used to write in the 1920s).

I read the Kindle version of the restored edition, and for once I can say that the Kindle version was worth every cent. It had the photos and it had the handwritten pages in the appendix. I often used the ‚highlighting‘ functionality and set many bookmarks.

This is a great book, wonderfully written. It consists of several pieces describing Hemingway‘s first years in Paris in the early 1920s, when he was married to his first wife Hadley. He spends several chapters on his acquaintance with Scott Fitzgerald, and those were of special interest for me, as they threw a new light on the two books by him I‘ve read lately.

I wanted to list the titles of the pieces I liked best, but can't find my copy right now. Maybe I left it in the office.

Rating: 4 stars, recommended!

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4,5 to 4 stars due to new rating rules.

Placeholder for 76. "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher"

77. Cat's Cradle/ Ghiaccio-Nove by Kurt Vonnegut

I can't say I enjoyed this book, but I rated it with 4 stars nevertheless. There are 2 reasons:

1. I don't feel Vonnegut's writing translates well into Italian. The first Vonnegut I read (Slaughterhouse-Five) was in English and the next two were both Italian translations. The 'simplification' he uses in his books is not really translatable into a language that is already 'that simple'. Hard to explain.
2. I guess the first Vonnegut is always the best and the more you read the more the surprising style wears out - and you get more and more aware of the fact that in all(?) his books you have to wait forever until whatever is announced in the beginning finally happens. I know I would have loved this book if it had been my first Vonnegut and so I rated it with 4 stars.

Plot? Many important things: the atomic bomb, Ghiaccio-Nove (Ice-Nine?) which is another much worse weapon of mass destruction, religion as "opium for the people", the exploitation of third world countries... anything else?

Rating: 3,5 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4 to 3,5 stars due to new rating rules.

78. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

The 4,5 stars I gave to this book are party explained by personal reasons about which I'll write in a later post (otherwise this here would be too long). But the book is beautifully written and what exists of the story shows so much promise for the 3 parts that were never created, that I am convinced the whole work would have deserved something like 5+.

Irene Nemirovsky was born in Kiew and after years spent as a refugee in Finland and Sweden, the family settled in France where she soon became a published writer. When the Nazis occupied parts of France in 1940, she (being Jewish) left Paris and moved to the country with her husband and daughters. In July 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz where she soon died. Just a few weeks later her husband was killed in Auschwitz as well, and it seems a miracle that their two little daughters were able to survive, thanks to the enormous efforts of a guardian. Only many years later were they able to take a look at some manuscripts their mother had left behind and found the two parts of Suite Francaise which were published in 2004.

First of all: the writing is beautiful. I read the French original and it took me quite a while to get through the 516 pages, but I loved them all. When describing nature, the writing is almost poetic, then again it shows that the author was a great observer with a good sense of humour.

The first part of the book deals with the exodus of families from Paris during the German occupation. There are funny bits (like people taking furniture with them), and horrible bits (the fate of Philippe).

The second part is located in a village occupied by the Germans. A new group of soldiers arrives and very slowly the natives get into contact with them. Each side begins seeing the 'enemy' as a human, even friendships are formed - until something happens that puts them all back into place.

At the end of the second part some plot threads of the 2 parts begin to connect and we can only guess how Nemirovsky would have continued her story. There is no hate in this book, although she had more than enough reason to hate both the Germans and the French collaborators. Instead the book is full of compassion, also for the enemies and their families back in Germany. It is a great testament of the futility of war. Highly recommended!

Rating: 4,5 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 5 to 4,5 stars due to new rating rules.

79. The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks

I don't remember on whose thread I first encountered this book, but if you need a good laugh, I'd recommend it. It's basically excerpts from American cookbooks from the 1920s to 1970s with comments added by the author. I never knew that you can throw everything that's not Jell-O into Jell-O. Hilarious!
You can have a look at examples on http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html

Rating: 4 stars (that's too much in comparison with other books, I know...)

80. Destins de Chiens by Sebastien Perez and Benjamin Lacombe

My first Lacombe and by far the cheapest on offer. The other ones will have to wait for better times.
I loved the pictures, but found my French a little too limited to get all of the short poems.
It's about the sad fates of certain dogs, for example there's Flatule, the little French bulldog, who is... well... flatulent, which in the end costs him his life. A cute little book and the black and white drawings of the dogs really touched my heart.

Rating: 3 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 3,5 to 3 stars due to new rating rules.

#11: I have had The Gallery of Regrettable Food on hold at my local library since last December. *sigh* The library still lists the book as 'in processing.' It does seem to be taking an inordinate amount of time for this book to be processed!

#11 (or 12? why are there 2 #11?): on Lileks' website you'll find about half of what he put into the book (and many more things he has added since), for example the whole meat chapter and the one about BBQs and '10 pm cooking'.

Cool, I will check it out. Thanks for letting me know, Nathalie.

I feel I have to add something re. my review for Cat's Cradle to avoid a misunderstanding. Italian is not a 'simple' language, but compared to English there are some differences: Italian grammar is (imo) more complicated while the pronounciation is much easier and the pool of words normally used is much smaller.

One example I stumbled upon when preparing a presentation: the German expression "hier erhältlich" equals "available here" in English. In Italian you have to construct something like "you can get/ buy it here" - not really a catchphrase. And this happens all the time. Now Vonnegut in his pseudo-simplified English would probably just say 'you can get it here', and in Italian you wouldn't feel any difference.

Real Italian books are another thing, because the authors are playing with grammar or with the sound of the words when spoken aloud, so the whole package is harmonious. But translations from English (or German) often just fall flat.

Hi Nathalie - just popping in to tag your new thread. Some great reads from the sound of it - glad you liked Watership Down. I prob read that at about 9 (and many times since) and have always loved it. He also wrote Plague Dogs if you want to really traumatise yourself...

Hope everything picks up on the work front - I work for a big corporation and even we're feeling the heat. Fingers crossed it all works out for you. X

Goodness, you've been busy! AND with 4 bands playing polkas? Unbelievable!!!
As I think about R. Adams, I realize that I went through a long period with him. I also enjoyed Shardik and The Girl in a Swing. Oh! And Maia. I should reread to find out whether my tastes have changed.

Will have to come back to read all the above tomorrow, but I've got you starred and look forward to reading your reviews!

If you're interested, you can ask for 4 books from list of 15, mostly popular/genre fiction, titles to read and review for the Transworld Reading Challenge, open to EU residents.

http://www.between-the-lines.co.uk/?p=1378

Nathalie, I've just been revisiting your thread, enjoying your reviews and thinking up comments I'd like to make, when I got to your review of Gallery of Regrettable Foods and decided to have a look at the link you so kindly provided. OH. MY. GOD.

Can I just say I hadn't laughed like that in a really really really long time? I mean, real belly laughs. Laugh until you're hoarse kind of laughter. So I just had to comment on that right now, while it's all still fresh. First of all, the titles alone under the "The Collection" heading had me in hysterics before I'd even clicked on the links. I mean:

"Meat! Meat! Meat! Also, Meat!"

"Bran-plus for Minus People. Urgh"

"10 PM Cookery - you nite-owl, you"

"The Unbearable Sadness of Vegetables"

"Cross-dressing Veggies"

and the truly outrageous "Meat Fisting At Home" still have me in hysterics as I type this.

So I just want to say thanks for that. :-D

Stay tuned for more upcoming comments. :-)

eta: I just blogged about it and you are now famous! http://fromsmilerwithlove.com/2011/08/08/laughed-so-hard-i-cried/

Checking in to do some updates on my books. I'm not getting much reading done, during weekends I spend most of my time learning Italian (should my business fail I still want to stay here if possible). Unfortunately since last time things have only got worse. I've been to Germany for some days and next week I'll have some more meetings and then we'll decide.
It's strange, I've never been in a situation before where I was forced to give up certain things, it has always been my decision. I'm feeling kind of helpless and don't know what to do next.
I love my job, my appartment, this town, it feels more like home than the place where I come from. But being a foreigner (and 40!) they won't be throwing great jobs at me when I start searching.

#16: thanks for the 'recommendation' Bekka, but I think I'll give that one a pass, at least for now. Can't deal with sad dogs... :-)

#17: I put on earplugs, so in the end I got through that weekend quite well. They are doing this only every two years, so next time (should I still be living here) I'll go away for the weekend. Or I'll dress up in a dirndl, have some beers and sing along with the bands. Didn't feel like it this year, though.

#20: That's too much honor for me - originally this wasn't my link (but it's also in the book). I can't remember who here on LT recommended it and first posted the link which I bookmarked, it might have been Karen (klobrien2).
The meat chapter was my favorite (sometimes meat likes to dress up and feel pretty...).
You'll find more ads on his main site: http://www.lileks.com/institute/index.html.
Last night I had a look at 'meet the dayalets' (http://www.lileks.com/institute/dayalets/index.html) and it relieved me a bit from my worries.

#21: I am sorry that things are not looking better for you, Nathalie. I wish there was something I could do to help.

#22: Sorry, I didn't want to worry you, Stasia. This is a situation that doesn't make me happy, but it is something I will be able to handle. I am just very grateful that I have my family - and that they are all in good health.
And if there comes another crisis on the financial markets, at least I won't have any money to lose. :-)

I am glad that you have a family that can help you deal with the situation too, Nathalie. Sorry about the money thing though! :)

#21 For some reason that just made me chuckle and choke on my drink. I may be cracking up completely...

I really hope things look up soon. X

81. Narziss und Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

Somehow I hate to like Hesse's books so much. It's always difficult to get into them, but at some point he always gets me and then it feels like he is reading my mind. It's scary.

This is a strange story about two very different men: Narziss is a novice and junior professor at a convent school, a very ascetic, intellectual and spiritual young man. Goldmund starts as his student, but soon they form a special friendship and Narziss helps the younger Goldmund to decide which direction to take in his life - away from the convent, towards all the experiences a worldly life can bring and in the end towards art. The reader follows Goldmund's struggles, his life on the road, his love affairs, his desire to express his feelings in the wood sculptures he is crafting. There's much to be found in this book, once the reader gets over the first chapters and gets used to the old-fashioned language.
Once again a very intense reading experience.

Rating: 4,5 stars

82. L'amante inglese by Marguerite Duras (contains spoilers)

Last month I wanted to read a short 1001 book and thought I should get Duras' The Lover. I found L'amante inglese and thought it must be the right one. Back home I found out it wasn't only a different book, it was also a play and I hate to read plays. The title "The English Lover" however still sounded interesting, and after finishing the 140 pages I knew there wasn't even a lover.

It's basically a crime story. A woman (forgot the name, but the other characters are all male, so I'll call her 'the woman') has confessed to have brutally murdered her deaf-mute cousin. I hope "deaf-mute" is the correct expression, it's from the dictionary, it sounds a little rude though. Anyway, the confession had taken place in a bar, where also her husband, an English friend (no lover) and an Italian friend (no lover) had been present. Now she is in prison and some journalist interviews the English guy, the husband and then the woman, so the play consists of 3 interviews, no stage directions, just dialogue. No one can explain the motive for the murder, and in the end the reader doesn't know if the woman might be mentally disturbed.
The secret of the title: she once sent a letter to a newspaper, asking advice about about 'English mint' (la menthe anglaise), accidentally writing 'l'amante anglaise' instead. I am wondering what they made of that in the English version, maybe 'French lavender' ending up as 'French lover'?
Not a bad story, especially the third part was quite good, but really no must-read.

Rating: 2,5 stars
Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 3 to 2,5 stars due to new rating rules.

I need to revisit Hesse's work. It has been 30+ years since I read any of it.

83. Anständig Essen by Karen Duve

It has been called the German version of Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, but while it is dealing with the same basic question (Should I become a vegetarian? Can I live with the knowledge that animals are not only killed, but also cruelly tortured so I can eat meat?), Duve's approach is different: she experimented with several forms of 'better' nutrition and the book consists of her experiences and conclusions. For the first 2 months she only bought organic products (meat included), then switched to ovo-lacto vegetarianism for another two months, then gradually became vegan (first only renouncing milk products, eggs and honey, later also substituting leather products, wool and silk) and in the end tried to live as a frutarian (?) for another two months, surviving on 3 pots of peas with coconut milk a day. She was not allowed to visit any slaughterhouses, but she freed chickens, even from an organic farm.

If I have to compare the books I must say that I preferred this one, although JSF clearly is the better writer. This one here is closer to my life and it is free of that pathos JSF annoyed me with.

Rating: 4 stars
Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4,5 to 4 stars due to new rating rules.

A book I thought I could never read:

84. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis - contains many spoilers

I refuse to rate this book. And yes, I got the satire. It's so blatantly obvious, it jumps at you on the first page, you can't miss it. I would have rated AP with 3,5 or 4 stars - not more, because the dialogues and clothes descriptions become too lengthy and repetitive. It's well written, often funny and gave me nostalgic feelings (the music, the clothes, all those brands!). And I didn't mind the fact that those murders are happening as part of the story. Scenes like the one at the dry cleaners or even the business of how to get rid of the bodies fit in really well and (as sick as it sounds) even made me smile. And yes, somehow I felt sorry for Patrick, who often seems to be the little boy lost in a strange world. His useless confessions no-one wants to hear, the permanent mistaking of one yuppie guy with horn-rimmed glasses and suspenders for another one, the ever-increasing drug induced daze, this is all quite convincing. I loved the Hamptons chapter!

But I cannot get over the graphic detail of the torture and killing scenes, they made me cry.
It scares me how literature, movies and videogames have gradually changed the barrier of acceptance for violence. It scares me that this book wouldn't have had half of its success without those scenes. And how can we be sure that there isn't one among the millions of readers who might feel inspired by Patrick's experiments (or by movies like the "Saw" series)? When you open a modern crime novel or watch an episode of CSI or a similar show - how often do you hear/read nowadays that 'a body was found in Central Park' and the victim was just shot or strangled? Usually the body has to be mutilated, showing signs of pre-death torture, otherwise the episode might not be watched, the book might not be read. Why is a 'simple murder' no longer good enough?
And here it isn't even just the blood and gore and hacking and sawing and whatever business. The worst and most realistic part is the desperation of the victims from the moment when they realize what is happening to them.

I watched the movie many years ago on DVD, even twice, as it was well made and the worst bits were left out and they left enough room for imagination. It still captured the idea of the book very well in my opinion. If it was filmed today I have no doubt we'd get all the torture in detail (while the pornographic bits would still be left out - why is sex worse for the viewer/ reader than violence?).

In a way I understand why it is a 1001, but I cannot recommend it and I can't agree it's a must-read. It made me terribly sad.

No rating

#29 Hi Nathalie, Thank you for an honest and thought provoking review of American Psycho. It's not one I will read, 1001 list or not. It scares me how literature, movies and videogames have gradually changed the barrier of acceptance for violence. Well said! Ditto!

Nathalie, I was surprised when I saw you had added American Psycho on LT, but your comments about it are completely understandable. I can't watch horror movies, and try to avoid most things that deal with psychotic behaviour because I find it too disturbing and am also freaked out when I think they may influence others to do similar horrors. I watched the movie version for the very first time fairly recently, and though it was quite shocking, I had expected it to be much worse, and like you, found it quite funny on the whole. I'm sorry the book upset you so much. I had put the audiobook on my wish list at Audible, but now based on your comments, I think I'll pass on reading or listening to it.

#30: thank you!

#31: AP is a book you should maybe better read, not listen to, it's easier to skip. I wouldn't have got through a single murder scene on an audiobook. And (spoiler!): there are some horrible scenes with dogs (spoiler end), so better stay away from it.

I don't really know why I read it. Maybe the English books section in my library is so small that I decided to read whatever 1001 book I find there. Maybe I was just in a bad mood last Friday and needed something 'drastic' to get through the weekend. Maybe even the extremely hot weather played a role.

The strange thing is that apart from those scenes it is quite an addictive read. It feels a bit juvenile. But then... I know, freedom of speech, etc. etc. But to write that down, how many of those scenarios must the author have played through in his head? Sorry, but only a very sick mind can produce stuff like that.

Hiya - I'm sorry AP was so awful for you - I have it waiting, but am not exactly looking forward to it.

I would suggest Silk as a balm if you haven't read it? It's a really short 1,001 - will only take you an hour or so. It's a slightly strange read but so beautiful that it will stay with you (I haven't reviewed yet but will post more about it on my 75 one soon). Might be what you need!

#33: Hi Bekka, I've already read Silk last year, but thanks for reminding me - I am planning to reread it in Italian (read it in English first). I even gave a copy to my mother last year and she loved it, it's really a great book and such beautiful writing.

I am now rereading Love in the times of cholera which is also quite soothing.

I'm definitely not going to read American Psycho. I have yet to read any Hesse, but am intrigued... is there are good book for novices that you'd recommend?

Anständig Essen sounds really good and I might look for it for my husband, who is starting to read in German too.

#35: Hi Cushla, of the three Hesse novels I read I liked Siddharta best, but I was then searching for 'the meaning of it all' and for that it fit perfectly with its look at Buddhism and similar philosophies. For a more rational approach I'd say Narziss und Goldmund is more accessible than Steppenwolf.

Anständig Essen could be a good entry book for German reading. It's a bit of 'German women's magazine style' (not glossy magazines! Do you know the biweekly "Brigitte"? It's typical "Brigitte" style), using present tense most of the time, first person, daily life vocabulary. But also typical female writing in a way that you could easily remove 100 pages of not so important stuff.

Thanks for the review of Narcissus and Goldmund Nathalie. I was very fascinated with Steppenwolf although I didn't enjoyed the ending so much. Want to read more Hesse but my next one by him I think will be Siddharta.

#32 Sorry, but only a very sick mind can produce stuff like that.

Nathalie, you open up an interesting can of worms with that comment, since it's the type of thing I spend what is probably an unusual amount of time pondering about. I think I have an unusual capacity to walk in other people's shoes, some call people like me 'empaths', which can sometimes get very uncomfortable, especially when it comes to entering the mind of a sick and twisted killer, something I avoid doing at all cost usually, which is reason enough for me to stay away from that book.

But I can tell you that as I suffer from truly horrific nightmares, I have had the temptation sometimes to write things to free myself of pent up anxiety and anger, and have even considered writing books featuring a female serial killer. Not to say that it's anything I would ever consider doing in real life, but our subconscious has strange ways of dealing with issues sometimes, and it can be a cathartic, and yes, even healthy exercise to sometimes put that out there. As long as those who read this kind of material are relatively healthy of mind and spirit, it can have a similar cathartic effect on the reader... after all, why are there some many bestselling crime novelists out there, right?

But then on the other hand, sometimes I do think that there is just too much exposure given to the dark side of the human inner and outer workings.

This is why I say, interesting can of worms.

I have to apologize for maybe sounding a bit weird and freaky. I've had a very strange night/day and am feeling a little bit weird myself... as I mention on my thread, as if in a drug-induced haze, so while I know what I'm saying, I'm not sure it's coming from a completely stable mind right now.

Hope you'll still be my friend after reading this...

#38: thanks for sharing this, Ilana, this is a new aspect for me, and I think I understand you.

In BEE's case I'll keep some doubts though. It is often said the book is misogynistic, and rape only happens to the female victims. But torture and killings are not limited to them. The basic thing here , which makes it worse for me than your usual slasher story, seems to be the breaking of someone's trust: make them trust you first (money, promises, simply being nice, stroking a dog), then torture them (watch in their eyes how their life becomes a nightmare) and then finally killing them. He is doing this to homeless people and to very friendly and trusting dogs.

When it comes to nightmares - I never killed anyone, but I have been the victim quite often. It usually spoils the next day(s) for me. I've convinced myself that it means I am being overwhelmed by something in my life and feel helpless, can't do anything against it (==> 'victim'). Maybe in your case, when there has been too much pressure from outside and from yourself, you feel like you have to actively let this pressure out somehow and it results in your kind of nightmares. If you feel that writing it down might help, just give it a try and see if it helps you getting better.

I've been called 'empathic' myself, and I had to use this quality often in my old job. I was the one who got to make the 'difficult cases' deliver their work. I found this extremely exhausting, and often I spent the weekends isolated at home, recovering. In comparison I find my current situation (living alone, having only one employee in the office) quite relaxing. People keep asking me if I don't feel lonely, but I am feeling much better this way. I do have friends, but I don't need to see them every day. Years ago my empathy also got me into a relationship that lasted several years and sucked all energy from me. Today I am sure the guy had some serious problems (he was also very interested in the biographies of serial killers which in itself is not a warning sign, but it all added up). When we split up, my worst nightmares disappeared, literally overnight. I never want to (as you called it) 'walk in someone else's shoes' again as I walked in his. Never ever. I try not to let things/ events get to me as I used to (and now constantly have a guilty conscience because people might think I am not caring).
And I can't help myself thinking that this changed attitude kills my creativity. *sigh*

Well - or in South Tyrolean dialect 'So woll' - my parents are on their way to Merano, and tomorrow we'll have some meetings with our suppliers where we'll will decide how/if everything here is going to continue. So again I'll be off LT for some days. Hope to be back with not too bad news and with a finished Love in the Time of Cholera by Sunday.

Fingers crossed for you, Nathalie!

Crossing my fingers too Nathalie.

Good wishes to you, Nathalie.

#39 Nathalie, I'm glad that you got yourself out of that relationship. We live and learn. I know I've been in plenty of relationships I wouldn't exactly rate as 'healthy', but then I was lacking balance in my own life so obviously my judgment was off. I still don't trust myself to make the right choices now, especially as I'm a vulnerable place as far as my current lifestyle goes, so it's a good thing I'm happy to be alone.

Oh my goodness though, I think I gave you the wrong impression before. I too am alway the victim in my dreams, which is why sometimes I wish I could 'take my revenge' so to speak on those scary forces and put them in their place, and what better way to do that than through a creative outlet like writing or even painting and drawing?

I hope things go well with your parents and business dealings. I wish you all the best to you Nathalie.

All the best to you in business matters, Nathalie.

No desire whatsoever to read American Psycho myself, but I appreciate your thoughts on the book, Nathalie.

Best of luck in your decisions over the next few days!

Hi all, once again I thank you for all the good wishes and the finger-crossing!

Unfortunately nothing has been decided - thanks to some possible 'miraculous' turn of events. At least we have analysed our options and talked to the suppliers, so our difficulties are out in the open, which is a bit of a relief.

The next few weeks will show... But I don't know how often I've said that in the last two years, and my nerves right now aren't at their best.

I'll add reviews for three books I've finished in the meantime. Please do not feel you have to comment, because I don't know when I'll find the time again to get back to your threads.

85. L’amore ai tempi del colera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This was a really happy reread, and if it wasn’t for One Hundred Years of Solitude which is my favorite Marquez, I’d rate this one with 5 stars. But as I need a difference between them, this book gets 4,5 (and I’ll have to go through my library once again and review my ratings).

I read this book for the first time about 20 years ago, liked it but didn’t love it. Now, 20 years later, I feel much closer to the story. And hey – it gives me the hope that “the one” might turn up one day, and if it takes him another 40 years. Though the book still has some lengths I enjoyed every page of it. Compared to “100 Years” it was a different reading experience. It is what I’d call a perfect novel, while “100 Years” is like poetry turned into prose.

One little thing that disturbed me 20 years ago and again this time: the relationship with the very young girl and the way Florentino coped with her fate. It’s probably symbolic (for what?), but for me this bit left a stain on his character.

Rating: as said above – 4,5 stars

86. Ansichten eines Clowns by Heinrich Boell

Oh dear, what a dull and boring and lengthy and utterly depressing book. And what an important book it was, when it was published almost 50 years ago. If it wasn’t such a torturous read it’d be a must-read for us Germans. It is called Boell’s most controversial novel, but thankfully (I can’t be grateful enough for it), it is completely outdated. As a witness of life in post-war Germany however it remains important.

What is it about? Hans Schnier is a clown, a comedian. He returns from a short and unsuccessful tour during which he has been left by his long-term girlfriend Marie, started to drink, ruined his shows and even got injured. With only 1 Deutschmark left he returns to his apartment at Bonn (then German capital city) and tries to call several people to ask them for money. Between the phone calls he contemplates his life and recalls many scenes from the past. Born the son of a very rich family he was chased away and denied any financial support after he had slept with a young Catholic girl (Marie). Bitterly poor, he started working as a clown, Marie living with him (quite unthinkable in the Germany of the 50s/ early 60s). Marie as a devout Catholic was hoping for a church marriage to get their life in mortal sin finally legalized. Hans, a non-believer, but at the same time the only character in the book with high moral standards, was even ready to do her this favour, but wasn't able to deliver the ‘real devotion’ she was asking from him.
All their friends and family members seem to be safe and settled, even all the extreme ex-nazis have quickly found their place in the new democracy and are fully profiting from it, while Hans (an anti-nazi even as a child) struggles to pay for his meals and ends up begging for money on the stairs of the train station.

As much as I hated reading this book (it’s about the last thing I needed right now), it makes me understand this period much better which finally lead to the student revolutions of the late 60s. A belated “Thank you” from my side to all you ex-revolutionists who saved me from a childhood and youth in such a restrictive atmosphere.

Rating: 3,5 stars

87. Dubliners by James Joyce

I should have known better by now not to get a book of short stories from the library. I like to read a short story now and then, but I don’t like to read a whole book of them, especially when there’s a time restriction. It took me almost the full 4 weeks to get through those 225 pages, and the last ones of the 15 stories didn’t get my full attention anymore.

I can’t really give you a review for them. I liked some, didn’t hate any, but don’t feel like I have to read any of them ever again. As in Ulysses Joyce does the constant name-dropping and after the first 2 or 3 stories I just stopped reading the footnotes. I have never been to Ireland/ Dublin, and I don’t really care which public house was in which street or who was working in which cake shop. Considering the background I see it must have been an important book for Irish readers. I just couldn’t relate to it. Sorry!!

Rating: 3 stars

Hi Nathalie, I also like to do short stories one or two at a time when I can't focus on a novel or nonfiction book. I usually have a collection on the nightstand to dip into.

I can't remember if I told you or not, but I read One Hundred Years of Solitude for my Sept. 1 book group - and liked it much better on this, my second, reading. I took your advice and read it like poetry. I thanked you on my last thread, but I should have come over here instead. Thank you!

#50: These Dublin-stories left me quite indifferent - for the most part. I got quite bored with them. As to Ulysses I have had this massive brick on my shelf for years.....left untouched.....maybe some day.....

#86 Staying far far away from that one...

I hope things are picking up for you.

88. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

And once more it shows that a review should be written while the memory is still fresh. Character names? Almost all gone already. Storyline? Still there, but not of much use without the names. But this is a popular book, so I guess I don’t have to give you the storyline anyway.
I'll remember not to use the term 'spook' ever except from this review here, just to be on the safe side (though it seems not to bee too forbidden, as we have a 'spooky cover' TIOLI challenge this month).

It was a difficult read for me, maybe due to my currently very limited reading time, but certainly also because it is full of issues that are not easy to digest. I have rarely read a book that contains in such a concentration all the important issues that influenced and formed a society during a certain period of time, here the post-WWII USA. I’d put it in a line with Franzen’s Corrections in the way it looks deeply in the heart of the people. Philip Roth is using a stream-of-consciousness technique, and his observations go so deep that I needed a break whenever he switched to the next character.

In the beginning the role each character holds in this novel seems obvious. But as we start looking into their history and find their well-hidden secrets (and see what they are doing to keep those secrets and what damage those measures cause), the book became almost scary for me. Typically enough I found bits of myself in the foreigner, the French professor.

The reason I gave only 4 stars is the last chapter which seemed incoherent in comparison with the others. Like Roth had built up so much pressure in those other chapters that he felt he owed the reader some relief (and he had to get the narrator onto the trace to the truth somehow). But that relief normally doesn’t come, things stay hidden forever, and as much as it hurt – the reaction of Faunia’s family was better in line with the story than all the other things which I won’t mention here not to spoil the story.

Rating: 4 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4,5 to 4 stars due to new rating rules.

89. La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language by Dianne Hales

A book about the author’s love for the Italian language, her struggle with its many traps and subtleties, mixed with some historical anecdotes. To be honest – this is your usual non-fiction ‘bla’-book. Easy and nice to read, quite entertaining, but lacking depth. The author is obviously quite wealthy as she can afford spending weeks in a beautiful old palazzo in Florence learning Italian (I checked the rates, it must have cost a fortune). Don't get me wrong - it's great for her - I just want to say that she draws a picture of Italy that's a little too luxurious and beautiful. I am sure that after having spent 25 years learning the language and travelling the country, Dianne Hales knows very well that not everything is as bright as she pretends. But she gives the reader what she thinks the reader wants: the Italy of our dreams.

Normally, it would have been a typical 3star-read for me. Here’s the reason, why it gets 3,5 stars: When I started learning Italian many years ago I did it for the usual motives. I loved the sound of the language, I loved the country seen through my tourist eyes, I adored the food. So I taught myself some basic Italian with the help of CDs and computer classes, started reading language magazines and tried to read (in German) as much about the country of my dreams as I could find. I learned that the real Italy has not that much to do with the country we all learned to admire. I read about the many social and political problems and gradually lost all my nice illusions. Italy became a country I liked for my holidays, but also a country I thought I could never live in.

So when against my plans I moved to “Italy” 2 years ago for my business – I write “Italy” because the region where I live is more like Austria – for a long time I avoided all things Italian and felt nice and safe in my German-speaking enclave. But I watched and I was amazed at how big the differences are between the ‘real’ Italians who live in this region or spend their holidays here and the wannabe-Germans with Italian passport who usually try to ignore any connection with their official country (the only exception being the food).

This book here, in all its superficiality, brought me back to the roots of my Italian journey and returned some of the easiness and openness I had lost. It reminded me that Italian is not just a collection of complicated tenses I have to master. It made me finally, finally pick up La Divina Commedia in which I am now deeply immersed. It made me watch and enjoy “Tosca” on DVD last Saturday. It made me look forward to that 5-day trade show in Milan that starts next Friday – so far I had been dreading it, for the fear of having to speak Italian to Italians!!
If a book makes me feel so much better about my life here and about myself it deserves an extra star!

Rating: 3,5 stars
Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 4 to 3,5 stars due to new rating rules.

90. Il Mio Dante by Roberto Benigni

Some years ago I saw a poster in my then hometown Frankfurt, announcing a show called “TuttoDante”, starring Roberto Benigni (the guy who won two Oscars in 1999 for ‘Life is Beautiful’ and who said in his speech that “he was so happy, he wanted to make love to everyone”). I thought about watching it, but realized it’d be all in Italian (and certainly not slow Italian) and all about Dante's works, and then I hadn’t read a single line of the “Commedia”.

When searching for books that might help me to understand that enormous epos a little better, I found this book in my library, along with a series of DVDs, taken from his “TuttoDante” tour in Italy. I got the first DVD and the book, which is basically a script of the shows and got through both in one weekend.

This book it a treasure for everyone who reads/speaks Italian and wants to know more about Dante and the “Commedia”. Benigni goes through the first 10 canti of the “Inferno”, then the sad and terrifying 33rd canto with the tale about Conte Ugolino and finally the 33rd of the “Paradiso” where the protagonist (Dante himself) meets God. Benigni succeeds in bringing the poem to life for the readers, showing them it is not just some old epos, and even much more than just the first big work in Italian language. He shows us what a timeless piece of art it is, how relevant for every human being. He opens the reader’s eyes for all the inside jokes and hidden puns, for the subtleties of the language.

The book is written in the exuberant and enthusiastic style that is typical for Benigni. When he speaks about the beauty of the 5th canto (with the sad love story of Francesca and Pietro) he gets all ecstatic about the description of their first kiss: “this is so beautiful, you’ll want to take your clothes off and make love to a table”. And indeed – it is beautiful, and terribly heartbreaking.

For quite a while now I have been waiting for something that would make me fall in love with the Italian language as a language of literature. Spoken Italian is beautiful, but Italian writing so far has been a bit of a disappointment for me, compared to English and French. Benigni did just that, and I’m immensely grateful for it. Giving 5 stars might be a bit excessive, but so is Benigni. Great work!

Rating: 4,5 stars

Edited Nov 8th 2011 to change rating from 5 to 4,5 stars due to new rating rules. It can't have the same rating as the Dante work, sorry!

I'm interrupting my absence from LT to post some reviews and do some updates. I visited some threads but didn't post yet as I know I can't be a regular visitor yet again. Maybe in November...

I also planned to post a picture of a literature event called "StadtLesen" that took place in my town over the last weekend, but I left my camera at home today. I'll try and remember to do it tomorrow. It basically was an invitation to read in public. In a piazza they had set up shelves with books and there were many big water-proof cushions on the floor for the readers. I know these events are quite normal in the US already, but it was the first time I'd seen it here. To support it I sat down on one of the comfortable but slightly dirty cushions and read some Benigni.

So I am finally back to real reading after some weeks that were free of real literature and filled with Italian exercise books, Italian TV shows (okay, mostly dubbed US shows), Italian radio, etc.

Businesswise I am now in a state where I got so used to worrying that I find I am losing my fear. Next week I am going to Milan for a trade show that will last 5 days, but unfortunately won't see anything of the city, as the exhibition centre and the hotel are outside of town. Maybe I'll make some useful contacts.

We've missed you Nathalie - hope everything gets better.

Hmmm. Wish I could find the Dante book in English. I hope things get better with you soon!

Great review of The Human Stain, Nathalie. Good luck at the trade show.

Great to see you back posting even if it's just for a day or two. I hope the trade show goes well. And yes, if that book by the ritzy woman about learning Italian made you feel happier it is definitely worth an extra star!

Nathalie, welcome back! I also hope the trade show goes well for you and that you come back feeling buoyed up. I'm sorry for all the less than good books you've been reading over the past couple of months. I own La Devina Commedia, but I've been afraid to try it with nothing other than basic Latin to go on. I'm happy that you're happy with it!

It's good to hear from you Nathalie. Hope the trade show goes well for you.

My mum gave me her copy of an old edition for The Divine Comedy (English translation) with illustrations by Doré, but I haven't felt brave enough to tackle it. In the meantime, it's nice to know it's just within reach.

#58-63: thank you all for you support and your good wishes! I missed you all, and I'll try to be back as a regular in November.

I succeeded in posting a picture of the reading in public event in my entry post. Unfortunately the sun was not shining that day and all the other pictures came out quite gray.

Re. Dante: The "Inferno" part is as great as everyone says, but it was also hard work. I needed the help of my German translation, wikipedia and an additional annotated Italian version to get through it. The "Purgatory" part is not as popular, but seems to be much easier to understand so far and often I am able to read several verses without having to check the translation. And the language is truly beautiful. It has been written to be read aloud, it's like music.

And Dante gives me some really good advice of the sort "don't hide under your blankets, now is not the time to show your fears, be courageous", etc. The Dante narrator is understandably terribly intimidated by the things he sees in hell and his companion (Vergil's soul) often needs to encourage him to walk on and not to give up.

The religious contents however are not too great if seen with today's eyes. The idea that the souls of Vergil and everyone else born B.C. are sent to hell (without painful punishments, but without hope as well), just because they were not baptized is not easy to understand. Or that all great philosophers like Platon or Sokrates are sent to real hell, because they wanted to know things which are not their business.

Anyway - it is a much more entertaining and captivating work than I ever expected and it's a great distraction.

Hi Nathalie, I hope things are looking up for you.

I wanted to say a belated thanks for your review (ages ago) of Professor Unrat. I picked it up in a charity shop in my hometown 15 years ago when I was an A-Level student and German books were hard to come by. Of course, I never managed to read the thing, but your review makes it sound like fun, so maybe it'll get read before another 15 years go by!

I also love the photo in your first post!

#65: I hope you'll like the book. The good thing is you'll know it after reading the first few pages.

Hm... am I back? I'm not yet sure. During the trade show I didn't have any internet access and now I am hopelessly behind once again on all your threads. I'll try and work my way through them within the next days or maybe weeks.

I am going to post some reviews today, but I fear I won't be able to share my feelings regarding "The Commedia"... if I wrote it all down (I tried) it would be a review of several pages.
I'm not sure if I should say "Best read of my life", but it's clearly among the top 5.

91. La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri

This isn't really a review, it's more a description of my impressions of this amazing work. I always wanted to read it in the original Italian. Not just because poetry always loses much of its appeal when translated, also because in this special case the 'poem' (app. 400 pages) had such an influence on the development of the Italian language. I had bought a German translation(review 91.a) some years ago and now I tried to read both versions in parallel. Then I got another annotated Italian version which gave me a lot of historical background and I used the Italian wiki which offers a synopsis and analysis of each canto - at least of those belonging to the Inferno and the Purgatorio. The pages for the Paradiso often consisted just of two sentences. Unfortunately those pages are not available in the English wiki.

1. Language
The old Italian was very hard for me throughout the Inferno, but suddenly improved when I started the Purgatorio. It was a bit like reading Shakespeare for the first time: there comes the point when you just accept the 'thees' and 'thous'. Whenever possible I tried to read the Italian version aloud to get a feeling for the language. I am still watching the Benigni DVDs, because the way he reads the verses is absolutely amazing.
Even if you read a translation it might be a good idea just to get an audio version as well to listen to some of the canti in the original language. Sure I didn't get any of the details (when Dante was using 'rough' words or 'soft' words to express a certain atmosphere), but still it is a great experience hearing and speaking his Italian.

2. Story
I can't believe a single person was able to invent this incredible universe! The story starts with Dante getting lost in a forest where the soul of his admired Virgil (sent by Dante's beloved Beatrice who’s in heaven) comes to his rescue, it continues through the utter hopelessness of the 9 sections forming hell from where they are finally expelled back into the world (where they can see the stars again), to the foot of a high mountain. They climb up that mountain and then enter it to find the purgatory. There Dante is marked with 7 Ps on his brows (for the 7 sins, peccati in Italian), and whenever he leaves one of the purgatory circles he is released from that sin and becomes 'lighter and lighter'. After completing the 7 circles Virgil (sadly) leaves him and Dante continues his way through heaven, now guided by his beloved Beatrice. In the verly last canto he is allowed to take a glimpse at the holy trinity.

3. Some of my thoughts
Dante wrote this in the early 1300s - no doubt he was a firm Christian believer and there are certainly many points you could argue about today. Then there are many 'scientific' bits which are completely outdated (the sun circling around the earth, etc). But what I see here - often hidden between the lines - is an incredibly complex and timeless work that is well able to serve as a self-help book even in our times. The third part, the paradise, is a little too 'celestial' for my liking, and I found the over-virtuous Beatrice a bit boring compared to the rational Virgil.

All three parts are full of criticism against people who misused their power - kings, nobility, but also clergymen, even popes . Some of the latter even turn up in hell, for all eternity suffering from the most painful punishments. There are funny and heartbreaking bits as well, canti 5 and 32 are especially famous.

Dante speaks firmly for a separation of church and state and he wants religion/ Catholicism to return to its origins, above all the idea of godly love. He claims (via Beatrice’s voice) that it is not fate, but the free will (one of God’s greatest gifts to the humans) that decides if someone will end as a sinner in hell or as a good soul in heaven.

I have gone on much too long now already. I can say that this book has been by far my best read in 2011, and I am not yet finished with it. I have the ambition to learn that first canto by heart and then to reread the whole thing, very slowly this time.

Rating: 5 stars

91a) Die Göttliche Komödie - translated by "Philateles" (King John of Saxonia!, 1849)
This review just applies for the translation I read in parallel with the original text:
I am very impressed by the effort King John put into his translation. It served its purpose most of the time. This means it helped me get through the tricky bits of the Dante text (in most cases), it is written in verse, and - given the time when it was translated - it is close enough to the original. But it's old. It uses German words I have never heard of. And it is completely free of footnotes and annotations. Now it is quite impossible to read and fully enjoy the Commedia without at least some background information, so this is quite a poor edition (which is not the translator's fault).

Rating for this edition: 2,5 stars

92. Love will find you by Kathryn Alice

What was I thinking when I ordered this thing for my Kindle?
Okay, it clearly was one of those weak moments, when everything seems bad, and then I found a recommendation for this book on a German forum and thought "It surely can't do any more damage"?

And I really read the whole thing, mainly because it is a very easy read, but also because it is unintentionally funny. Typical quotation:

"I believe the ultimate purpose of a soulmate relationship is to help others heal, to better the planet, and to shine the light of your love as a beacon to all"

This doesn't need any more commenting, does it? The whole book feels like reading about Barbie, Ken and those little pink ponies and the "Glücksbärchis" (those little teddy bears living in the rainbow country), and all the time I was wondering if the author really believes in this stuff.

Btw I am allergic to the word "soulmate" since watching "Dawson's Creek" years ago and the author uses it at least 10 times on every single page.

What I learned from this experience: even if recommended: never ever buy a Kindle book without getting the sample first!! And I learned that my single life isn't too bad.

Oh - almost forgot about the rating: 1 generous star

93. The Humbling by Philip Roth

Yesterday I had some time to spare and went to the library to get some books. Unfortunately their check-out system didn't work, so I decided to get something short and read it right there. I found this novella (140 pages) and as I had recently enjoyed "The Human Stain" so much I sat down in the reading corner and started to read.

The first 20-30 pages were great in the typical Philip Roth style. It just sucks you into the story, in this case about an ageing famous stage actor who suddenly finds himself unable to perform. He is left by his wife, becomes suicidal and decides to check into a psychiatric clinic. I found this an interesting set-up and was curious to see how he'd manage to get out of this mess again.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the story, but don't read this book if you hope for advice of any kind. The remaining pages felt like taken out of "The Human Stain", less refined, and not really coherent. After the very promising start quite a disappointing development and ending.

Rating: 2,5 stars

#68 Love this review! Excellent. Though I will be avoiding it with a very long pole!

That's quite a leap, from King John of Saxonia to Luuuuuuuuurve will Find You! Great to see you almost back again. I still haven't read any Philip Roth, but he doesn't ever seem to be get pushed up the pile of authors I want to read.

I stumbled across The Humbling in the airport a while back and read it on the plane. It was my first Philip Roth, and while I can say I was absorbed in the book during the flight, it didn't leave me wanting to ever read another Roth again. I'm glad to know it's not one of his best works. I found it horribly depressing. Maybe I'll give one of his others a chance one day.

Nice to see you back, Nathalie - I hope things are picking up for you.

Welcome back, Nathalie! Dante and soulmates - what a combination!! I'm also a non-Roth reader and likely to remain so for years and years. You don't make me regret what I'm missing yet.

The whole book feels like reading about Barbie, Ken and those little pink ponies and the "Glücksbärchis"

Sounds wonderful! Where can I get a copy? Yech. Just kidding of course. That kind of schlock make me even happier to be single too.

Glad to see signs of life Nathalie. I think of you and always look forward to hearing from you.

# 70: thanks Bekka! "avoiding it with a very long pole" - what a great expression!

#71: yes, that's what you could call a leap! Maybe I needed it to reset my brain for the next dose of Dante. When it comes to Philip Roth I don't know if I'd really recommend him. Maybe not if you're looking for an enjoyable read, but The Human Stain felt like an important (though not easy) book. I also read Portnoy's Complaint, for which once again I need to use my German expression "fremdschämen". Funny, yes - sometimes. But in a very uncomfortable "I don't really want to read this" way.

#72: Hi Debbie, for me it felt like he had taken some elements from The Human Stain (old man, younger woman, creepy sex scenes, etc.) and combined them in a slightly different way with a much worse result. Maybe he felt like he had to publish a book in 2009 and had no fresh ideas. You could try another one, but I am not sure there are any 'happy' books. This one here certainly also gives a very wrong and depressing message in the end.

#73: Hi Janet, not so sure about "things" right now, but I am doing my best to keep from worrying too much as it won't make the situation any better. We'll see.

#74: Thanks Peggy! The Dante was just a wonderful experience, I still don't know how to write a review for it.

#75: I've had my dose of self-help books over the years, and some of them were really good. This one here was by far the worst. And it has all those phantastic reviews on amazon. Maybe I am just too old and cynical.

Maybe I am just too old and cynical.

I feel that way too a lot of the time, but then I tell myself it's just a phase. Surely we'll always stay young at heart, right?

Your comments about Phillip Roth are doing nothing in the sense of encouraging me to read any of his work, though I do have The Human Stain somewhere.

I know what you mean about trying to to worry too much. This is where all the reading and audiobooking comes in...

94. Uomini e Topi (Of Mice and Men) by John Steinbeck

A 1001 book, an important book and a book I'm glad to have finally read. But not a book I enjoyed for a single second. Call me superficial, but I hated the character of Lennie from the very beginning and I admired George's never ending patience. And I got the 'American Dream' allegory, but Lennie scared and annoyed me so much, I just couldn't get over it.

I had to force myself to read on, because from the first chapter on it was obvious some dreadful things were going to happen and after a third of the short text (117 pages) it had become quite clear what those things would be. I was considering abandoning the book because I really didn't want to read those last chapters, but it's a 1001, so I finished it.

I am rating this with 3,5 stars for now, but as I am planning to adjust my rating system due to the overwhelming Dante experience, I might lower it to 3 stars at some point. I have read some books that made me feel uncomfortable in some way, but then many of them were still gripping. Getting through this one was just hard work.

Rating: 3,5 stars

I just finished Schindler's Ark for the 1001 group read. It's also my 199th book from the 1001 list, and now I am looking out for something really good (and not too chunky) for #200. I had planned to make "A Dream of Red Mansions" #200, but picked it up again only recently and don't think I can finish it in 2011.

Edit: checking out some Italian 1001 classics now. Amazon has made an effort since my last search for Italian books and is now offering most of them free for the Kindle in the original version. I might go for "Sandokan" (Le Tigri di Mompracem), "the greatest Italian bestseller of all time". Might be a worthy milestone, and it looks like an easy read. I haven't read many adventure novels so far.

Which 1001 List are you using, the 2006 one or one of the subsequent versions?

#80: I am using the 2008 version - that's the one I found in my bookshop when I first heard about the list. But I also use the complete spreadsheet and have read books from the other lists (2006 and 2010), I just don't count those now.

I thought I'd left a comment here, but apparently it was all in my imagination. I wanted to say I'm sorry you didn't like Of Mice and Men. It's been a very long time since I've read it, though I did read it a couple of times in my life, and I remember thinking it was brilliant. But I guess it can seem all wrong if not in the right frame of mind. Or then again, you're fully entitled to just not like it, regardless what anyone—and especially the editors of 1001 books—thinks of it.

I wish you well Nathalie. I know you've been going through a hard time and I hope for your sake that things take a turn for the better soon.

#82: Thank you, Ilana. I always try to remember that what I might call 'hard times' now is in fact not very much. And I have the hope of coming out of all that a little stronger and wiser. :-)

Probably my biggest mistake was that I retracted from social life when the problems started more than a year ago.

At that point I had been living here for less than a year, and though I had made many friendly contacts I wouldn't call those people 'close friends'. And as I didn't want to annoy them with my worries I just stopped seeing them. Always having to pretend that I am feeling great while in fact feeling desperate was too much at some point.

I've changed that again recently and I think I am on a good way, getting more support than I had ever expected. But still it is a difficult situation. I could say that those last 15 months taught me what it is really like to move to a foreign country all alone.

Apart from that I have finally posted my review for the Dante (the long text in #66).
Schindler's Ark will follow soon. And I am having fun with the Sandokan book. It is so exaggerated, I'll have to write that review all in capital letters. Not a great work, but real fun!

And I changed some ratings of my old reviews. I will keep only a couple of 5star books, the really exceptional ones. I won't give ratings like '5 stars for importance' anymore, those will get 4,5 stars.

I did the same when I left work on extended sick leave. I didn't want people to see just how badly I was doing and I cut myself off. But it's ok. We're in such different worlds now that I don't know what we'd have to talk about.

I've often thought of moving to another country and did take some preliminary steps to do so, but in the end, the fear of encountering all the attendant difficulties seemed more than I could handle all on my own. I don't love where I'm living, but it's easy and convenient and that's fine for now. I might change my mind eventually. I'm glad to hear that you've got support now.

5 star ratings are kept for books that really move me in some way, which has nothing to do with what others think about them. In fact, I go purely on how I feel about the books, and even if a 'very important' book rubs me the wrong way, I won't hesitate to give it two stars, as I did with A Confederacy of Dunces for example. How I couldn't stand that book, ugh!

I'll be back to read your comments on Dante. I've got an old copy of this book that my mum gave me years ago and I guess I'll pick it up someday. Maybe your comments will make me want to put it closer to the top of the pile. Or not. ;-)

95. Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

I read this one for the 1001 November group read, and though it was a bit of a depressing read (as could be expected from a Holocaust book) it was also quite entertaining. The writing style is a bit unusual, sometimes it felt like reading non-fiction, then again it was all novel-style. I liked the way Oskar Schindler was portrayed, as a man with numerous faults, who for whatever reason (it is never explained why) suddenly decided to do his utmost to save as many Jews as possible from death in one of the concentration camps.

As everyone else I watched the movie, though not in a theater - I just couldn't bring the idea of a realistic Holocaust movie and the usual movie night together. It has been shown on German TV several times, and always without the usual commercial breaks. In my opinion, the movie is a very good adaptiation. Spielberg shortened the bits that would have lead to confusion, combined some characters into one, but otherwise remained true to the book. In fact, he even 'undramatized' some things, which made the remaining parts still more impressive. He just found the right measure.

Oskar Schindler was a Sudetendeutscher - a German grown up in Sudetenland, a part of the Czech Republic that once belonged to the Austrian empire and where a big share of the population was of German descent. Half of my family has their origins there, my mother was born Sudetendeutsch, but the family settled in the West after the expulsion of all Germans by the Czech. Unfortunately the Holocaust has never been an issue discussed in this part of the family. Basically they had suffered too much during and after the war and never wanted to be reminded of those years. My grandmother left everything behind and escaped with 4 small children and a suitcase (my mother as the youngest just being born), all alone, as her husband (an ex soldier) had been taken as a prisoner and both her brothers had died on the East front.
It's weird, but you just didn't ask that kind of questions, unless people talked voluntarily. I am quite convinced that antisemitism in the East and also in my family was a 'normal' thing and that there was much more knowledge about the death camps than in the far West (where the other half of my family comes from).

In the book it is often mentioned how voluntarily some Polish and Czech people participate in the dispossession and ghettoisation of the Jews. Many Jews actually believed in the beginning that moving into the ghettos was a rational thing as they would be safe from assaults. I wonder how the Holocaust was dealt with in those countries where parts of the population actively supported the Nazi actions. Was it covered up and is antisemitism still existing to some extent or has it improved?

Anyway - time for rating: solid 4 stars

Edited to remove a bad generalisation, sorry for that!

96. Sandokan: the tigers of Mompracem /Sandokan: le tigri di Mompracem by Emilio Salgari

For my 200th book from the 1001 list (2008 version) this was a worthy milestone insofar as it seems to be the greatest Italian best-seller of all times. And as I couldn't finish A Dream of Red Mansions in time, I thought I should chose a great Italian classic for #200.

Now... I didn't really like this book. And I am not sure why it is on the list, except from it best-seller status. On the other hand I am not the intended reader. That would be a boy of I'd say 9-13 years, and maybe ideally a boy growing up in the 1900s, because I doubt any modern mother would happily give this book to her children nowadays (we have become terribly sensitive in the last 20 years, just thinking of Harry Potter #4, where someone died and the question came up if this wouldn't be too cruel for young children).

Such worries didn't exist in the early 1900s, and if actual amazon reviews don't lie, even today children have no problem at all with the high mortality rate in this book and with the torrents of blood (literally) that are shed every few pages.

When I say I didn't really like the book I mean that I found the story far too predictable, too repetitive and often lenghty.

What I enjoyed however was the writing. Not that it's any 'good' in a literary way. It's just so completely exaggerated that I often had to interrupt the reading because I was laughing so much. A little introduction into the story: Sandokan is the head of a group of pirates, living on the island of Mompracem close to Malaysia. He is HOT! (tall, slim, athletic, with long black hair, the blackest beard, pearl-white teeth, the blackest "burning" eyes ==> you'll find that description on the first 2 pages). He is RICH!! There are gold and jewels everywhere in his house. He is CRUEL!!! One of his first actions is to casually break the neck of an English mariner.
But he is not an evil man, no - he ist just an avenger (his family having been killed by 'the English' ) and therefore justified in his quest to kill 'all English people'.

Predictably he falls in love (love? no, it's LOVE!!!! THE MOST PASSIONATE LOVE EVER!!!) with an English girl, Marianna, the orphaned niece of an English lord. Marianna is 'la fanciulla dai capelli d'oro', the 'girl with golden hair', a title that is used more often than her actual name. But titles are popular anyway, as Sandokan calls himself "The Tiger of Malesia" which is quite funny, as "la tigre" is a female word, and he spends half of the book screaming 'I am la tigre!' in the most inopportune circumstances, like when he is hiding from English soldiers. He seems not to be the brightest guy under the sun and likes to solve his problems by getting drunk and smashing furniture, but fortunately there's his best friend Yanez who gets him out of all risky situations. Unlike the other pirates who willingly follow him into every possible desaster (howling "Sangue! Sangue! La Tigre!" = "Blood! Blood!! The (female?) Tiger!") and get killed by the hundreds, just for the sake of that girl, who by the way, has hair like gold. At least she openly returns his feelings instead of just blushing and although she faints a lot towards the ending, she is also a worthy and courageous heroine.

Reading this book feels just like watching one of those countless pirate adventure movies of the 50s and 60s. A bit of a guilty pleasure, and your brain cells get some rest.

Rating: 3 stars

97. Lieutenant Gustl/ English title: "None but the Brave" by Arthur Schnitzler

A surprisingly short 'book' which I read in less than an hour yesterday. And it's another 1001 off my list. A strange little story, and I can explain its presence on the list only by the fact (or rumour?) that it influenced James Joyce's Ulysses.

The story is written as an interior monologue. Lieutenant Gustl, an Austrian officer, spends an evening in the opera house, hoping for a flirt and thinking about an upcoming duel. On his way out, trying to jump the queue, he gets insulted by a baker he knows from the coffeehouse. This terrible insult consists of the baker touching the hilt of the officer's saber and calling him a 'stupid boy'.
Now you can duel another military guy, but you can't duel a baker. So what's to do now for Gustl? Yes - the only way out of this shame is suicide!! So he wanders the streets of Vienna, considering his life and his non-achievements. And that's all I can tell you here.

The book was published in 1901 and there are some interesting notions: the growing antisemitism, and also a remark about 'the Bosnians who finally learned how to obey'. And Gustl hates the idea of dying without ever having been to war. In retrospective that's a lot of foreshadowing.

Rating: 3 stars

I decided to spend the rest of the year reading mainly free classics on my Kindle, if possible 1001 books. I started Arabian Nights a week ago (how many pages does this thing have??) and I am reading Senilità by Italo Svevo (When a Man grows Older in English). Not too great so far, it's kind of depressing.

I also started my first Muriel Spark book from the library, the Italian version of Loitering with Intent.
#Ilana: I'm only 30 pages in, but so far the 'English atmosphere' has survived the translation.

And I am trying another audiobook, the free librivox version of Northanger Abbey which I quite enjoy. It is read by a young woman from Texas (if I remember correctly) who really makes an effort to get the British accent right. I had tried a free audio version before, but that one had been read by an older man who was inhaling very loudly which I found quite irritating.

It finally looks like things might work out, at least for another couple of months, and if the business hasn't taken up by then, then it just shouldn't be and I'll have to do something different. But still, as long as I don't have any written agreements I can't be sure, so I don't want to make any too optimistic announcements yet.

#86 - LOL that book sounds fantastic! If you are in the mood for that sort of thing. It would be a great film, no?

#89: The book has several sequels, and there was a movie (or a TV show?), often on TV in the 70s or early 80s. I probably even watched some of it. I remember that it was incredibly popular with German kids and dads. But I was never that interested in cowboys or pirates or adventures of any kind, those horrible Winnetou movies bored me to death (is Karl May's cowboy series known at all outside of Germany?)

>89 JanetinLondon:: "Is Karl May's cowboy series known at all outside of Germany?"

I never heard of Shatterhand or Winnetou until I visited Germany in the mid-1980's. Since then, I think Westerns have generally fallen out of favor ... a few months ago, my teenage son asked me who the Lone Ranger was. (Oh, son. Sit down and let me tell you about the days of yore.)

So my guess is that Karl May's series is not well-known in the U.S.

#91: I myself never read a single Karl May book and quite hated the movies, but in the 70s and early 80s you couldn't really avoid them, with only 3 TV channels available. And many of my class mates owned the complete Karl May book collection.
As far as I know May has never been to the US, so it's all pure fantasy, and full of stereotypes.

Hi Nathalie, congratulations on reading your 200th book from the 1001 list. You still have a ways to go but so do I. According to my stats, I've read 173 books from the original and updated lists. Oh my, I'm older than you so I'd better start reading faster. ;-)

I love reading the free classics available for the iPad. I see no reason to buy ebooks until I've read all the free ones!

#93: Thank you Donna. Yes, I also stopped buying classics where possible. Sometimes I buy the 'luxury' versions for the Kindle, as they usually cost only 1-3 USD, but offer footnotes, introductions and table of content. I spent too much money in 2012 on the contemporary fiction e-books, because often it's the only way for me to get them.
Are you planning to get to the 1001? When I started the list (somewhere in the 50s or 60s), I thought 250 would be a fantastic achievement, but now the 500 is looking so much better. There are so many scary (loooong and supposedly boring) books on the list, but on the other hand those are a bit of an extra challenge.

I am just reading/ listening to Northanger Abbey, and though I find it quite pleasant and easy to follow and 'action-packed' for an Austen book, I have a problem with those horribly realistic embarrassing scenes between Catherine and Henry Tilney. Is this "How not to behave if you want to get your man?". It's really hard to bear, I didn't know Austen could do that to me.

And I went to the library today and got Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (thanks for the recommendation, Ilana!), Wittgenstein's Nephew and Old Masters, both by Thomas Bernhard.

I love your review of Sandokan = very funny.

#95 After reading all 6 of her major works and one of the novellas too (Lady Susan), I can safely say Northanger Abbey was the one I liked the least. There are some Austen books which grew over me with time, sadly that wasn't the case with Northanger Abbey.

Oops, sorry, I fell quite a bit behind here, but I'm all caught up with you now. Really appreciated your candid comments about the Holocaust via Schindler's Ark. I never did see the movie, always had trouble exposing myself to content about WWII as I was overexposed to it as a child living in Israel and the original documentaries and photos and artifacts completely traumatized me. Of course, on my fathers side, which is Eastern European Jewish, a lot of family was lost, but much as you say, these things were never talked about. I remember growing up, that other than with my mum and dad, you couldn't talk about most things, unlike today, where almost anything goes.

Your reviews of Sandokan and Lieutenant Gustl made me smile. It looks like you had fun reading both books, even if they weren't all that great, and had even more fun with your reviews!

I hope Loitering with Intent continued well for you. And I believe you said that you managed to get Brighton Rock in English, is that correct? How's that working out for you?

I'll probably be reading Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in 2012, as these as the only two of the six main novels by JA I haven't read yet. There's a new 'Tutored Read' thing being organized for us 75ers, and I read Emma following along one such tutored read for Madeline, which completely transformed my opinion of JA, who's writing I had not really appreciated much until then. But once the context and customs and conventions were explained and put into historical context, a lot of things fell into place, and I even enjoyed the sappy happy ending, which is something I could not abide with before, cynical person that I am!

Hope you're doing well Nathalie. You've been going through quite a rough year I know. I never did ask you what your business was about. When you have a moment and feel so inclined, maybe you could PM me to give me a bit of an idea if you don't feel like posting about it here.

#96: thank you, it was indeed a funny book

#97: I finished NA yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I think I'd place it somewhere in the middle of my personal ranking, along with "Emma". It stands out a bit from all the other novels I've read, but I see some connections to both "Emma" (liveliness of the heroine) and "Mansfield Park" (the characters of the Thorpes). I'll write more in my review.

#98: Lieutenant Gustl wasn't really fun to read, but it was short. Strange story though, I am glad those times are over (imagine being morally forced to commit suicide because someone called you 'stupid').

You might actually like Northanger Abbey, because of the very close-to-life heroine Catherine who reminded me a bit of Emma. But maybe you should try and read a gothic novel first, to get the parody bits. I read The Castle of Otranto last year, probably the most unintentionally funny book I'll ever read. NA is not yet as mature and well balanced a work as Austen's other books, but I found it quite charming.

I returned to Loitering with Intent this morning after having taken a short break 30 pages in. I had been reading too many books at once and needed to finish NA and Senilità first. So far I read 36 pages today and found them highly enjoyable. It really seems to be a very good translation. I tried "English to Italian" books before and this is the first one that feels natural. Wonderful characters, and I love Dame Edwina!

I got Brighton Rock from the library, but it's waiting for the Spark book to be finished. I am also reading Arabian Nights (one "night" every day, so this will take years!) and Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard in Italian. And there's also the new Eco on my table which I started weeks ago.

About Holocaust books: I think I was about 11 years old when a book about life in Auschwitz fell into my unsuspecting hands during a holiday. Until then I knew there had been a bad war and that the Germans had started it, but Holocaust exposure at school usually started some time later. I read that book in two or three days and after finishing it thought it would be impossible to live on, with that knowledge of what my people, basically the generation of my grandparents, had done. The shame and feeling of guilt were overwhelming and it was like the reality around me had been one big lie.

I dealt with the initial shock by reading more, and books better adapted for my age from my school library. I got some (but little) information from my parents. I've read many books and watched documentations, but it took me years to get ready and face the Schindler movie, bit by bit.

As I wrote, the Eastern European part of my family was so traumatized by the war and the expulsion (thousands of those refugees, mainly women, children and old people, were systematically killed on their way to the West), that it was forever impossible to talk about those years. For the rest of their lives my grandparents invested most of their money in food, stocking up in a way that in an emergency they could have survived on their provisions for many months.

Whatever the future may hold, I am extremely grateful that I was able to live the first 40 years of my life in peace and safety.

I took a long walk in Merano today and enjoyed the pre-Christmassy atmosphere. The weather was phantastic: clear blue sky, sunny, but cool temperatures. I bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor and watched the preparations for the Christmas market that starts next Friday. And I had a look at the shops for presents.

Due to the not-so-great circumstances, my family agreed on buying only symbolic presents. So as usual, I decided that everyone should get a book from me. The window shopping didn't help much though - Christmas books for kids and Christmas cooking books.

I am looking for novels that are both gripping and end on a positive note. Both my parents do not have much patience when a plot takes a bit to develop. No problem books, nothing that's too difficult to read, but it still should be 'good' books. For my mother it would be great if a dog was involved. Okay that might make the 'good' a little more difficult, so the dog is no must.
Last Christmas we read A Christmas Carol together, but I doubt they'd touch a classic book in my absence.

Maybe you have some suggestions for me?

#98: sorry Ilana, I forgot to answer your last question. I sent you a PM last week with my e-mail. The 2nd one has the domain of my business, you can take a look.

imagine being morally forced to commit suicide because someone called you 'stupid'

Maybe because I find it so unimaginable and such an extreme position, I find it almost comical in a way.

I'm glad you're finding the Italian translation of Loitering with Intent well done. So far, having only read four of Spark's novels, this is one of my favourites along with Memento Mori. I quite like her dry and strange sense of humour, though when I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie I didn't get 'get' it, so I didn't enjoy that book as much, though I fully intend to revisit it.

I'm sorry you had such a difficult experience when you found out about the Holocaust. What compounds the horror of genocide is how it keeps affecting individuals and communities for generations later, on either side of the divide. What I find particularly horrible is to know that there are many groups who insist that the Holocaust is a myth invented by the Jews and that it never actually happened, using it as a pretext to show how twisted and manipulative they are. Actually, I'm sorry to even bring it up, because it saddens me to no end.

Your walk sounds quite lovely. I'm not aware of any of the Christmas preparations because I live in an area where not much of that goes on. Mostly residential, though no doubt the neighbours will be taking out their Christmas lights soon enough. We've all of us been quite tight with money in my family, and when we had family get-togethers with my mum and step-dad (when they were still living here) and his sons, we had a swap where each person picked one person to get a gift for. Either that or we had a cap on how much we could spend for gifts, which was usually quite low, so books and CDs were often exchanged. I haven't had a 'family' Christmas in over a decade now and it's always a bit of a sad period for me.

No suggestions right now as far as books, but I'll try to think of something.

Sorry haven't responded to your PM, I often take time replying to those whenever I need to think of something, especially as they seem more meaningful somehow. Maybe because of their more private nature? I had a quick look at your site, thank you. I'd been meaning to ask you for a long time, so now I finally know what you're talking about when you mention your business.

Oh yes, I have Arabian Nights in three tomes in the French version. I read them a long time ago, and it's true they are best enjoyed one at a time, I think, so yes, it's well to take one's time with them. They come from a time when the fact that stories took a long time to tell was highly desirable, almost impossible to imagine in our age when everything should go as fast as possible. I'll revisit them sometime for sure. They are so imaginative and some of them quite magical, as I recall.

#102: You're right, that bit in "Gustl" was quite comical, especially in that interior monologue style. Like "oh my god, that was an insult, wasn't it? But if it was, what is my duty now? Can't duel a baker! How dare a baker tell me I'm stupid? Maybe it wasn't an insult and I can just ignore it. But then if it was... and if somebody heard it and talks about it (...) There's just one solution for me to restore my honor - I have to kill myself (and thus also avoid that duel I have with the other military guy in the afternoon)!"
Honestly - reading that you don't wonder anymore why the Austrian empire went down....

Finding out about the Holocaust is surely an extremely difficult experience for everyone, and especially for those (like your family) who were personally affected by it. It's something so enormous and unimaginable. I understand that people at first don't want to believe it, because it's just too big, and need to be exposed to it more slowly, step by step.
But I absolutely have no tolerance for that myth rumour you mentioned, which is deliberately planted by neo nazi groups. How can those who believe them close their eyes to all the evidence?

I am sorry that you won't be with your family during the holidays. Will you be seeing any friends? We never had a 'big' family Christmas either, though I've got many uncles/aunts/ cousins. It was always just my parents and me (+partner in my non-single years) and usually the grandparents on the 25th, now being just one grandmother left. A very quiet affair.

I am now living in a very Catholic place, and the interesting thing is that it reduces Christmas a bit back to its roots. Sure there are decorations, there's a Christmas market (it's a tourist place after all), but compared to my old place it's all really tasteful. No over-sized plastic Santas climbing roofs, no crazy lights in the windows, no gingerbread in the shops by the end of August. There will be just the one weekend around the holiday on December 8th when the Italians traditionally go crazy, arrive in thousands with camper vans to experience the 'festive atmosphere' which translates into drinking beer and buying apple strudels. Many of them are bringing small dogs, dressed up in dirnds, lederhosen or military outfits, maybe I can take some pictures this year. Once that weekend is over it will be a quiet business again.

98. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Once again it shows that it's best to start a book without high expectations. My Jane Austen reading order has been Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and now NA. While I loved the former three (and read them all more than once), I had problems finishing both Persuasion and MP. I liked Persuasion on my second try, mainly because I liked the two protagonists. MP is a book I don't think I will ever read again. I did my best but couldn't develop any friendly feelings towards Fanny who imo is not strong-willed, but more of a real killjoy. I can imagine her tightlipped reactions whenever Edmund tries telling her something amusing over the breakfast table. So my expectations for NA were quite low when I started the book.

Now Catherine is another heroine with strong principles, but while Fanny is forever withering in some corner, Catherine is wonderfully alive and has no problems voicing her opinion. In this she is so wonderfully real, a believable 17year old girl, not too greatly educated (far from what was called 'accomplished'), and she has filled her head with gothic novels in a way that she confuses them with reality. When friends of her family take her to Bath for some weeks, she makes the acquaintance of John and Isabella Thorpe, who seemed to me a bit like an early version of MP's Crawfords. And she meets Henry Tilney with his sister Eleonore, who later take her to their domicile, the gothic Northanger Abbey, a place that seems to be taken straight out of one of Catherine's novels.

I found this book highly enjoyable, though far from being as well-balanced or mature as Austen's later works. It's sometimes painfully close to life (I am thinking of the scene at the opera house in chapter 12 where Catherine wants to apologize to Henry, who asks her 'to please make some room first'). As I wrote above, it's all a bit like "How to make sure not to get your man". Catherine clearly never heard about "The Rules".

I haven't read many gothic novels yet, and I am dreading the one that's constantly mentioned in NA (Anne Radcliffe's Udolpho) for its length. I found the ones I read usually quite funny due to their lack of any logical plot. It's clear that Austen meant to write a bit of a parody here in NA and that has been discussed more extensively in the Austenathon spoiler thread.

I am rating NA with 3,5 stars, because I liked it less than some other Austens and because I think it is a book where I won't find anything new on a reread.

Rating: 3,5 stars

99. Senilità by Italo Svevo (English title: When a Man Grows Older)

Reading NA in parallel helped me to get through this utterly joyless, but well observed story. All readers who have ever been obsessing over someone, or who have been the controlling person in a relationship with someone they deemed somehow "lower" than themselves will certainly recognize themselves in the story of Emilio and Angiolina.

Emilio is the 'older' man (he's in fact 35), working for an insurance company while dreaming of being a successful author. He takes a lover, Angiolina, and falls more in love or better obsession with her than he ever intended to. He gets all caught up in a constant jealousy (with good reason), which he concentrates mainly on his best friend Stefano, a successful artist and womanizer, who represents everything Emilio wants himself to be. When Emilio's sister falls in love with Stefano, things get even worse.

Quite a short 1001 book, but not an easy read.

Rating: 3 stars

100. Loitering with Intent /Atteggiamento Sospetto by Muriel Spark

I seriously doubted I'd make it even close to 100 this year, but here we are! And what a delightful read it was for a #100 book.

Technically it was my first book by Muriel Spark, because I didn't understand a single sentence out of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie when I tried to read it for school after only 2 years of English. Our teacher quickly gave up on that project and we returned to our textbooks.

It was a happy surprise that my Italian edition was also the first translation English vs Italian I read where it didn't feel like a translation at all. Someone really made an effort here. 30 pages felt like nothing, it was the smoothest Italian I ever read.

We have a young writer, Fleur Talbot, who takes on a job as a secretary for Sir Quentin and his mysterious "Autobiographical Association" while she is finishing her first novel, "Warrander Chase". After a while she finds out that parts of her novel somehow end up in the autobiographies of the association members, and simultaneously real life suddenly seems to imitate events from her novel.

There isn't much more I can say about the plot except that it's somehow not really important for the overall feeling. In fact, I didn't find the plot development too great, and the ending was surprisingly unsurprising. What made it such an enjoyable read were the writing and the characters, of which I found Fleur almost the weakest (I doubt we'd be friends). By far my favorite was Dame Edwina, Sir Quentin's 90year old eccentric mother. I wish there was a sequel with her!

Rating: 4 stars

Congratulations on reaching 100 books already! And I'm glad that no. 100 was a good one for you. I've not read any Muriel Spark, not even The Prime of Miss J B - but that one sounds fun.

And what an extraordinary vision of beer-drinking, strudel-eating people with dogs dressed in dirndls etc! Or did you mean the people rather than the dogs in costume? Either way, it sounds like photos of the festive fun would be very jolly!

You made it to 100! Congratulations!

Congratulations on your hundredth book! (I doubt I'll get even close to that number...)

I've got a question though, since I saw you read Watership Down. It's on my reading list and probably watching list as well, but I'm wondering: How does it compare expectation wise to Felidae? That book/movie has kind of the same theme - cute animals with atrocious stuff happening.

#107: thank you! I'll try Momento Mori next, if my library manages to get it out of their archive where it has been hidden for whatever reason (that's the case with many books that I'd like to read and the staff is not very friendly when I come with my requests).

Yes, it's the dogs wearing dirndls and fake lederhosen. The people will wear anoraks and Santa caps. And they will be very very jolly. The locals will hide in their houses for 4 days, till all the camper vans, laden with tons of applestrudel, have disappeared again.

#108: thank you Janet! I'm a bit disappointed though, as last year I got close to 150, but still 100 (+ what I'm reading now and in December) is more than in my pre-LT years. And I read many short books this year.

#109: thanks for the congratulations! Unfortunately I can't help you out here as I have never read Felidae. But you remind me that I always wanted to. Re. Watership Down: the book is less action-packed than the movie and also less violent. It takes its time to build up to the bad events, while in the movie the animals fall from one horror into the next.

101. Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard

There has been a bit of a discussion in the 1001 group on johnnypie's thread about Bernhard's books. They all seem to follow the same pattern:
- it looks like he was writing most of his books without using paragraphs, so it's all one looooong block
- he liked to write about arts/music, and he was very, very critical
- his 'novels' are more of an interior monologue of the author himself, often clearly autobiographic
- his style is terribly repetitive, using the same expressions or ideas over many pages again and again
- he was clearly not too fond of many things in his country, Austria. So there's much rambling against all things Austrian

I started reading Old Masters, the book discussed on johnnypie's thread and then put it aside to read this one first. In one 160 page long paragraph, Bernhard tells the reader of his friendship with Paul Wittgenstein, the nephew of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Paul is suffering from a serious nervous illness, unsufficiently described as manic depression, which forces him to frequent stays in the mental ward. Paul is dying, very slowly, and Bernhard describes his difficulties coping with the friend's illness and impending death. Bernhard himself has been suffering from tubercolosis since his youth and in the beginning of the book he and Paul both find themselves at the same time in the hospital, though in different wards.

The parts where Bernhard reminisces about his friend and shared adventures of the past are heartbreaking and beautiful. The other bits however, I'll just call them page-fillers, where he uses the usual repetitions, were often quite annoying for me.

I read up on Bernhard and now have a better understanding for his anti-Austrian feelings, though the question should be allowed why he stayed in that country if everything was so horrible. Probably because otherwise he wouldn't have known what to write about.

Towards the ending he remembers two award ceremonies (he claims to hate awards, but looking at his bio I found he accepted a surprisingly high quantity of them for his books). Both times he behaved in such a provocative way, that he caused a bit of an éclat, once actually getting hit in the face by the laudator. I guess he really loved to hate his country(men).

Rating: 3,5 stars

Congratulations on reaching 100 books Nathalie. You should be proud of all you've read, especially considering much of it isn't exactly "easy reading" what with so many choices dictated by 1001 books (many of which I will gladly never read). I'm so glad you had fun with Loitering With Intent. I loved dame Edna as well, and I think I might have said that I'd happily read another book with her as a lead character. If I didn't say it, I certainly thought it.

Good review of Northanger Abbey. I'll be taking that one up sometime in 2012 with Liz as a tutor. Best of all, she's assured me that I don't really need to read a gothic novel beforehand, as long as I understand the conventions of the gothic novel. Which I don't, but I'll probably read the wikipedia page about them and learn all I need to. No Udolpho for me, I can guarantee you that much! No Wittgenstein or any other Bernhard books either, while we're at it!

Just a short update, as I am leaving for a business trip to Germany tomorrow and might not be able to spend much time on LT during the next 2 weeks.

I listened to Miss Pettigrew lives for a day by Winifred Watson, the first audiobook I really enjoyed. In fact I think I would have liked it less in normal book form. The reader was just fantastic! Thanks Ilana, that was a great recommendation. And I'd say it's the perfect book for audiobook beginners like me. I clearly understood every word - with the one exception of the very last sentence. Here I understood the words, but not the meaning. Help!

I ordered the German version (real book) for my mother for Christmas, I'm sure she'll like it.

I am now reading my 2nd Thomas Bernhard book, Old Masters, and don't know if I should like it or hate it. Is it just annoying or is it the work of a genius? I don't like Bernhard as a person, that's for sure!

Still and forever reading Arabian Nights. And I loaded a couple of free 1001 e-book classics on my Kindle last weekend and started The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by E.T.A. Hoffmann.

I'll take Brighton Rock to Germany with me and hope to find the time to read it there.

#112: Ilana, you should read the first few pages of The Castle of Otranto (if you haven't yet). This will give you an idea about the strangeness of the classic gothic novel, and it might actually be fun. I am looking forward to following Liz' tutoring on Northanger Abbey, I read and enjoyed her comments on Emma.

I'll listen to the end of Miss Pettigrew again soon and see if I can help you Nathalie. Will also consider borrowing Otranto from the library to read the first few pages, as you suggest.

Hope your business trip goes well!

102. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson

I am not used to writing reviews for audiobooks. Maybe I should start with the rating: following my new, stricter rating guidelines the book would have received 3,5 stars. But the audio version was (imo) so exceptionally good and added so much fun to the 'reading' experience, that in the end I rated it with 4 stars. The narrator is Frances McDormand, who also starred as Miss Pettigrew in the movie version.

The story is basically your typical modernized (set in the 1930s) Cinderella story, you could also say it's chick-lit, but good-quality chick-lit. Miss Pettigrew is a middle-aged, not very talented governess, desperately looking for an employment. Her agency sends her to the appartment of the beautiful young actress Delysia Lafosse. There Miss Pettigrew's first job is to help Delysia getting her lover out of the appartment - because lover #2 might turn up any minute. She quickly understands that her main task should be to get some order into Delysia's life, but that doesn't work without some changes in her own lifestyle.

This is an optimistic, easy-to-read story, and I decided to give the German version to my mother - who always complains of being too old to start new things - as a Christmas gift.

One little thing that kept nagging me and that I've also noticed in the first of Dorothy Sayers' "Lord Peter Wimsey" novels is the not-so-hidden antisemitism. I wouldn't say the book is antisemitic, but making certain remarks (i.e. warning a young women from marriage to a guy who has something 'distinctly Jewish' in his appearance, because 'you shouldn't mix with foreigners') was clearly not at all unusual in pre-WWII UK, or it wouldn't have been so casually said.

Rating: book 3,5 stars/ audiobook: 4 stars

103. Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard

The good thing I can say about this book is that it made me think. Think about the question whether the author is a genius or a misanthrope or both.

As John (johnnypies) rightly warned us on his 1001 thread, nothing at all happens in this book, in this one parapgraph that runs over more than 200 pages (Italian version).
The narrator visits the „Kunsthistorisches Museum“ in Vienna to meet Reger, a renowned music critic who spends most of his mornings there in one of the rooms, staring at Tintoretto‘s painting of the „Man with white beard“. Similar to Wittgenstein‘s Nephew the pages are filled with Thomas Bernhard‘s thoughts on arts and on everything he hates about Austria. Again he uses over-long, repetitive sentences.

I must say that around page 100 I believed to have found a bit of a structure. The writing started to remind me of a musical composition, with the repetitions and recurring themes. If this is the case or the idea behind it, it has been done very well. But then it wouldn‘t explain why he did the same thing in other books.

I can‘t help having a problem with an author who so obviously doesn‘t care about his readers. This is your typical joyless Austrian (or German, it‘s valid for both) intellectual who‘ll say „I demand some effort from my readers, if they want something easy let them read a best-seller“. If writing without paragraphs is an addition to the story, I have no problems with it (see Goetz and Meyer as an example). But if it is used as an author‘s ‚hallmark‘ I just find it disrespectful. And it‘s not just the missing paragraphs, the whole book is disrespectful. There are certainly many truths in his writings, but it feels like reading an endless newspaper column written by a forever ill-humored man, who doesn‘t want to change anything, because complaining feels so good.

Rating: 2,5 stars

104. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene - contains some spoilers

After The End of the Affair and The Power and the Glory this was my third book by Graham Greene. By now I can say that in less than a year he has become one of my favorite authors. However I can't really say why. It feels similar to reading a McEwan book, only much better. There is always some element that repels me, but once started I can't put their books down. The difference is that after a McEwan book I often feel a little 'soiled' (especially thinking of The Cement Garden here), while Greens books make me feel overall quite positive.

The story is set in pre-WWII Brighton and starts on a lovely sunny Pentecost Monday when the tourists from London arrive in trainloads to enjoy a day by the sea. Charles Hale, aka "Fred", arrives on some business and tries to survive the day. He is aware that he is being followed by the gang of 17year old Pinkie. In a desperate effort not to be caught and killed, Fred hooks up with Ida, another London tourist, but in the end can't escape his fate. It takes Pinkie only hours to find out he has left a trace - the waitress Rose has noticed something she shouldn't have. As a means to keep her silent Pinkie tries to seduce Rose, not yet aware he is also being followed by Ida who suspects Fred's death might have been not all natural.

So if you ask me why I liked Brighton Rock and rated it with 4 stars, I must say it had (for me) mainly unlikeable characters, an unpleasant setting, too many religious ideas I couldn't follow and a plot that was mediocre. But Greene successfully mixed all those ingredients and added a very special atmosphere - and so there I was, reading the book whenever I had some spare time during my week in Germany, really liking it and craving for more.

One additional thing about the Catholicism - as I read this one shortly after Senilità: I find it strange that the English Catholicism, as described by Greene and also Evelyn Waugh, seems such a strict and joyless and unforgiving business, often connected with a certain arrogance. I also don't understand why it is a deathly sin to be married (i.e. to have sex) without the blessing of the church, while a murder seems so be something easy to forgive. From my Dante reading I remember you end up in hell for both, but a killing will send you to a worse part of hell. And if you repent before you die, you'll probably be saved anyway. And Dante was writing the "Commedia" in the early 1300s, more than 600 years before Rose was fearing eternal damnation. When reading Italian classics I am always confronted with Catholicism in some way, but the Italian approach seems much more practical and a confession can heal many sins.

Rating: 4 stars

105. Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull / Confessions of Felix Krull by Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann‘s last novel and presumably the funniest one. I dearly loved the first 300 of the 411 pages of the German version, then reading became a terrible torture and I skipped many pages just to get to the ending. Only to find that the ending doesn‘t seem to be an ending. It‘s not 100% sure (that‘s what the afterword said) if Mann was intending to write a second volume or if he wanted to leave the story open. He died before starting a sequel.

In the first chapters there are so many hints to later events (which are then never worked out) that for me at least it felt incomplete. I‘m sure that, had Mann ever added that second volume, the final version would have at least 1000 pages.

I have no problems with long books, and I love Thomas Mann‘s prosa. I read Doktor Faustus, The Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain and some of his shorter works and loved them all. I don‘t think any German author in the 1900s was able to use the language to such perfection. I knew that most of his longer novels start with easy-to-read and short chapters, that at some point the chapters become very, very long and that some of them contain endless philosophical discourses. Usually those fit well into the story and often they are - though old fashioned and outdated - exceptionally powerful.

However, when all that happened here, I really lost my patience. Maybe because up to that point the story was such great fun and not philosophical or melancholy at all. The protagonist Felix Krull grows up in a winemaker family in the Rhinegau region. His father is an over-generous man, spending his money on parties and women, until the business fails, and the family finds itself without financial means - and without friends, apart from Felix‘ godfather. The father commits suicide and the family splits. After a short stay with his mother (who opens a boarding house) in Frankfurt and after having learned the fine art of love-making from his lover, a Hungarian prostitute, Felix - an extremely handsome young man with the best of manners - travels to Paris to start a career in the hotel business. In the firm belief to be by nature entitled to live in the high society, he begins to lead a double life, working as a waiter in the grand hotel during the day and pretending to be a rich gentlemen by night. After some months one of his hotel clients makes him an offer he can‘t refuse.

Great story, and I can recommend most of it. Should you however start feeling tired at about page 300, don‘t hesitate to abandon the book - nothing much is going to happen anymore.

Rating: 3,5 stars, 4,5 stars for the first 300 pages.

106. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

Recommended by Ilana/ Smiler69 and read as shared TIOLI read for December challenge #9.

This is a very enjoyable little book about the emancipation of a woman from her brother‘s authority in the early 1900s and about the love for books.

The book is so short that I don‘t want to give the story away. It‘s available on gutenberg for free, and it is a very quick read.

Rating: 3,5 stars

107. The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare

Read for TIOLI December challenge #8.

I had started the year with the resolution to catch up on the Shakespeare plays. But again I got stuck in the second Henryad, and I have my doubts I will ever finish that series. Now I saw "King Lear" listed on the TIOLI challenge #8 and found this a welcome occasion to read at least one more play in 2011.

When I had my big Shakespeare phase some years ago, strangely enough King Lear had been the play where I had to take a break, and I never picked it up again. Probably it had been just too much of a great thing and I really needed a Shakespeare-free time. Now when I re-started it yesterday, I was instantly gripped and found it one of his easiest-to-read plays. I read many of the scenes aloud, and it has been a long time since I enjoyed verse so much. The plot is well-known, extremely dramatic and dark, but interspersed with humorous bits. Cordelia's and especially Edgar's love for their fathers are completely believable. I loved that scene with Edgar and his father at the Dover cliffs. There are also some unexpectedly cruel scenes and the ending will come as a surprise for those who haven't read the plot in advance.
The play is among my favorites now, and I‘ve added another one (Henry VI part II) to the TIOLI. I know... I just don‘t like to give up on books.

I tried to watch the DVD from the BBC collection last night, but could only watch the first 2 acts. This was the first time that I felt they hadn‘t done justice to a play, I found it flat and lacking power compared to the text.

Rating: can‘t rate Shakespeare.

108. Lebensansichten des Katers Murr/ Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by E.T.A. Hoffmann

Read for TIOLI December challenge #10 and for the 1001 list.

I just finished it, and I am sorry to say that, as much as I liked the book, I'm a little annoyed. I can‘t say why without spoiling the story. Let‘s say I wasn‘t happy with the ending and I wish the book had been a hundred pages longer.

It took me more than a week to get into the story and to get used to the style (see below), but once I had made my way through the first third of the book, I loved it so much that I finished it in less than two days.

It is a bit difficult to describe the story and I agree it doesn‘t sound the least bit inviting - it took me ages to finally pick it up, just because I found the story so un-promising, although I knew Hoffmann was a great writer.

It is the autobiography of the tomcat Murr, a tomcat having the advantage of growing up in the house of the wise Master Abraham, where he has access to science books and poetry and quickly teaches himself the art of reading and writing. He forms some interesting friendships, among others with a poodle named Ponto, but apart from that leads a happy regular life. Now when writing this autobiography, Murr used some old paper he found - the manuscript of another biography. It‘s the story of the composer Johannes Kreisler, and that one is quite a gripping adventure story. The papers Murr didn‘t use for his own writing accidentally ended up in the book, so that there are two stories now, alternating every few pages, and in the case of Kreisler‘s story full of gaps.

During the first third of the book I found those interruptions tiring, and it was difficult to get into Kreisler‘s story at all, as it doesn't follow a straight timeline. But then came a point when both stories became so gripping that each interruption was welcome (to continue the other story), and at that point I would have rated the book with 4 stars. It lost half a star on the last 5 pages, but still I am glad I read it.

It was my third novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose fairy-tale style romantic classics seem to be either loved or hated by the readers. I am now officially among his fans, though all the books I‘ve read are what I‘d call „wintery comfort classics“, like some of Dickens' books (only shorter). I wouldn‘t say it‘s a must-read, but it‘s much lighter and more fun than most of the other German classics on the list.

Rating: 3,5 stars (and now I‘m off to look for other free e-books by Hoffmann)

Update on my other activities:
I spent a week in Germany, where I had some business appointments, but unfortunately came down with a bad stomach flu already on the first day. When the fever was down after 2 days and I wasn't contagious anymore I did all my meetings, but I felt really weak and dreadful for several more days and couldn't do much reading. I returned to Merano on the 4th, and then my parents arrived on the 5th and stayed till yesterday. Having them here was great, we had a wonderful time here in pre-Christmas Merano, but now I am glad I finally got some rest and some reading time over the weekend.

It looks like my business will survive the winter - we found an investor/ partner with whom we have been working already for 2 years and who will now join the company.

On the other side there were some not so great things about which I can't write here, but which once again taught us to be extremely careful when it comes to trusting people. I know I have to be optimistic for the future, but events like that recent one make me feel tired. However there are some good prospects for 2012, and I hope we'll make it.

Reading:
I am reading Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf for TIOLI (11 in 11) and am planning to read Jane Austen's Lady Susan - for the TIOLI, but also as a test whether I can bear to read a novel consisting of letters. If I get through it without harm, I might(!) start Clarissa by Samuel Richardson in January.

I finished the first volume of Arabian Nights and I am very slowly reading The House by the Medlar Tree/ I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga, another 1001 classic. Then I have some almost finished 1001 books on hold and have to decide whether to read them now in December or to wait till January to get a good start into 2012.

Tomorrow I am going to visit your threads and see what I have missed. My internet connection is terribly slow at the moment and posting those reviews + updating the books took all afternoon.

109. A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

This book is very short (does it have 10 pages?), and there's no plot. It's mainly childhood memories of the 'good old times' when Christmas in Wales always meant loads of snow and time spent in a big family. Great writing, some wonderful observations. It was recommended on the TIOLI thread and I read it for challenge #5.

Rating: 3 stars

Hi Nathalie - glad things are looking up, though I'm sorry people have been letting you down :/

Are you going to try the daily read of Clarissa? I'm lining that up myself - should be interesting! Would be good to have some company on it.

#124: Hi Bekka, I think I'll give it a try at least. I don't really like the idea of reading two of those looong slow books at the same time, but at least the Arabian Nights chapters are short. My version of "Clarissa" starts on January 10th with the first letter. I also have a dentist appointment that day. A great way to start the new year... :-)

Yup... Clarissa is def akin to a dentist treatment! I'm also going to be plugging away at Ovid's Metamorphoses so it's loooong books galore next year I think!

110. Lady Susan by Jane Austen

The TIOLI gave me the occasion to finish my 'Complete Novels by Jane Austen' edition by finally reading Lady Susan. And it was a test whether I could read an epistolary novel (learned a new word, yay!).

It was an okay read, and due to its shortness (must be less than 100 pages) it was more entertaining than Mansfield Park, but it's far from being among my favorites. I found it difficult to get into the plot, which must be normal when you're getting to know all the characters only by their own letters or by the opinions of others. Then there are the repetitions: Person A writes to person B that person C might be planning to do this and that. And then person C writes to person D that she is planning excatly that. And then A writes to B again to confirm that C has done that.

Here we have Lady Susan, a widow in her late thirties, as protagonist. After having caused various disturbances in the household she lived in by flirting with both the married master of the house and the possible future husband of the younger niece or sister(don't remember), she moves in with the family of her brother-in-law, where she quickly starts new trouble.

Lady Susan is in the center of the novel, the only character that is really worked out. All the others are only reacting to her actions, so we never get close to them.
I was glad that at the ending I got the typical quick Austen wrap-up - a couple of paragraphs explaining the fate of all the characters.

Rating: 3 stars

I really must get back into TIOLI next year...

Hi Nathalie,

I've missed heaps of book reviews on your thread but should be able to keep up now. Glad you have found a business partner and I really hope the next few months go well. I bet Merano is looking beautiful and Christmasssy by now!

#129: Hi Cushla, today Merano is looking awfully grey and dirty. They announced snow, but so far there has just been some drizzle. I bet the snow will wait till next week when I leave for Germany. :-)
How's NZ? As warm and sunny now as it should be?

I'm a bit worried, as my parents' place is in the center of the Orkan that has been forecast for central Europe today. My online dictionary says 'hurricane', but imo an Orkan is more than a storm and less than a hurricane. Anyway, I hope it will in the end just be an over-rated little normal storm again like the last few times.

Had lots of trouble in my business this week, but also some good things, and most importantly I got much support during the trouble from my partners here. But I am really ready for the holidays now and then for some worry-free business in 2012!

Hi Nathalie, that's excellent news on the new partner/investor for your business and finishing the Jane Austen books. I kind of liked Lady Susan when I read it a few years ago. I think Jane was quite young when she wrote it, and I took that into consideration. I just looked it up and saw that I gave it 3 stars in 2008.

Christmas in Germany has happy memories for me. I lived there when my dad was in the army. I was ages 5 -8 which is kind of a magical time for Christmas no matter where one lives. Have a wonderful holiday!

Hurray for some worry-free business in 2012. That's great news and I'm very happy for you Nathalie. As for trusting people well... I've had a few harsh lessons too, and I've learned to treat really good people as the exception as opposed to the rule. This bunch here on LT seems very special, and it's nice to feel 'safe' in a caring environment, isn't it?

Really enjoyed your reviews, as always. Only sorry that it took me so long to get to them. Cutting back on my LT time means less time to visit threads, but I'm sure you understand that.

I've never read E. T. A. Hoffman before, though I of course adored The Nutcracker ballet as a child and saw it several times over the years. This Tomcat Murr book sounds very appealing to me. A cat writing an autobiography? Count me in! :-) I'll add it to the wishlist.

King Lear: again, really enjoyed your review. I've only read Act II so far, but plodding along slowly. This isn't a simple reading for me, as it's the first time in my life I've approached Shakespeare in a serious way, and so will read it, listen to a performance on audio then possibly try to get the film version, even though you say it doesn't do the original text justice... but I'm not sure they have it at the library anyway. This may sound very silly, but it took a lot of courage for me to finally take on Shakespeare this month. He always seemed inaccessible to me before, but now I've been reassured that not everyone *gets* it from the first, I feel I can approach his work in a more casual way. I don't know if I'm making sense, but that's the gist of it.

Great review of Brighton Rock too. You're quite right that the plot wasn't the strongest feature, but his characterizations and as you say, the general atmosphere he created were so good that it hardly seemed to matter. As for the Catholic side of things, having been raised by parents who didn't believe in religion, but a mother who went to convent as a schoolgirl, I've learn to accept Catholicism as a very demanding religion. As you say, some believe that you can repent for any sin and still go to heaven, while others have a much stricter view. I didn't really understand why they were so worried about the sexual aspect of things when murder was the real issue, but then, being English, the characters would have been hung up about sex in a big way, and since they hadn't had a religious wedding, they were basically having sex out of wedlock in the church's eye. I know Greene was a Catholic and that his religion is often part of his stories, as it is with Muriel Spark.

Again, very happy for you that things are working out, at least on the business end of things. That must be a huge relief.

Hi, Nathalie. I hope that your parents and their place weather the storm, whatever it's called. Glad to hear positive support for the business. Wishing you safe travel when you finally get to go home.
I don't think I'm ready to start Clarissa yet, not even on the basis of a letter a day. That's the biggest, baddest book I own.

#131: Hello Donna, thank you for the Christmas wishes - the same to you!
We won't have a white Christmas this year, the forecast predicts the usual temperature raise and rain. My parents told me they already decorated the tree, very early this year, I am looking forward to seeing it.

#132: Ilana, I am sorry, but the worry-free business was just a wish (which hopefully will come true). So far it doesn't look too promising, the trouble part I hinted at in my post #122 keeps being troublesome.

I also read The Nutcracker book some years ago after seeing the ballet and found the story really strange, though well written. Maybe I'll give it a re-read over Christmas. As you have cats and a dog you might really enjoy the tomcat Murr's autobiography when he explains much of the typical cat behaviour and discusses strategies (how to educate your master) with the poodle Ponto. The Kreisler part however needs some patience.

My first Shakespeares in English have been very hard to get through, and it was helpful to get a good edition with many footnotes. Reading bits of it aloud myself helped a lot. I am sure there are several DVD versions of "King Lear". Mine is part of the big BBC collection I bought some years ago, and while some of the plays are brilliant (A Midsummer Night's Dream with Helen Mirren!), others are less great and unfortunately Lear falls into the second category.

#133: "That's the biggest, baddest book I own."
Ew... that's not really an encouragement! :-)
I'll have to remind myself that I don't have to finish it. Reading shouldn't be torture.
My parents were lucky once again, the storm brought much snow, but the trees in their garden are all still standing.

One of the brasss bands I complained about early in this thread, gave a free Christmas concert last night on the piazza in my neighbourhood. They were playing from a balcony that was deocrated with fairy lights, free gluehwein and cookies were given out, it was all quite enchanting, and above all it was 'real' (not done for the tourists, but for the neighbours). It amazes me how they are able to preserve their traditions here in this region.

I watched the The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the weekend (skipping all the annoying Gollum bits) and when that scene came in "The Return of the King" where the fires are lighted on the mountains, calling all the people of Gondor and Rohan to the weapons, I realized that this has been a real tradition for mountain people in case of emergency, and that the fires they are lighting in the mountains here once a year in June is a relict of those times.

I finished two books last week: Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf and I Malavoglia/ The House by the Medlar Tree by Giovanni Verga. I'm almost half through North and South and might finish it in time to add it to the December TIOLI. Then I fear I'll have to return to the Eco which I put on hold for no reason, maybe just for its length. I still find Italian books with more than 300 pages scary, it took me almost 3 weeks to get through the Verga book.

And I am losing my fun with Arabian Nights. I have now read 50 nights, I'm in the middle of volume 2, and I hope the stories will soon get better and shorter again as they were in volume 1. It's annoying if one story takes up more than 10 nights (=reading days).

I dipped into Clarissa the other day - actually prompted by the comment above :) Don't panic - you get whole days off here and there. True other chunks are correspondingly long... Still I've found, having read Evelina, Camilla and Pamela in the last few years, once you get into them you get hooked despite yourself.

I hear you on the Arabian Nights though - I'm having Ovid ennui at the moment. Hopefully I'll get back into it in the new year.

The Christmas concert sounds wonderful by the way.

#135: That's a great scene in LOTR. I'm going to watch the trilogy in the Christmas Holiday with some of my friends.. It's become sort of a tradition.

Good review of Lady Susan - I can't put if of any longer. I must read the rest of the Austen now that I've completed The Austenathon.

#137: Hi Carsten, yes - it's a real goosebump-scene, in a good sense! I had given my trilogy to a friend some years ago, who since then has moved and 'lost' my DVDs. A few weeks ago I found the movies for 7,99 EUR (all three) on special offer and bought them - never to lend them out again!

Finished "North and South" this morning and am off in a couple of minutes to Germany. Bags are packed, car is waiting. I'll try and listen to The Third Man while driving, I hope there won't be too much traffic. I don't know how often I'll be able to use my parents' internet, so I'd like to wish you all
A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS / HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

I hope to be back before New Year's Eve, so I'm saving the New Year's wishes till next week. All the best to you all!!

Merry Christmas Nathalie.

Same to you, Nathalie. Have a nice time with your parents.

Merry Christmas, Nathalie!

Have a great trip Nathalie!

mistletoe smooches!

Wishing you all the very best Nathalie!

Merry Christmas Nathalie!

Frohe Weihnachten Nathalie und gute Reise! Viel Spass in Deutschland bei deinen Eltern.

#all: Thank you so much for all the Christmas wishes and the lovely pictures! And sorry I wasn't able to visit your individual threads. My dad's internet connection didn't work (the Telecom have now been trying to repair it for several days), and so I was quite cut off from the outside world.
I also couldn't read my work e-mails, so I had a very quiet Christmas wit lots and lots of reading.

The drive to my parents' place on the 22nd was quite adventurous, with snow, rain and heavy wind, but luckily there wasn't much traffic that day. My drive back yesterday was much better. I listened to audiobooks and was surprised that I was actually able to follow and enjoy the stories while driving.

I prepared some reviews on my home notebook and will post them tonight. Everything I am reading now will be finished in January and will then be reviewed on my new thread (which I think I'll start Saturday).

Over the holidays I read and finished:
- The Third Man (audio book) by Graham Greene
- The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann
- Fanny Hill by John Cleland
- Hyperion by Friedrich Hoelderlin
- Der Sprachverführer (non-fiction) by Thomas Steinfeld

I am now reading:
- Arabian Nights
- Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerloef
- Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (audio book)
- Il Cimitero di Praga by Umberto Eco

And I bought some new books with my Christmas money:
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (the new P&V translation!)
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec

Glad you're back safe and sound Nathalie. Looking forward to seeing what you thought of the latest reads - a mixed collection!

#149: Thanks Bekka. Yes - a mixed collection it certainly was, I am now quite randomly reading free classics on my Kindle, trying to make a dent into the pre-1800 part of the 1001 books. I also read the first letter of Clarissa, but will wait with the next one till January 13th.

Christmas is over, but I don't want to close this thread without posting a picture of my parents' Christmas tree. Next year I'll get an own one, should I remember in time to get the decorations out of the storage. Btw the tree was looking green and fresh, but I see that on the picture it comes out kind of brown. :-(

I need to write 8 reviews before starting a new thread, and though I prepared some of them at home I just decided to try and write new ones - and really short ones for a change.

111. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

Woolf's first real take on the experimental novel. We meet Jacob when he's a small boy, see him grow up and find his place in adult life - but always through the eyes of the people he encounters: his mother, friends, fellow train passengers, passers-by. Will the impressions of all those people add up to a complete picture? Will anyone ever really know Jacob (or us?).
It reminded me of The Waves, and I loved it.

Rating: 4,5 stars

112. I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga (English Title: The House by the Medlar Tree)

This seemingly simple story about the misfortunes of a fisherman's family in Sicily in the 1800s parallels the misfortunes of Sicily as a part of the then newly united nation of Italy, and even contains interesting foreshadowings to Italy's situation today as part of the EU. The Malavoglia family try to attain a better situation by doing some risky business and fail spectacularly. From then on further mishaps follow the family until there's almost no-one left. Not as sad and depressing as you might think, as the story is mainly told through the eyes of the forever gossiping and never helpful neighbours. Recommended if the translation can do the rich dialect language justice.

Rating: 3,5 stars

113. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Not the dreary work on industrialism in the North of England I had expected, and not as sugary as I had feared after having read Cranford. This book often felt like reading Pride and Prejudice northernized (and a little modernized as well). As a romance novel it has been an enjoyable read, especially for this time of the year. Many more comments can be found on the group read threads.

Rating: 4 stars

114. The Third Man by Graham Greene

This is my new favorite by Greene, and I don't understand why it has been removed from the 1001 list. I listened to the book on my drive home for Christmas, and the combination of the dense atmosphere in this novel (which fit in perfectly with the weather outside) and the wonderful narration by Martin Jarvis made it a very special experience. The plot itself is not of major importance, the main protagonist here seems to be the city of Vienna in a very cold and snowy post-war winter. Great book, and now I want to see the movie!

Rating: 4 stars

115. The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann

After "Tomcat Murr" I felt like reading a second Hoffmann novel as long as I was in Christmas fairy tale mood. It's probably impossible to enjoy this book on a hot summer day. There's a magician, a witch with a black cat, an enchanted protagonist, a and a language which as I learned later is a perfect example of how to transfer sounds into written language. I hope it works in the English translation. The story is confusing and typical for Hoffmann. I might read another one before this winter is over.

Rating: 3,5 stars

116. Fanny Hill by John Cleland

The good things: it was almost free as part of a cheap "50 classic books" anthology I had bought a while ago, it's a 1001 and a TIOLI. And it's remarkable insofar as, being basically porn (though the language is very 'flowery'), it was published in the 1700s and allowed the female characters to enjoy their sexuality. 3 stars for that. The not-so-good things: it was quite boring - both the lengthy descriptions of Fanny's numerous sexual encounters and the plot bits in between - , certainly far off the realities of a prostitute's life in the 1700s in London, and extremely hostile towards male homosexuality (I'm aware this was the common opinion, but he could just have left it out, the episode was completely unnecessary and for this I am removing half a star).

Rating: 2,5 stars

117. Hyperion by Friedrich Hoelderlin

Another short 1001 classic, another almost plotless book and a great example for the extreme pathos of the German romantic poets. Hyperion writes letters to his friend Bellarmin about the perfection of (an extremely idealized) Greece and his wish to become one with nature, to reach a spiritual state where all living beings, including plants, return to their godly origins. This is a notion I find so often in German books, from the early Goethes to Thomas Mann's and Hermann Hesse's works, that I fear it is inherent in us and I admit I have a weakness for it.
Others will probably call this the most pathetic book they ever read.

Rating: 3,5 stars

118. Die Sprachverführer by Thomas Steinfeld

In the past I have been complaining about modern German authors not being able to use the language in a way that makes their books 'sound' good. This book here explains how German became a language of literature in the 1800s, was then gradually changed into a language of administration and is now in an 'undecided' state where the spoken and the written language differ greatly and where linguists try to save a level which only in theory is still in existence.
Very informative, unfortunately only available in German.

Rating: 4 stars

Done! Now only 2 reviews for 2011 are missing (books #72 and 76) which I had written but which were lost when - in a bout of internet paranoia - I deleted several documents from my home notebook. Now I can't recreate them, I don't even remember the character names.

December has been a great reading month, and I hope for much undisturbed reading time in 2012.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year, Nathalie! Well done on catching up on your reviews - I have so many still to write before my thread is finished for the year. I'm glad you enjoyed North and South - I'm still reading my way through that, but hope to finish before the year's end.

Nice Christmas tree!

hi Nathalie, you did better with your reviews in 2011 than I did ;-)

And way back in your thread... I have all books of Karl May that are translated in Dutch, I was a BIG fan in my youth. Winnetou is only in the first 13 books (of 50), Old Shatterhand in the first 25, although in the Middle East he is called Kara Ben Nemsi.
I have been re-reading some in the past two years.

Also way up in your thread:
I started to read the Dutch translation of Wer bin ich – und wenn ja, wie viele? by Richard David Precht, I agree with your review, I am not sure yet if I can make it, or abandon it...

Happy New Year and see you in the 2012 group!

#155: Thank you, and the same to you, Genny! Good luck with your reviews!

#156: welcome to my thread! And Happy New Year to you, too!
Wow - you are really a Karl May expert. Maybe I should get one from my library, just to try... would be sad if I hadn't read a single Karl May book in my life. Anything you can recommend as a starter?

Concerning RDP: maybe he started with good intentions and then noticed that the public are greedily and without criticism consuming his simplified compendiums (compendia?). When I was in Germany last week I saw that he has published yet another book (how many are there now?) and I doubt he has anything new to say. But he is also extremely popular with the critics, so I guess he'll be around for a while.

********

I finished another book last night during the read-a-thon, it was the audio book of Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, so I guess I'll have to produce another review before tomorrow midnight. It was a great book, in a special way optimistic, quite a perfect read/listen for the year end.

The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights is killing me! After 2 months of daily reading I am now 10%(!) in, having read 86 nights, and I fear I'll have to take those '1001 Nights' literally.... The actual story has now been going on for 44 nights, of which maybe 3 have been slightly interesting, and it will go on for the equivalent of 100 pages. So far I really can't recommend this book, at least not the 16 volume edition.

I'll spend the New Year's Eve alone this year, and I am so looking forward to it. My friends and family are horrified by the idea and did their best to persuade me to change my mind, but I've done that once before and enjoyed it. For me New Year's Eve has always been the perfect day for quiet contemplation, and especially after the difficult 2011 I can't imagine ending the year with a party (and then spending hours trying to get a cab). So I'll have some nice food and will continue the read-a-thon into the new year.

Best start would be Winnetou I, that is where it all starts ;-)
But if you are more into romantic/adventurous you could start with Der Weg nach Waterloo.

At LT I see now 8 books by RDP... I am in no hurry to buy them ;-)

And I join you in liking New Years Eve on your own, the last years I have done just that, as Frank works that night. I do a quick last walk with the doggies around 10 and them we all curl up in bed with the TV on :-)
I have had enough New Years parties in my twenties and thirties for the rest of my life!

Hi Nathalie, you've done some interesting reading, as always. Loved the short reviews; you seem to be as good at writing more detailed reviews as pithy ones, that's a rare skill. I've added the Virginia Woolf to my wishlist, and the Italian one sounds really interesting, though my concern would be that there's no way to translate the Sicilian dialect, which takes away a lot of the flavour of the writing. I know this from reading a few Inspector Montalbano books by Andreas Camilleri.

I'm really happy that you're enjoying the audiobook experience. Martin Jarvis is an excellent narrator, which reminds me I really need to get my hands on more books narrated by him. He's part of a handful or readers who are a prime incentive to purchase an audiobook.

For very obvious reasons, I'm thrilled that you enjoyed Memento Mori. I thought it was truly excellent and it solidified my desire to discover much more or Muriel Spark's bibliography. If you look at my collection, you'll see I've got quite a few of her titles already, 11 in fact, though admittedly two or three of those are still on the wishlist.

I too got the P&V translation of Doctor Zhivago just a few months ago. When will I read it is another story.

I'm joining you in spending New Year's Eve alone. I haven't been tempted by parties in quite a few years now and am happy to stay home with my furry friends. I'll probably be spending a good part of the day catching up with people on the 2012 group and putting up my own thread.

#158: I'll see what my library is offering here. I find the second one a little more tempting, but they are more likely to own the Winnetous.
Doggies and TV in bed - sounds great for me!
I spent some NYEs (also as a grown-up when there wasn't a boyfriend) alone with my grandmother and her dog. Usually we were all asleep long before midnight.

#159: yes, so many books sound just all wrong when they are badly translated. The Verga book is not very well known and I fear the translations are quite old.
And I should try to read an Montalbano book, I am looking for something more contemporary in Italian, once I am done with the neverending Eco book.

I was lucky with the narrators of my first three audible books. I tested The Poisonwood Bible yesterday, but decided I couldn't listen to that voice for over 10 hours.
In "Memento Mori" I especially loved how Nadia May read those scenes in the ward, giving each granny her own voice! I had my problems with granny Barnacle, but on second listening I usually got the meaning.

********

119. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark

I decided to post my review for Memento Mori as #0 on my 2012 thread, it isn't written yet .
It will be a while before I can post my first real 2012 review, as my 'currently reads' all have at least 600 pages and are slow going.

So I hope you'll all have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Read you again in 2012!

You'll find my new thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/129529

Nathalie, I wish you a very Happy New Year and much success and... fun! See you in 2012!