September 2011: What 1001 Book are You Reading?

I'm still avoiding going any further with Under the Volcano by picking up On Beauty. On the e-Reader, I've just started The Way of All Flesh - should I be scared?

I'm about 1/4 the way through The Stone Diaries. Exceptional writing style and a very good story so far. I can see why this one worn the Pulitzer.

LOVED The Stone Diaries- probably my favorite Shields. I just finished How Late It Was, How Late and only have 500 pages left in A Suitable Boy. Time to pick up something else...

I'm just over halfway through The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa. It's fantastic.

Going to pick up Watchmen by Alan Moore now. My boyfriend assures me it won't take long, so I'll probably be reading Schindler's Ark soon as well.

I'm reading Possession by AS Byatt.

Still reading Robinson Crusoe.

I should be finishing Rabbit Run tomorrow. Don't care much for the character Rabbit, but the way the book is written and the symbolism is interesting. Have a feeling I'm missing a lot of Updike's allegory.

hmmm yes I had trouble reading Updike's Rabbit too... the guy is fixated with sex... and that's deliberately ambiguous

I just checked Rabbit Run out of the library yesterday.... it's going to be my next list book after I finish If On A Winter's Night A Traveler... Updike is popular this month!

I started American Psycho.

I just started Great Expectations. So far, so good.

I have that on my TBR pile. It keeps learing at me threateningly. Let us know what you think of it when you're done.

George, are you saying you don't have great... expectations? :D

I'm reading The blind side of the heart (Julia Franck) from the 2010 list - the language is beautiful and there are so many layers I'm taking my time with it.

Really struggling to know what to read next - I have Schindlers Ark, Alias Grace and Jacob the Liar on my tbr pile which I have been looking forward to - so probably one of those. Any recommendations??

#15 - The only one I've read is Alias Grace, and I recommend it highly.

#15> What Nickelini said, Alias Grace is a great read; and I haven't read the others so can give no opinions there.

I'm reading The House of the Spirits my first Allende. Only one chapter in but loving it so far.

Busy with a free copy of Sons and Lovers on my Kindle. My first attempt at Lawrence, will finish it but disappointed so far, not because there's no naughty bits a la Chatterley, but because I'm beginning to suspect he's only remembered now because he wrote naughty bits.

no no no! I'll not have that! I thought Sons and Lovers was fantastic. The tension between Paul (is it? I forget his name now) and his mother is electric... you obviously haven't had issues with your mother Grammath!

19- I agree with you- also, I think Lawrence may be the worst writer of women...maybe ever?

I'm a huge fan of Lawrence's writing.. really enjoyed Sons and Lovers (Women In Love however was a terrible read). I especially enjoy his little inputs on industrialisation.

I do agree he's got a weird view of women, but I think the semi-autobiographical Sons and Lovers gives some hint why that is!

18 - We are starting a group read for Isabel Allende over here http://www.librarything.com/topic/123108 if you are interested. I will also be reading House of the Spirits I think. It's one I have been meaning to get to.

Grammath, and everyone else who commented on Sons and Lovers, there is a group read string-1001 Group Read- for the book during the month of September. Would love to have your comments on that thread.

#24 Ooh, what a coincidence, hadn't spotted that. Thanks for pointing it out.

#20 I'm Jewish, of course I had issues with my mother! I guess mine were more Rothian (if that's a word) than Lawrentian.

I'm currently reading The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. This is my second Wells book - the first was The Time Machine and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'm halfway through Great Expectations and having no trouble with it... in fact, I quite like it. I didn't expect Dickens to be as readable as this book is proving to be.

I'm about 200 pages into A Suitable Boy, and that'll probably be my big read for the month. I also want to read House of the Spirits, but that'll have to come after some books I have out from the library and a book for my book club.

I'm working on David Copperfield very slowly, as I read a chapter or 2 during my lunch break at work!

I'm starting Time Regained today. When I finish that, I'll get to cross In Search of Lost Time off my list.

I've just finished On the Road, which was OK, but I suspect its impact on me was lessened because of the time lapsed in between Kerouac writing it an me reading it. I have Cider with Rosie up next, one of the books they foisted on me at school, which (uncharacteristically for me) I refused to read more of, so let's see how it goes this time!

I'm about 100 pages into The Plot Against America ... my first Roth book so I am poised to find out exactly what Rothian mother issues are! (#25) Enjoying it so far, especially trying to tease out which bits are historical fact and which are imagined.

#188, 3 stars, Finished Sons and Lovers. Very good character development. I liked the story, but did not care for the ending. But then, so many of those we know in life simply walk out of our lives and we know nothing more about them after that.

OK, bailed on Cider with Rosie, but over half way through The Good Soldier Schweik and loving it.

Finished Great Expectations and really, really liked it. Not hard to read- in fact, I found it to be quite the opposite.

I am finally getting near the end of Don Quixote, which I have been listening to for months in the unabridged 18th-century translation. It's charming but interminable. 29 CDs, something like 40 hours of playing time. My kids are getting really tired of having Don Quixote in the background whenever I drive them anywhere. However, I do think I have a much deeper understanding of 16th-century Spanish culture, the Inquisition, the expulsion of the Moors, and all the lesser-known aspects.

#189--4.5 Stars: The Stone Diaries. Absolutley an outstanding story. The technique and style are exceptional. The characters are easy to relate too. This is a must read. Shields is now on my favorite author list.

I've got The Stone Diaries, must dust it off!

Just started A Dry White Season which is proving an excellent read so far.

The Cubs and other stories by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Just started listening to The Return of the Native. Alan Rickman is fabulous as reader!

I have started Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence for the group read.

I'm juggling several ones right now. Trying to get interested in The red and the black and failing miserably, so in the meantime, I'm reading The age of innocence and will probably start Unless pretty soon.

Still doing a bit of Labyrinths at a time. In the meantime, I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which means hopefully I'll get around to reviewing it soon.

I'm re-re-re-re-re-re-reading Pride and Prejudice and enjoying the time with the Bennet family, as always.

Just finished Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day... I couldn't put it down. Next up for list books will be Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room and The Waves

Finished Chocky ans A Tale of a Tub - travesty.

Still working on Pamela - and 6 volumes into Ovid's Metamorphoses - which is not as many as it sounds since that's under 300 pages. Still... 9 volumes to go. Ooof.

Just finished The Plot Against America which I enjoyed overall, although I got a bit bogged down in the detail at times (I am not much of a details person admittedly).

Wading my way through Don Quixote .... annamorphic, interminable is exactly how I would describe it, although I am finding it pretty hilarious in parts. Well done for sticking through it on the CDs. Small doses at a time are getting me through.

I have also been ripping through The Plague. There is a lot that I am loving about it.

#190--2 Stars: Gargantua and Pantagruel--Well, I just couldn't enjoy this. I did find parts of it amusing and entertaining. But it just drug on and on. I'm sure in its time it was masterful, but I would have much rather read The Canterbury Tales than this.

Almost done with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I'm rereading. I hated it when I read it in middle school, but I'm doing an audiobook this time and it's much better. I love the story, but I can't read dialect. It just irritates me. Reading Trainspotting was possibly the worst experience of my life.

>40 lit_chick: I'm reading The Return of the Native too but I wish I had the audio version with Alan Rickman narrating (sigh)

#50 The Return of the Native is wonderful! I haven't read Hardy in years, probably not since university (many years). I'd forgotten how ornate his prose is - and Rickman is SO good! It's a book I'm enjoying getting lost in; I love that Egdon Heath is almost a character of its own.

The Maltese Falcon /#191/ 3.5 Stars. Very good story for those who enjoy detective stories.

Really, really struggling through Watchmen. It's not that I'm not enjoying it, it's just taking me for ever. I can't read it for too long as I start to get a bit nauseous.. obviously not used to the comic book style. I thought I'd have had eough practise with the Beano :(

I just started Quicksand by Nella Larsen. I read her novel Passing many years ago and loved it, so I'm looking forward to this experience.

Just finished a reread (re-listen on audio, really) of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I'm now rereading Brave New World and listening to the audio of Hard Times in the car.

> maryjanemanolos/49 "Reading Trainspotting was possibly the worst experience of my life."

I kinda doubt Trainspotting could be as difficult a read as mine. I'm about halfway through The Story of O. Well written, but so hard to read.

Of course I'm also reading the Canterbury Tales as well, which, oddly enough, is sort of difficult for the same reasons. I did not balance my reading well this month.

Started Turgenev's Fathers and Sons; kinda weird to have a Russian classic that clocks in under 200 pages.

Oh - and I finally reached the halfway point on A Suitable Boy. It's slow going, but I quite like it. It definitely wanders about a lot, there are literally hundreds of characters. But it's great.

I too am reading a short Russian classic (turns out there are quite a lot of them!). Mine is Lermontov's A Hero for our Time. Having now read Fathers and Sons and Eugene Onegin I am getting into the 1830s-50s Russian zeitgeist: there's a "superfluous" man, he becomes cynical, nihilistic, melodramatic, and then there is a duel. The words and descriptions are gorgeous frameworks for characters without real values.

In the car I am listening to Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. A fascinating follow-up to Suite Francaise and Doctor Zhivago -- another description of ordinary people, people with political views who never really expected to be asked to defend or die for them, caught up in a brutal war. This one is particularly African so where Zhivago is Tragic, this is grotesquely brutal and quite hard to listen to.

Oblomov was a Russian classic I enjoyed which isn't too well known. Funny, I'm also reading Gargantua and Pantagruel and finding it really tedious. I read a chapter each time I'm on the loo so it's going to take a while! Just finished The Way of All Flesh which I very much enjoyed (esp as I couldn't stand Erewhon) and I've moved on to The Hunchback of Notre Dame which is very different from the film versions I've seen so I've been surprised

The Things They Carried; #192; 4 Stars: Very good read. Loved O'Brien's style of writing. He focuses on a minimum number of characters to bring his message home.

Finished and really enjoyed The Plague and then, searching for my next book, found The Outsider, which seemed an entirely appropriate choice. I loved them both. Short and edgy, with first person narration - pulls me in every time. Still wading through Don Quixote, not much progress made there unfortunately.