Simone2... reading until she dies

In the 80s I was at high school and started reading - because I had to for English, German and French classes, and because I liked it.

1 Amerika
2 Bonjour tristesse
3 Fear of Flying
4 Gimmick!
5 Good morning midnight
6 Les Misérables
7 Love in the time of cholera
8 Lucky Jim
9 Madame Bovary
10 One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
11 Perfume
12 Pippi Longstocking
13 The castle
14 The catcher in the rye
15 The house of spirits
16 The joke
17 The judge and his hangman
18 The story of O
19 The trial
20 The unbearable lightness of being
21 The world according to Garp
22 To kill a mockingbird

The 90s were my university years, so plenty of time to read:

23 100 years of solitud
24 A home at the end of the world
25 A prayer for Owen Meany
26 Alias Grace
27 All souls day
28 Amsterdam
29 Anna Karenina
30 Autumn of the patriarch
31 Back to Oegstgeest
32 Birdsong
33 Black box
34 Brave new world
35 Captain Corelli’s mandoline
36 Catch-22
37 Doctor Zhivago
38 Discovery of heaven
39 Elementary particles
40 Enduring love
41 Forever a stranger
42 Foucault’s pendulum
43 Fugitive pieces
44 Ghost road
45 Gone with the wind
46 If this is a man
47 July’s people
48 Lady Chatterley’s lover
49 Like water for chocolate
50 Lost language of cranes
51 Margot and the angels
52 Max Havelaar
53 Midnight’s children
54 Miss Smilla’s feeling for snow
55 Nausea
56 Nineteen eighty-four
57 Of love and shadows
58 On love
59 On the black hill
60 Oranges are not the only fruit
61 Possessing the secret of joy
62 Regeneration
63 Satanic verses
64 Sense and sensibility
65 Shame
66 Simon and the oak trees
67 Songs of Solomon
68 Sons and lovers
69 The adventures of Augie March
70 The adventures of Sherlock Holmes
71 The book of laughter and forgetting
72 The case worker
73 The child in time
74 The cider house rules
75 The drowned and the saved
76 The English patient
77 The god of small things
78 The hive
79 The hobbit
80 The hours
81 The laws
82 The lord of the rings
83 The lover
84 The magic mountain
85 The mandarins
86 The moor’s last sigh
87 The name of the rose
88 The New York trilogy
89 The plague
90 The quiet American
91 The reader
92 The secret history
93 The shipping news
94 The sorrow of Belgium
95 The sorrows of young Werther
96 The stone diaries
97 The tin drum
98 The twins
99 The virgin suicides
100 Underworld
101 Wild swans
102 Written on the body

Then, in the 00s, I became mother and had less time for reading for a while:

103 A fine balance
104 A pale view of hills
105 A short history of tractors in Ukrainian
106 A tale of love and darkness
107 Atonement
108 Cloud atlas
109 Dead air
110 Disgrace
111 Don’t move
112 Elisabeth Costello
113 Embers
114 Everything is illuminated
115 Faceless killers
116 Franny and Zooey
117 Fury
118 Heart of darkness
119 I’m not scared
120 Journey to the end of the night
121 Kafka on the shore
122 Memoirs of a geisha
123 Never let me go
124 No one writes to the colonel
125 One, none and a hundred
126 Oscar and Lucinda
127 Remains of the day
128 Saturday
129 The bell jar
130 The blind assassin
131 The corrections
132 The curious incident of the dog in the night time
133 The gathering
134 The ground beneath her feet
135 The handmaid’s tale
136 The human stain
137 The light of day
138 The sea
139 The shadow of the wind
140 The white tiger
141 Under the skin
142 Vernon god little
143 Veronika decides to die
144 Whatever
145 White teeth
 

In the 10s I received 1,001 books to read before you die as a present and immediately started buying and reading more books from the list. So far I have read this decennium:

146 A clockwork orange
147 A farewell to arms
148 A room with a view
149 A thousand cranes
150 A town like Alice
151 Alice’s adventures in wonderland
152 All quiet on the western front
153 Amok
154 An artist of the floating world
155 As if I am not there
156 Auto-da-Fé
157 Borstal boy
158 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
159 Broken April
160 Call of the wild
161 Candide
162 Cat’s eye
163 Cat and mouse
164 Cheese
165 Chess story
166 Crome yellow
167 Dangerous liaisons
168 Eline Vere
169 Ethan Frome
170 Exercises in style
171Falling man
172 Fear and trembling
173 Ferdydurke
174 Flaubert’s parrot
175 Giovanni’s room
176 Herzog
177 High-rise
178 Home
179 Hound of the Baskervilles
180 How late it was, how late
181 I’m not Stiller
182 If not now, when?
183 Ignorance
184 In search of Klingsor
185 In watermelon sugar
186 Invisible
187 Jane Eyre
188 Kavalier and Clay
189 Kim
190 Kitchen
191 Les enfants terribles
192 Line of beauty
193 Little women
194 Lord of the flies
195 Mansfield Park
196 Mao II
197 Memento mori
198 Middlesex
199 Money
200 Mother’s milk
201 Mrs Dalloway
202 Northanger Abbey
203 Possession
204 Rebecca
205 Requiem for a dream
206 Rituals
207 Saturday night and Sunday morning
208 Silk
209 Small island
210 Snow
211 Some prefer nettles
212 Suite Francaise
213 Summer in Baden Baden
214 The accidental
215 The age of innocence
216 The awakening
217 The back room
218 The blind side of the heart
219 The bonfire of the vanities
220 The butcher boy
221 The cement garden
222 The crow road
223 The deadbeats
224 The death of Ivan Ilyich
225 The devil and miss Prym
226 The double
227 The elegance of the hedgehog
228 The end of the affair
229 The go-between
230 The good soldier
231 The grass is singing
232 The great Gatsby
233 The heart of redness
234 The heretic
235 The hour of the star
236 The house of mirth
237 The invention of curried sausage
238 The killer inside me
239 The Lambs of London
240 The late-night news
241 The left-handed woman
242 The midwitch cuckoos
243 The old man and the sea
244 The optimist’s daughter
245The outsider
246 The piano teacher
247The picture of Dorian Gray
248 The postman always rings twice
249 The prime of miss Jean Brodie
250 The professor’s house
251 The red and the black
252 The reluctant fundamentalist
253 The slaughterhouse five
254 The sound of waves
255 The summer book
256 The talented mr. Ripley
257 The things they carried
258 The time of indifference
259 The trick is to keep breathing
260 The vice-consul
261 The waves
262 Things fall apart
263 Threepennynovel
264 To each his own
265 Under the volcano
266 Unless
267 Waiting for the barbarians
268 War and peace
269 What a carve up!
270 White noise
271 Wide Sargasso Sea
272 Zeno’s conscience

So what should be first on my list now?

Welcome! You have some good ones on your list. I just finished Fleming's Casino Royale and despite the awful sexism, it was a short, interesting read.

Thanks, I'll buy that one (have a long list TBR however :-).
Is your list to be viewed here somewhere?

I see you have Life of Pi on your TBR list. Given that the film adaptation is due for release in December that might be a good one to read next. As soon as I've finished Through The Looking Glass, which shouldn't take very long, I'm going to start on it I think. My brother has been recommending it to me for years so I'm looking forward to it.

I really liked Life of Pi. It's a rather odd but entertaining read.

Yup, my list is here. It's a rather slow process but hopefully I can pick up the pace a little next year. http://www.librarything.com/topic/93054

That's a good one, it has been on my TBR list for years, so I guess this is the moment indeed, before the movie release. I also have Self by Yann Martel on my TBR list, which a friend of my claims is even better. Have you read that one?
And, by the way, how are you making the titles of books interactive?

Impressive list so far! A slow process? I see you read almost 200 books a year, wow.... I envy you!

Oh no... not 200 in the year but rather 200 in the last 40 years. I have a loooooong way to go :)

The interactive titles are called 'Touchstones.' If you have a look to the right of the box where you type your posts there's a short description. All you need to do is add square brackets around the title and the site will automatically try to match it to the right book. You will see the link appear on the right, but and a link called 'others' where you can change the linked book if it doesn't quite match up.

Hope that helps!

So easy! Thanks!

273 - To the Lighthouse Beautifully written, interesting persons with interesting thoughts. However, I didn't get into it, somehow. It's probably my English (I read English all the time, but this one is quite difficult, I think.

3,5 stars

hmmm... Simone, if you can read it and say "it's beautifully written" then you have got it! Try The Waves and see if you get that one ;-)

Is you native language Dutch Simone? I'm always so impressed by multi linguists. Reading the 1001 books is going to be hard enough, but doing it in a second language? So much more impressive!

Simone - to quote one of my university profs, "you don't understand Woolf until you reread Woolf." So don't worry about it if you felt you were missing something. My first time through a Woolf novel I just let the art wash over me.

#16: You're right; I did try The Waves and haven't finished it! I did like Mrs Dalloway however!

#17 Thank you Jonny! Yes I am Dutch, but in the Netherlands we learn English at school from the age of 10 on, so our English should be pretty good. Being the small country we are, we need to! And it comes in handy while reading the 1001 books! Nevertheless, Virginia Woolf is still pretty difficult with those long sentences and so many details!

# 18: That's exactly what I have been doing Nickelini, thanks to you! Knowing that I didn't need to understand everything was kind of a relief, really! And so I have been able to appreciate To the Lighthouse.

#21 - Yes, it takes the pressure off. That's why I like to repeat it. A lot of readers get scared off by Woolf because they take it all so seriously.

274 - The adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I made a deal with myself. If I don't like a book I may quit after having read half of it. Otherwise, I'll never finish those 1,001 books. Most of the time, after having read half a book, I think it's a shame to put it away and finish it, if I like it or not. In the case of Huckleberry Finn, however, I have to admit I did put it away. It's not that I didn't like it, but I've got so many books I want to read and I just think I should have read this one when I was younger. I was just not interested now in Finn's and Jim's adventures....

#23 - I read an article recently (New Yorker? the Atlantic? not sure) about how many great classic novels have great beginnings and then completely fizzle out into nothingness. The two main examples cited were Wuthering Heights and Huckleberry Finn. So you probably made a sane, rational call. Onwards ......

Reading it when you were younger might not have helped.... I had to read it for class when I was a freshman in high school and was not a fan. :) Hope you have better luck with the next one!

Yeah I also read it in hs, but as a junior. I didn't hate it, but I didn't especially care for it either. I'd say you're not missing much, other than being able to claim "I've read all of Huck Finn," heh.

Starting in The Inheritance of Loss. Pulls me in immediately.

As a member of this group I had you starred and I just came across your thread. Wow! You have read some great books! I have read some of them, most recently Life of Pi in fact. I usually recheck the list and check off the ones I have read but as I did the 75 book challenge I don't think I have paid enough attention to this challenge. If I can get to it before the end of the year, I will get my list of books read from the 1001, and post them on here. I'm afraid it will not look anything like yours! I think I will make reading books from this list part of my 75 book challenge next year and kill 2 books with 1 stone, so to speak! Good reading to you for the rest of the year.

Thanks for your post; I still have to read Life of Pi :-). The 75 book challenge means you have to read 75 books a year? Books of your choice?

>29 Simone2: Yep.

With the 2012 version of Boall, I can add 5 more titles to my list:

275 - The History of Love I thought this one not very original, a story I've heard I think a thousand times

276 - 1Q84 I finishes all 3 parts of them and enjoyed reading them, but the first part was definitely better than the third and together they are certainly not my favorite Murakami

277 - Freedom Great novel! Almost as good as The Corrections

278 - The Sense of an Ending One of my favourites in 2011. Great plot, beatifully written. I am not a real fan of Barnes, but this made up for all the others

279 - A visit from the Goon Squad I am probably the only one who is not very impressed by this book. Too many stories of too many not too interesting personages.

280 - The Inheritance of Loss

In the end everybody loses in this novel about India after colonization. Sad stories of the various personages in India, England and the US, beautiful descriptions of the Indian Himalayas. Definitely worth reading.

3,5*

281 - Crime and Punishment

282 - The Unconsoled

I had been looking forward to reading this book, because of the good reviews and the fact that I love some of Ishiguro's other works, like The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. However, I could not completely be drawn into the dreamy, weird story of musician Ryder, who is hurrying from location to location and from conversation to conversation for 553 pages. Great characters, that's for sure, but not my number 1 Ishiguro.

283 - Animal Farm

It was about time I read this book. In someone else's threath I read it being a bit outdated but I did actually like it a lot. Its irony and its plot.

Outdated? Not hardly! It's entirely relevant, and a fabulous commentary.

I'm with the Monkey! One of my favourite books of recent years... when I stopped struggling against the current and just drifted with it, that is!

284 The Swimming-Pool Library

I had been looking forward so much to reading this book after having read The Line of Beauty, that maybe it must become a bit of a disappointment. This story is about a young pretty gay man working his way through London gay life. He meets an old Lord who asks him to write his biography. To me, the story of this Lord wasn't very interesting, and the end of the story pretty obvious, I think.
Still, Hollinghurst writes very good and it was a pleasure to read the book. I'm not sure however why this one is on the list along with The Line of Beauty. One Hollinghurst should be enough to get the point, I think.

3*

285 The Feast of the Goat

Another book about Trujillo's dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Now I know much more about it then I ever wanted. Not Vargas Llosa's best I think, but Boxall definitely thinks otherwise as this is, I think, the only book by him on the list.

3*

The War of the End of the World is also by Llosa, on the list.

#40 You're right Amaryann! Did you read them both? Which one did you like best?

Starting in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Can anyone tell me this is a book worth reading??!

I wish I could, but I've never been able to get through it.

#41 I've only read War, and I didn't love it. It was intriguing, but it was also a struggle to get through in parts.

286 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Way too much religion for me, but still I liked it better than I thought I would. The coming of age of Stephen in catholic Ireland is believable and authentic.

3*

I felt sort of the same - started it and thought Oh no! Another trudge... and ended up kind of grudgingly sort of maybe liking it. Still not high on my 'read' 1,001 list though.

287 -Main Street

It took a while to finish this one. I found out I am not terribly interested in American small town life, but I did sympathize with Carol, who keeps struggling with life in Gopher Prairie and with life in general. Her character is described very good, as are the characters of other inhabitants of the town. I feel like I know them!

3,5 *

I absolutely loved Main Street when I read it 20 years ago in university. But since I am discovering that my tastes have changed dramatically since then, I wonder if I would still love it today.

Bucketyell, I recognize that! Some of the 1001 books I read years ago and in my memory rated with 5 stars. However, when I read here what other people think about them, I honestly doubt if I'd still think them as good as I remember. Maybe after finishing the list, I 'll have time to start over again :-)

Heh. In high school, I would have told you that Celestine Prophesy was the best book ever written. Now? Not so much.

Haha, I know that one. Horrible! I confess, back then I loved The Clan of the Cave Bear... My absolute favourite book during English lessons at school was To kill a Mockingbird. Swept me off my feet. I wonder, would that still be the case?

288 - Murder must Advertise

A classic detective. I never read Sayers before, never even knew her. It reminded me of Agatha Christie, of whom I read a lot, long ago. This one is nice, though! Especially being on holidays!

289 - The Shining

Still on holidays, still wanting easy reads. This one is an easy read. One of the few books of which I saw the movie first. Years ago, but I remember it as the most scary ever. This made me read the book with high expectations; the book is always better, isn't it? After reading it, I am not sure. I loved the story and the backgrounds of Jack (what's in a name, no one except Jack Nicholson could have played him!), Wendy and Danny. I loved the the swings in tempo during the story. Although I hardly ever read horror, I loved this one And yet, I missed some scenes of the movie which I vividly remember and which made it so scary. So I highly recommend this one to those that haven't seen the movie. I think it then will be the perfect horror novel!

4*

Re: The Shining - they're just two completely different entities. Kubrick went for the supernatural horror, King went for the psychological horror with a side of supernatural. I read The Shining a million years ago (when I was about 13, probably), but it was the King book that terrified me the most - made me afraid to cross the room to turn out the light and come back to bed in the dark!

I love the movie, and it also scared me (and yes, some images have stuck with me long after seeing it) .. I just don't consider it all that related to the book.

>54 ursula: You've got it backwards lol, King's is supernatural, Kubrick couldn't grasp that and just went with psychological - he went crazy, plain & simple. As King discussed in an interview: "he disliked the downplaying of the supernatural element of the film, which he felt took the "bite" out of the story and made Jack a less sympathetic character. According to King, he viewed Jack as being victimized by the genuinely external supernatural forces haunting the hotel, whereas Kubrick's take viewed the haunting and its resulting malignancy as coming from within Jack himself."

Yes, I guess I was thinking about the fact that in the book, Jack wasn't crazy coming into the hotel. I don't really think "lol" was necessary, though.

King is releasing a sequel, of sorts, to The Shining in the fall.

http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Sleep-Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1476727651/ref=sr_1_4?i...

" King viewed Jack as being victimized by the genuinely external supernatural forces haunting the hotel, whereas Kubrick's take viewed the haunting and its resulting malignancy as coming from within Jack himself."

That's it, of course! Now I remember (I saw the movie when I was about 13). It's Jack himself in the movie. Which makes it indeed impossible to compare them. Thank you both!

290 - The Devil in the Flesh

Love and adultery, situated in France during World War I.
How well described, all those feelings, the confusion, the jealousy and uncertainty, the will to possess and to dominate: I really loved reading this psychological novelle.

4*

I downloaded Arukiyomi's new spreadsheet and had a wonderful Sunday (and partly Monday) filling it!
Conclusion: I have read 290 books and still have to read another 1,015. According to Arukiyomi, I'll only manage to finish another 888 books before I die at 81.. so I think I'll have to grow really old!
One book which I did overlook in the list so far, but that I did read, somewhere in the 90s, is The Passion. And now, back to Lolita, I have to hurry :-)

291 - Lolita

Somewhere I read that Nabokov says more on each page than many other authors in a complete oeuvre and I have to admit: every page is a gift. I loved each one! Humbert Humbert is a man to whom I feel connected, even though he has a very unhealthy attitude towards young girls. I don't know how Nabokov does that, but I am very impressed. This is the first Nabokov I read, are his others just as good?

4,5*

292 - Of Mice and Men

I read this one in high school, but it is so much better reading it again today. What a beautiful, sad story on friendship. Steinbeck is definitely becoming one of my favourites.

4,5*

Totally agree on Of Mice and Men Simone. School nearly ruined it for me and I couldn't bare to pick it up again for a long time, but I'm glad I re-read it. It started my Steinbeck kick when I was about 17. I Still haven't read Grapes of Wrath though, which is a travesty.

I had to read Grapes of Wrath in high school and again a couple of years ago. I loved it the second time around. Now the book that high school ruined for me is Moby Dick I still cant pick that one up even kicking and screaming.

>61 Simone2: re: Lolita/Nabokov, I fully agree, it was an amazing book. I haven't actually read his others yet, but I am positive you do not write something like that and then have not-good writing in the rest of a prolific body of work. So I've bought a whole bunch of his others (some new, some 2nd-hand) and intend to read at least a couple of them this year. :)

293 - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

What a wonderful book. Murakami at his best, I think. All those stories, written so flowing and easily (it seems), having such a great impact on my thoughts for hours after I finished reading.
Maybe he could have come to the point (points, I think) in a few hundred pages less, but I didn't really mind. Great read!

4*

294 - Independent People

A history of Iceland, and of Bjart, a farmer who clings to his independency, which costs him a lot. A rough country, a rough man, but both with a certain beauty, a bit of poetry and a lot of pride.

3,5*

295 - The Pit and the Pendulum

296 - The Purloined Letter

297 - The House of the Fall of Usher

So these were easy gained! Three books in one day. But maybe I was too much in a hurry, because I didn't like them as much as some you do (as I read in your reviews). Just as I was drawn into a story, it ended.

3*

298 - Felicia's Journey

I really looked forward to this book and I did enjoy it, especially the character of Mr. Hilditch and the scenes about his being and thinking, eating and acting. Felicia herself I thought a bit flat.
The book did not meet my expectations, however. Enjoyable read, but why it did make it to the list?

3,5*

299 - The Enormous Room

I actually liked this one, I can say after finishing it. While reading I sometimes dreaded the description of all the personages in the enormous room, a prison in France during WWI, where people where being held on, for example, stealing a tin of sardines. However, the descriptions are very lively, I can see the different people and am sure they'll be with me for some time to come.

3,5*

300-They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

A quick read on a Sunday morning. A great read. Existentialism in the context of a dance marathon, who would have thought of that? So much is told in 120 pages, it leaves me sad, but also glad I discovered this one through the list. Don't let yourself be fooled by the title: it's not about horses!

4*

#61 (Just catching up on your list); the only other Nabakov I have read is Pnin and I heartily disliked it; but then, I never much care for sly send-ups of academics and there was just something too painfully pathetic in Pnin. However, the book had been given to me by somebody whose literary tastes I usually share so there's probably more to it than I was recognizing.

And congratulations on reaching 300!!

>61 Simone2: And I've now read another Nabokov as well: Bend Sinister. It wasn't as good as Lolita to me, because a lot of it went over my head (holy crap his language abilities are ridiculous! lol), but it was quite good. If you're up for a bit of a challenge I'd recommend it.

Congratulations on reaching 300!

301 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

How I love this month's group read. I would never have chosen this book by myself. But a discovery it was. A sci-fi story of a bounty hunter, retiring androids. It reads like a thriller but with a very sad undertone (is that a word?) throughout the whole story. It is a real dystopia.
Again a novel for which I thank the 1001 list.

4*

302 - Voss

I quit. I have read more than half of this novel on the journey of Voss through Australia, but I have to admit I am really not interested in the outcome. I did like the conversations with and letters to Laura, but even those couldn't convince me of the need to finish this one.

303 - Intimacy

'It is the saddest night for I am leaving and not coming back.' The first of many beautiful sentences. Yes, it is a controversial novel, or a controversial subject, but I loved it. In a way it is very recognizable and that's very confronting. Beautifully written thoughts on relationships, kids and the eternal search for something more.

4*

304 - Fuglane

Read this book! I have been reading a lot of Scandinavian writers lately (Knausgard being a good candidate for the next update of the list) and a lot of 1001-books, but this one is my favourite so far this year. The story of Mattis, a simple man who lives with his sister. His thoughts are so beautiful, you have to love him and become part of him. Read this book!

5*

305 - The Way of all Flesh

I rather dreaded starting this book, but then liked it right from page 1. It is the story of Ernest, a boy growing up in the Victorian time in a very religious family. Mentally abused by his parents, he struggles his way through life. The book is sad, amusing, satiric and much more. Butler's view and language make this book kind of ageless: written and situated in the 19th century, I can easily connect to it 2 centuries later.
4*

306 - The Shipyard

The concept is nice: a man working in a shipyard which has been since a long time out of orders and out of work. He comes there every day with two other men and they are doing basically nothing. An other storyline is the engagement of the main character with the daughter of the owner of the shipyard.
It could have been a good read and maybe it is, then it's just not meant to be for me. For me the story did never really start. I thought the characters promising, but a bit flat. Best part I think are the descriptions of the shipyard, the houses and the hotel. Like so many Latin American writers, Onetti writes so vividly that I will remember this scenery for a long time.

3*

307 - House Mother Normal

The story of the weekly Social Evening at a house for old people, told by all of them, including the rather sadistic house mother. Experimental and touching. A heartbreaking satire. It's just that the experiment gets a bit too much at times, which made it hard for me to connect with the characters.

3*

308 - The French Lieutenant's Woman

A novel set in the 1860s, written 100 years later. I really liked that, thought it quite original. Fowles often interrupts the novel by adding his thoughts on his characters, the plot etc. This may sound irritating, but to me it was not, I thought this meta-fiction quite good.
And then the characters themselves and their Victorian surroundings and lifestyle! I have never met someone like Sara, who appears to be the protagonist (at least that's what Fowles calls her), while Charles is in fact the one we follow throughout the story. Quite inventive! However, yes, Sarah, her I will remember for quite a while!

4*

309 - Hallucinating Foucault

I don't know. It didn't grip me. I failed to get to know the main characters. I couldn't identity with one of them, or the plot for that matter. The plot? Which plot? Overall, a bit flat. To me.

3*

310 - The Yellow Wallpaper

What a chilling short story about a woman having a nervous breakdown, denied by her husband. 16 pages, they say it all.

4*

311 - Oblomow

The story of Oblomow, a thoroughly good man who is not able to fulfill any of his dreams. Is it satire? I don't know, I did like and pitied Oblomow. He and Olga and the life they could have led. But it wasn't meant to be because of Oblomowism, as his good friend Stolz calls it. A beautiful read!

3,5*

312 - Quicksand

The story of Helga's search for her identity as a black girl in the 1920s in the US and Danmark. Although I did not really liked her character, I could follow her thoughts and doubts and think Nella Larsen has well succeeded in bringing Helga to life.

3*

313 - Black Water

It is true, while reading this book you hope against hope that it will not end as you know it must end.
She can definitely write, Joyce Carol Oates. It's just that, to me, it is so cliché American, that it bothers me. Kelly and the Senator are too one dimensional to me. I remember having this same feeling while reading We Were the Mulvaneys years ago. It is something I also experience when reading Marilynne Robinson. Maybe it's just that I am European myself.
Still, poor Kelly. It is as if Oates was sitting right beside her all the way. Certainly a book worth reading.

3,5*

It's just that, to me, it is so cliché American, that it bothers me. Kelly and the Senator are too one dimensional to me. I remember having this same feeling while reading We Were the Mulvaneys years ago.

I thought that too when I read We are the Mulvaneys. Then I read another Oates that took it even farther, and now I think that she does it satirically. I don't think Oates likes these people one little bit. But I will have to read more of her to see if my theory holds up.

#88 Nickelini, do you really think so? That sounds fascinating. Isn't them on the list as well? I think I'll read that one soon!

Having travelled through Indonesia for the past 4 weeks, I had plenty of time to read. Besides other books, I have read the following books from the list

314 - Super-Cannes

As with High Rise I really loved the idea, the concept of the story. This story is about Eden Olympia, the business park of the future, in which captains of industry go mad in order to stay sane. Like High Rise however, the result didn't meet my expectations. Surely this one is a good read, but I was aware of myself while I was reading, that I was not really interested in the outcome of the investigations an Englishman makes into the murders at Eden Olympia. An outcome which was, by the way, clear from the start.

3,5 *

315 - Howards End

The story of two sensible sisters in between the world of the rich and that of the poor. I loved the sisters, they are so real, much more than the male characters. A classic, I am glad I have finally read it.

3,5 *

316 - Platform

Houellebecq is one of my favourite current French writers. Platform is a story about economics, tourism and sex.Too much sex. And a lot of indiscriminate criticism. His thoughts on Islam for example, are shocking. On the one hand I wonder why such a novel made it to the list, on the other hand I barely dare admit that I liked the book a lot - which may be the reason that it made the list.
The controversy in combination with a story told by a gifted writer

4*

317 - What I loved

I had never heard of Siri Hustvedt (she is married to Paul Auster by the way), but I am definitely going to read more of her. I loved this book. It is written so well, I enjoyed every page and - how cliche - had the idea of really getting to know the characters. It is a book about relationships, art, artists, love and mourning. I would highly recommend this book.

4,5*

318 - The Robber Bride

Another Atwood, which I really enjoyed. It is an easy-read, centered around the interesting character Zenia, whose point of view we'll never know. That is the most Atwood-like aspect of the book. Overall I think it certainly not her best one.

3,5*

319 - The murder of Roger Ackroyd

I read a lot of Agatha Christie in my teens and looked forward to reading another Poirot after so many years. I was not disappointed. Her techniques still make me want to race through the chapters. Still I could not figure out who murdered Roger Ackroyd until the last chapters. Although it did cross my mind sometimes. Nice!!

4*

320 - The Grapes of Wrath

I hardly dare to admit that I didn't like this book as much as I expected based on your reviews and based on the fact that I loved Of mice and men and East of Eden. The Grapes of Wrath is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and I did nog recognize it as such. What says that about me?!

The beginning is great, the scene in the truck, where we meet Tom Joad. A fascinating character, I thought, but later on I thought him a bit unreal and pretty boring. The story is, to me at least, too American. There were things I couldn't relate to or thought not very interesting. Maybe it's because I am European.

I am not sure, it is hard to say why I didn't like this book much.

3*

I didn't like Grapes of Wrath very much, either. I always figured it was because I had to read it in school (although I was always the kind of kid who liked most of the required reading, so maybe that's not the case....). East of Eden is definitely in my top 5 books of all time, but for a long time before reading that, I thought I just didn't like Steinbeck thanks to Grapes of Wrath. Although, I can definitely see that maybe the story wouldn't really resonate or make as much sense to a European - the migration of the Okies out west during the Dust Bowl is kind of a quintessentially American-themed story. I don't know what my excuse is for not liking it, then. ;)

A Question of Upbringing

The first of A Dance to the Music of Time. I am not really into it yet, but can imagine that'll change pretty soon after getting to know Jenkins and his friends a little better in part 2. Anyhow, I'm a sucker for series, so I'll be fine :-)

321 - The Path to the Nest of Spiders

My first Calvino and I wasn't really captured by the story or the characters. The beginning and the end, however, made up for the middle part, which I think was pretty boring.

3*

Les Miserables

A reread, and how glad I am that I read it again after hearing here so many good things about this book. I can't add much to everything being said already. The sweetness maybe. Of Jean Valjean, of Cosette and Marius, of the way Victor Hugo describes them all. They all came to live to me, but I wonder if such sweetness still exists. I can't explain very good what I mean. Let's leave it at this for now.

4,5*

322 - A Modest Proposal

I had no idea, when I started this story, what it would be about, which made it so funny! A satire, written in 1729, and still so readable and somehow actual, wow!

4*

323 - The Book of Illusions

A very intriguing novel and a real Auster. Many stories in one book, as is often the case with Auster. I have enjoyed all storylines and think he is a great writer. He even makes me a fan of Hector Mann, the silent film maker this book is about. I would have loved to see his movies, but unfortunately they were made up by Auster!

4*

324 - The Turn of the Screw

Wow, what a great story. Very gripping. So much told in so few pages. And the end... chilling. I had never read Henry James but I most certainly will read more by him soon.

4*

325 - Cry, the Beloved Country

How could I have not read this book all those years? It has been on my shelves for ages and I didn't know what I was missing. What a wonderful, sad book. Mourning and hope. South Africa. Deeply moving.

4,5*

326 - The Book of Blanche and Marie

The notes of Blanche Wittmann, a famous patient of Dr Charcot in the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, who afterwards became an assistant and friend of Marie Curie. It's a very interesting story. I never knew, for example, that Charcot, Freud, Einstein, Gilles de la Tourette, Toulouse Lautrec, Pasteur, Marie en Pierre Curie lived in the same period en even met and knew one another.
The notes by Blanche and the interrruptions by Enquist are a bit confusing sometimes and not all that functional, but despite that I liked this book and especially what it's about: love, radium, hysteria and the first decennia of the twentieth century, which have changed our world forever.

3*

327 - The Thin Man

What a funny book. No idea why it is on the list (maybe it's one of the first in its sort?) but I really had a good time reading is and had to laugh out loud sometimes. An easy read, now on to the next part of A Dance to the Music of Time.

3,5*

A Buyer's Market

I think I am becoming interested in the lives of Nicholas Jenkins and all the others who form A Dance to the Music of Time. London seems like a village in the 1920s; everybody running into everybody all of the time. But I am starting to like it, I guess. I do still think however, that Powell needs an awful lot of words to get to the point. Then again, this may turn out to be the aspect which makes this series unique. To be continued...

328 - The Story of Lucy Gault

A small, dense story of loss, penance, missed chances. Very tragic. Although the writing is a bit aloof (I wonder if this is the right word) and certainly not dramatic, I felt being drawn into the lives and feelings of the Gaults.

4*

I really liked Lucy Gault too, and also used the word "dense" in my thoughts on it!

The Acceptance World

Yes! It took me a while but now I am triggered by all the people that make up A Dance to the Music of Time. This third part did it for me, the part about the first divorces, the secretaries of St J and the Old Boys diner. Loved it. Sucker for series, on to Summer!

Yes, this series starts slow and then you don't want it to end, it grows on you. Our GR in the 75group is now discussing book 10 Books Do Furnish A Room, and I can't believe that in just 2 books I'll have to say goodbye to the characters who are then still alive...

I can imagine now that it grows on you, as you mention. So I guess I'm lucky that I still have 9 books to go! By the way, great title, 'Books Do Furnish A Room'!

329 - Middlemarch

What a wonderful portrait of England's provincial live 200 years ago. I can't decide yet what I liked best: the many, well worked-out characters, the various plots, my feeling of really getting to know what live was like in those times. Maybe it's a bit of all those aspects; Dorothea, the story of her live and the fact that she couldn't realize all her dreams because of the era in which she was living. Great gread read.

4*

I'm currently about a third of the way through Middlemarch and loving it as well.

330 - Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture

One of those books why I love the list. I definitely never would have read this book without it. It is the story of Unkle Petros obsession with a complex math theory, told by his nephew. I can't tell you much about the theory, but fortunately it is not necessary to be a beta to enjoy this novel.

3,5*

331 - The Woman in White

What a great, gread read. A gripping mystery, from the first chapter till the last. It's about the power of men over women in 18th century England. Read it if you haven't yet.

5*

It's one of my planned read for 2014. I'm really looking forward to it!

Now that I have my new 1001 books-app, I saw a difference between the number of books I have read there and here on LT.
Thorough research :-) made clear that I made two mistakes in my list on LT:

- I haven't read Lord of the Rings
- I have included The Shadow of the Wind, which is not on the list.

This makes a total of 329 instead of 331.

However I have read 3 more books which I haven't included here. These are:

330 - The Passion, which I read in 1994, 4*
331 - A Suitable Boy, which I read in 1997, 4*
332 - Wise Children, which I read in 2012, 2*

333 - Soldiers of Salamis

Well. A biography of Rafael Sánches Mazas, a man I didn't know until now and in who I am still not very much interested. The book is well written, though, it's about the Spanish civil war and how a journalist explores the story of Sánches Mazas, who was being saved by an unknown soldier in the woods in the north of Spain.

3*

334 - The Beggar Maid

I bought this one because Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize and I had not read any of her books. Well, I will read more by her. I am impressed by the way she observates ordinary things, deeds, conversations and is able to write them down in a way they make me very conscious of myself. It's as if she knows me. I reckon that's what makes her this great writer: I guess everyone will recognize himself or herself in Munro's words.
The Beggarmaid is the story of Rose, finding her way in the world, and her stepmother Flo. I loved the first part of the book, when Rose grows up in poverty, but with dignity. I also loved the stories of her marriage and het daughter. The last few chapters didn't get to me somehow. That's where I lost Rose. Still I am looking forward to Munro's other books.

3,5*

At Lady Molly's

Part 4 of A Dance to the Music of Time did certainly live up to my expectations. What a live they are living. How boring mine seems compared to theirs! But now that Jenkins is settlling down, maybe things will change? Looking forward to part 5.

3,5*

335 - Chaireas and Kallirhoe

The oldest one of the list for me so far. A love story, a Greek drama. Ingredients like love, beauty, war and jealousy make this ancient book timeless. A quick, enjoyable read. Not much more I can say about it.

3*

336 - For Whom the Bell Tolls

A straightforward novel about Spain's civil war, in which an American soldier has to blow up a bridge with help of a couple of Spanish guerrillas. Written in a quite simple style (why this 'thou' and 'thee' I wonder...), and still it is a beautiful book, gripping until the end.

4*

337 - The Nose

And a short one after Hemingway. The Nose. A surrealistic short story about a nose. I have never read anything by Gogol and I feel like I should have read some more by him, to understand this novella. Also, I know too little about the Russian context at the time. So now for me it was just a - kind of funny - story about the coming and going of a nose, and about strange Russian people (Russian writers are often so cynical about the Russians). I need Dead Souls on the TBR shelves, probably.

3,5*

338 - De kleine Johannes (The Quest)

This fairy tale, symbolizing the coming of age of a young boy, is certainly not the best work of Frederik van Eeden. Actually I thought it rather boring and I really wonder why this book is on the list.

2*

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant

Another nice one. Lots of party going again, but instead of all London society, Powell focusses in this novel on some of Jenkins' friends. I like that a lot. The only one we don't get to know, is Isobel (Jenkins' wife). I wonder why. Maybe in part 6, he'll tell us about her. I hope so!

3,5*

339 - The Forbidden Realm

Slauerhoff was a famous poet, he wrote few novels, one of which is this one. And although he wrote in Dutch and I read it in Dutch, I didn't understand what the story was all about and I'm afraid I wasn't interested enough to find out. So I didn't finish this one.

1*

340 - The Roots of Heaven

After reading La Vie Devant Soi during French classes in high school I forgot all about Gary. I am glad to have rediscovered him.

This book tells the story of this strange, charismatic man, Morel, who is convinced that man is generous enough to care about the fate of the elephants.
With this mission he travels through Africa, surrounded by a group of characters at least as interesting as Morel himself. They tell us the story and by their points of view sketch us this period in Africa after World War II, of French colonization and elephant hunting. I think I'll read more by Gary soon.

4*
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341 - A Christmas Carol

My first Dickens. I feel ashamed to admit it. I have had some of his books on my shelves for years but I have been postponing reading them. Afraid of some kind of Joyce experience.
So now was the time. Starting with this bittersweet moralistic ghost story I am now up for another Dickens!

3*

342 - Mrs. Harris goes to Paris

"How nice, Paul Gallico!", my mother-in-law said when she noticed this book when she visited us today. I had never heard of him but according to her he was hot in the 50s/60s!

After finishing the book I can imagine he was. Such an optimistic story, about an honest, hard working charwoman, dreaming of a Dior dress. A fairy tale almost! A sweet sweet story to read in an evening, that makes you cry and makes you smile and leaves you with a renewed faith in humanity. Nice!

4*

343 - Claudine's House

Memories of Colette's youth in a house with a garden, filled with life and animals and her mother Sido. I liked the mother a lot. Therefore maybe, it's not so strange I felt the story collapsing after Sido dies. The beautiful sentences and Sharp observations remain, however.

3,5*

The Kindly Ones

There is more than socializing after all. This book starts with a flashback to the eve of WWI at Nick's parental home. Then we are back in the 30s, on the brink of WWII. Not the best in the series to me, but I am gripped by Nick and his life and it is interesting to read about the interbellum in London.

3*

344 - The Moonstone

My expectations were too high after reading The Woman in White. Surely I liked this book, and the fact that it is one of the first detectives ever. I can see its contribution to world literature and I liked the way the story was told by different narrators (just like The Woman in White), but still I am a bit disappointed.

3*

I didn't read far before deciding it wasn't for me. So you're not alone.

345 - Life of Pi

Of what I knew about this book, I thought it wouldn't be much to my taste, but how wrong I was. I was pulled in from the first page and loved all sides of it. The end is so unexpected (that is, to me) and makes me think of religion in a way I hardly ever do. On New Year's Day, I am going to watch the movie!

4*

346 - Troubling Love

Somewhere here someone tagged this novel as being 'filthy'. I totally agree, it is exactly the right word to describe this book, together maybe with the word 'hysterical'. Needless to say I didn't like it at all. I have to consult Boxall on why this book, about a woman tracing her mother after the mother dies, made it to the list.

1,5*

347 - Conversations in Sicily

You can smell Sicily, feel Sicily in this book. But not today's holiday island, but the Sicily of the 40s, a harsh and poor country. A son travels by train to his mother in Sicily, who he hasn't seen in fifteen years. His conversations in the train, with his mother and with other people on the island give us a view of a life there and then. Besides it is a story of detachment, of war and of a lost family life.

3*

348 - The Tale of Genji

A classic Japanese work, written by the noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century. It is sometimes called the world's first novel. I especially liked the fact that the novel illustrates a depiction of the livelihoods of high courtiers.
Besides that, it is the story of Genji and all his (secret) lovers, who he communicates with by writing poems. Sounds romantic, but it isn't. Although he means good, Genji leaves his trail of broken hearts along the way. A nice read, not too special.

3,5*

349 - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

What a great read. Of course I knew the end and the moral of the story, but I hadn't actually read it. A pleasant surprise. I love that English atmosphere, I love the way Stevenson tells this story about good and evil.

4*

The Valley of Bones

World War II enters in part 7 of the Dance. Instead of much action, Nick describes the boring circumstances under which he operates. To me this is the most funny book of the Dance so far. All those code words and administrative tasks and of course the hierarchy and the attitude people get by being higher in rank! Jonny mentioned in his review the line about Nick having nightmares about "administrative anxiety", so I was prepared for that one, but it still made me laugh out loud.
And of course Widmerpool had to play his part. Exactly how I thought he would act in the army. They really grow om me, those characters, almost like friends :-)

4*

350 - The Harvesters

This is the story of a man, travelling with another man, to the farm of the latter. The descriptions of the farm and its surroundings in rural Italy are wonderful. The atmosphere within the family is dense, no one talks but you know something isn't right. The man observes all this. The end is chilling. I feel like I was there, in Italy, witnessing it all and doing nothing.

4*

I'll bump that one up in my list, because of your comments. Sounds intriguing.

I've read some other books by Pavese and liked them, so this would be interesting...if it was available in some form :)

351 - Monkey: Journey to the West

I definitely read an abridgment of the original version, but I think it suffices for me.
Monkey: Journey to the West is one of the four Chinese classical novels on the list. It is the story of Sun Wukong, a monkey who becomes immortal and lives without morals or ethics.
One day he meets the monk Xuanzang, who was instructed by the Buddha to go to India to take Buddhist sutras and bring them home to China. The monkey becomes one of his four pilgrims.
Along the way they encounter many calamities. They meet monsters and demons continuously but with the help of other people and a lot of magic no real harm ever comes to them. The journey is at once a comic adventure story, and an extended allegory in which enlightenment can only be achieved with the help of others.

3*

352 - Junky

A neat little book that demonstrates the junky mentality. I thought I would know the story, having read enough novels on the subject, but I was wrong. The complete lack of emotion and a lot of intelligence with which Burroughs introduces us into heroin-induced nihilism, was new for me and gripped me enormously.

4*

353 - Your Face Tomorrow

Your Face Tomorrow is a trilogy, though only two volumes had been published when it was listed in 1001 Books. So I assume that means two books are enough for completing another one off the list. I would have read the third, of course, if I had liked the first two volumes. I didn't however.

The Spanish Jaime Deza lives in Oxford and works for a secret organisation as an interpreter of people. He is able to foresee how people will behave in the future.
This storyline forms just a small part of the book. Most of it is filled with thoughts, memories, descriptions of places and situations etc which seem (at the moment) not related to the story, just show Marias' erudition. This can of course be good, but to me it is only annoying somehow.
I just am not convinced of the supposed virtuosity of the novel. Not enough to read the third part.

So, on to the next on the list.

2*

354 - Oroonoko

Despite its historical significance I am sorry to say I didn't enjoy this book much. Maybe it's the subject: slavery and colonialism. In The Netherlands we've been hearing about this all our lives. It is a part of our history not to be too proud of, and we learn about it during history lessons, hear about it on the news, see the documentaries and read the books. So maybe I am just a bit fed up with the subject.
Of a good love story however, I can't get enough. Still, the love story in this book isn't very convincing.
Last but not least I don't like the writing of Aphra Behn (the first British professional female author): partly in the third, partly in the first person. Her knowing of Oroonoko is not very relevant, neither is her own role in the story and neither are, to me, her views on the subject.

2*

355 - A Tale of a Tub

A satire about religion and philosophy. Maybe I am too stupid for this book or my English is too bad, anyway, I didn't get the point and don't understand the fuss about this book. I liked A Modest Proposal much better.

2*

Don't worry... satire is a very hard genre to understand because it is so heavily based on the sociopolitical issues of its time. If you think a Tale of a Tub is bad, wait until you read Candide or Gargantua and Pantagruel or Orlando. These books went completely over my head despite me being an English native-speaker and reading in English.

>144 arukiyomi: Ah, you really give me some books to look forward to! Candide I read, I think I understood that one. I certainly liked it better. The others you mention I'll ignore for a while - until I am old and wise!

For the record, I enjoyed Candide very much, and Orlando was a five-star read for me. I don't think they are as scary as their reputations make them out to be.

> 146
You make me curious of reading Orlando. Is it another one of her one should read twice to understand?

356 - The Nun

This book is an indictment of monastic life, molded into a novel. This is the story of Sister Suzanne, a nun against her will. She is deeply religious but doesn't see her serself fit for the monastery. These are her memoirs, which give us a brutal picture of monastic life. Written on the eve of the Reformation, I can imagine its impact must have been big. Recommended.

3,5*

> 147 Orlando was my 2nd Woolf after the Voyage Out so that didn't help. Plus, I had no idea of who she was talking about and the social background to the novel. So, it completely eluded me and I ended up being confused the whole way through.

You make me curious of reading Orlando. Is it another one of her one should read twice to understand?

Oh probably, but I just went along for the ride. I especially loved the first part of the book that is set during a hard frost where the Thames freezes over. When I read it I had already seen the film several times, so I was able to picture things in my head easily. I enjoy the film very much.

357 - Season of Migration to the North

I read some good reviews here of this book and after reading it on this rainy Sunday, I can fully agree. It is the story of Sudan meeting England. A heartbreaking story, written without opschmuk. Still I can feel life in this Sudanese village at the bend of the Nile.

4*

I was bought this for Christmas and, as it was short, my dad read it before I returned overseas. He told me it was one of the worst books he'd ever read. Now I'm very curious to find out why he thought it was so bad...

The worst ever? Wow, I am curious too why he thinks so. And, what's his favourite?

favourite? No idea. I often lend him 1001 books I've finished and, by and large, he finds them good reads. For some reason, this one didn't make the grade. I'll ask him next time I call him.

358 - Moll Flanders

I give this book 3 stars for the fact that is was written in 1683 and it is still so readable. Besides that, I thought it rather boring. At first I liked Moll and admired her attitude towards society. I thought she was quite a woman, surviving in a man's world. However, after a 100 pages it gets a bit boring. Another man, another child, another one's whore, another discussion about money.

3*

359 - Pride and Prejudice

Finally read. Too bad it's over. I loved the characters of both Elisabeth and Darcy. No one creates characters like Austen does. Besides that, I loved the love story and wanted to keep on reading until the moment when they finally 'got' eachother!

4*

360 - The Big Sleep

Nice holiday-read. Not sure why it is on the list (with two more Chandler's), but I certainly did amuse myself reading about Philip Marlowe and the wild Sternwood girls.

3*

361 - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

Another perfect read on the beach where I am staying for a week. This one is really an 'unputdownable' read. I hadn't read Le Carré before but I was pulled in by his characters, the staging (spies in the Cold War), the dialogues and of course all the twists and turns. Great plot!

4*

362 - Antic Hay

An easy read about hedonism in London after WWI, leading to deception for a lot of the characters of the book. Satirical and somehow also moving. I read some wonderful sentences which I felt like underlining but didn't, because they were so spot-on that it would make me feel too vulnerable if anyone else would ever see them. This doesn't happen all the time, so I think it quite a special book.

3,5*

The Soldier's Art

Finished part 8 of A Dance to the Music of Time. What a series. We're in the middle of WWII now and Nick is working under Widmerpool. His descriptions of him are funny as ever. In Chapter 2, London is under siege and when on leave there and having dinner with Moreland, an air raid hits the city. Casualties are many, some of them we have known for a long time now in The Dance. End of chapter 2, back to army life. I am triggered by Nick's complete lack of emotion. He is usually the most empathic among his friends. Anyhow, I feel like I know him by know and am disappointed by him not acting the way I expected. Wonderful what a book can do!

4*

you know, that's exactly what I thought about Nick after book 1 - he seems very insightful about everyone... except himself. I've just come to the end of book 3. Looking forward to more.

363 - The Castle of Otranto

The first gothic novel ever. With that in mind I was able to read and finish the book. It is mixture of absurd horror scenes and hysteric dialogues, which made me laugh instead of shiver. Fun read!

3*

364 - Sexing the Cherry

There are novels by Winterson that I like better than this one. This is a kind of weird novel, though with beautiful thoughts and observations, as timeless as the world she describes in the book.

3*

365 - Nightwood

A rather hysterical novel of love and obsession in Europe in the twenties. The evocative language, the long, long sentences made that I didn't enjoy this book at all, while the main theme did interest me. Missed chance.

2*

366 - The Monk

What a great book! I can hardly believe that is was written more than 200 years ago by a boy of 19 years old in a two-week period. The story is very gothic, but could have been written yesterday. Ambrioso the monk is a very religious man, who has never experienced the world outside the cloister in which he lives. Then one day something happens which introduces him into a world of temptation and lust. These themes are today as vivid as ever. The only reason I didn't rate it with 5 stars is that at the end, the story went a bit over the top - I think. But otherwise, my best 1001-read this year so far.

4,5*

it's great isn't it. My fave gothic by a long long way

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH I have The Monk I just may have to dig it out and read it now.

> 166 Yeah, it is really great! Glad you agree. So far, it's my number 2 favourite gothic, finishing just after The Woman in White, which I liked just a bit better. A litte bit though!

> 167 Do dig it out! Do read it! It will be worth it, I promise!

367 - The Thirty-Nine Steps

Described as the first spy novel ever, I can think of no other reason for the inclusion of this book in the list. Pleasant read, no doubt, but nothing special, not even the plod.

3*

plod... heh heh... an inadvertently great way to describe a plot that drags!

> 170. Auw.... My rusty English :-)

your 'rusty' English is better than my rusty (insert any language except Tok Pisin here) ;-)

The Military Philosophers

Somehow I didn't like this part of the Dance as much as the others. I had been looking forward to it very much because I loved part 8. To me, it was however as if I read part 8 again but then less interesting. WWII has worn out England and Nick is still not able to mourn the people he loses during the war. And there are a few of them I am really going to miss. Perhaps I feel a bit disappointed by Nick. He surely can't be as indifferent as he seems?! What is Powell up to? More and more I become intrigued by his scheme. All those losses of main characters, Nick being totally passive about it, Isobel still a stranger etc.
So, part 9 may have been one of my less favourites, I am still looking forward very much to the winter of A Dance to the Music of Time.

3*

368 - Billy Liar

I didn't like this as much as I hoped. Your reviews here were promising, as was the comparison to Lucky Jim, which I liked a lot. But I've read Lucky Jim in high school, maybe I am just getting too old to like this kind of funny meant novels. I didn't really have to laugh, and I didn't really get nervous by the mess Billy makes of his life with all his lies.

3*

369- Humphry Clinker

Bleh....

1*

Ha!

> 176 Did you read it? I thought it sooo boring, especially with this big tbr-pile waiting for me, I raced through it and probably missed a lot of it. Maybe some other time, I'll re-read it...

not yet. It's on my tbr. I've read Peregrine Pickle which wasn't too bad. It just went on a bit...

That's exactly how I feel. Not too bad but it went on and on and on! My tbr is getting too big I guess. I'm getting impatient.

370 - Notes from the Underground

A key to all Dostojevski's other works. A book on existentialism. In the first part we meet this lonely man who considers himself above all others. In the second part he explains how he came to live underground, where he hides from reality. Very painful, very gripping.

3,5*

371 - There but for the

Another one of which I had high hopes, but which turned out unsatisfying. A man, Miles, locks himself up in the house of the family Lee. We don't know why. In four parts four people are described who more or less know Miles. However, we learn nothing of his motives and neither about the family in whose home he stays. They seem quite strange, and interesting, as does Miles himself, but these lines are not worked out. Disappointing!

3*

372 - God Bless You, Mr Rosewater

Full of black humour, this is Vonnegut at his best. Eliot Rosewater, heir of an immense amount of money, is considered to be insane because he doesn't care for it. Because he wants to share it with the poor and irrelevant people. He must be insane, for sure?! The irony is great, I had to laugh a lot reading this cynical portrait of modern America.

4*

373 - Michael Kohlhaas

Another 3* book for me. Kafka's favourite novella, I read somewhere, but not mine. I am really looking forward to a book of the list which will really get to me. It's been a while and I am getting impatient.

Today The Goldfinch won the Pullitzer, maybe I should read that one first, before continuing to the next 1001, At the Mountains of Madness, of which I know nothing but that has got the looks of another 3*.

Just a bit negative, sorry, it will pass...! In the meantime, any suggestions for a 4- or 5* book are very welcome!

3*

374 - At the Mountains of Madness

After my negative post last time, I have to admit this book was better that I thought. Almost scientifically Lovecraft describes the ancient Antarctic world some scientists discover, and the horrible consequences of their journey into this unknown territorium. I am normally not a big fan of SF, but At the Mountains of Madness is a quite original and readable story.

3,5*

375 - Persuasion

How I love Austen. How I love some classic romance from time to time. Persuasion is a real feel-good novel. Anne Elliot, the main character, is a lovable and admirable person, surrounded by a very vain family, obsessed by ranks and roots. She is humble and self-effacing, and yet so quick-moving when she realises she still has a chance. And reading it, you really want her to succeed, you want her to be happy and grab this second chance.

Another 4-star Austen, now only Emma remains for me. I think I'll save her for a bit.

4*

376 - Cannery Row

A sweet story about the people of Cannery Row. They are mostly poor but with dignity. Their stories give us a bigger picture of the Great Depression in California. Some stories are tragic, some bursting with life and optimism. Some people win, others loose, some just move on. In this way, Cannery Row reminded me of Of Mice and Men, also a favourite Steinbeck of mine. He needs so little words to describe people and situation, and he does it in a way that touches me deeply.

4*

Books do Furnish a Room

For sure the most intriguing title of the A Dance to the Music of Time books, this 10th part.
Besides that, it is satisfying to have Nick settling back in London after the war. He rolls into a publishing company, set up by a lot of old acquintances and a new one, X Trapnell. The latter is responsible for the biggest part of the story, together with Widmerpool ofcourse, and entertaining it is. Furthermore, there are a lot of thoughts about writing and naturalism, which I quite liked.

3,5*

377 - Invisible Cities

Well, this is definitely not my cup of tea. The conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan are bearable, but I could make nothing of the descriptions of the various cities (which are supposedly all Venice). I have to admit there are some very beautiful sentences on travelling and how it confronts you with yourself and your past. But still....

2*

378 - Gosta Berling's Saga

This is the story of Gosta Berling, one of the cavaliers who form the central point of a Swedish community. Although not overwhelmed, I do think the story in the end made a complete whole (I am afraid this is not correct English, but I can't find the right words, I hope you'll know what I mean) about good and evil, about human values and friendship, all united in and around Gosta Berling. Moreover, the book gives a wonderful description of this part of Sweden. Makes me want to visit it one day.

3*

379 - Where Angels Fear to Tread

I hardly dare to say I really liked this book. I read so many negative reviews of others.
This is the story about the English Lilia, who disgraces her former family-in-law by marrying a young Italian without any standing. I read it as a satire, making fun of the English who feel so superior to the Italians and always 'dare to judge but not to rebel'. Because when they realize they're not always right, they don't act on in.

The only weakness of the novel to me was the role of the children: although very crucial to the plot, daughter Irma and the baby boy without a name are not being worked out very well, they are more objects than humans; I don't think Forster had much up with children in his time!

4*

I'm with you Simone. I really enjoyed it too.

Me too, Simone! I wrote a similarly tentative review in my thread in January. I thought it was surprisingly poignant for a satire, and I thought maybe that is why readers always seem to take it so seriously.

#192 Oh, that was you! I remember someone mentioning loving it and a discussion that followed (that's the reason why I ordered it), but I couldn't find it back! Now I've read it again in your thread and I completely agree with you.

380 - This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

How to describe this very, very disturbing book. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day. I have read many books about the Holocaust, but this one... man!
The Polish Tadeusz Borowski is being arrested and put to work in Auschwitz. In short stories he writes about his experiences there. How everybody gets numb and even indifferent when confronted with the horrors of the gas chambers day by day. 'Becoming totally familiair with the inexplicable and the abnormal', as Borowski describes it.

One of the scenes I'll never forget is the one in which he tells about the soccer field where they play a game while in the mean time they see literally thousands of people walk into the gas chambers, walking towards their death. Or the scene wher they wait for the trains to come in just to grab the food, left behind by the people who are being led to the gas chambers immediately.

When I finished the book I read that Borowski, still under 30 by then, commits suicide in 1951 by gassing himself. Unable to cope with the world. This made me shiver and still does.

A book that will stay with me for a long time. Highly recommended.

5*

thanks for that. After visiting Auschwitz, I've been wondering when I'll stumble over this book in a second hand shop...and be forced to read it. Your review has only confirmed how chilling it will be, esp with that added detail about his own death.

Completely agree about your review. This book has literally given me nightmares. My rating is a bit lower than yours though because, for me, 4.5 and higher are for books which I want to reread. And this one definitely doesn't fall into that category.

Temporary Kings

Nicholas and all his literature minded friends are invited to a conference in Venice, where they are being treated as 'Temporary Kings'. The main characters this time are an American author who wants to write the biography of X Trapnell, an American movie editor and of course Lady and Lord Widmerpool! A lot of speculation and gossip in this part of The Dance, also after Nick returns to England. A lot of nostalgia as well, for example when Nick runs into Moreland. Ingredients which I like a lot and also make me a bit of melancholic for the last part to come and the Widmerpool drama that seems inevitable.

3,5*

381 - The Story of the Eye

I don't mind sex. At all. But 70 pages with nothing but sex with lots of urine, eggs and ultimately an eye, bored me. I probably didn't get the point, but then again, I am not interested.

2*

I'm tickled that with all the hand-waving over sex and obcenity out there you're just unimpressed.

#199 LOL, I was impressed by Batailles fantasies at first, but then it began all over again and again, in a way that seemed as even he didn't enjoy what he was writing.
I just read your review about the book, which I liked better than the book itself. In the end however, I think we feel kind of the same about it! That priest-thing.... :-)

with you on that Simone2... with you all the way...

382 - Hunchback of the Notre Dame

I felt I should read this book after you all did and after the great Les Miserables. I didn't know the story so that made it an interesting read. Quite quick as well, even with the descriptions of Paris and of the effect of print on architecture as the main communication form. This last one I liked a lot.
The story also gripped me, with those strange characters and the twists I didn't foresee. I actually thought this book was about Quasimodo, but he is just one of them, I think.
So a lot of surprises and a nice read, but compared to Les Mis I can't give it more than 3 stars.

3*

383 - Father Goriot

Fascinating story about the boarders of a house in Paris. Father Goriot is one of them. This formerly wealthy man now lives in poverty to let his greedy daughters live their spoiled lives among Paris' upperclass. All the characters are worked out very well. No one is really likable, which makes this story so fascinating and ultimately very sad.

3,5*

384 - The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein

I really don't know what to make of this book. What is really happening?

The narrator, Jacques, seems totally unreliable. He is Tatiana's lover. Lol is obsessed by Tatiana, or is she? That's why she makes him into hers as well. Or is it because he understands her so well? Her and her past. Which she has been keeping alive for years. Or hasn't she? How important really was this night in the ballroom of a casino ten years ago, when she saw her fiance fall in love with another woman? It's hard to tell with this unreliable narrator. Maybe Lol V Stein liked to watch all her live, maybe she has been this way all her live, as Tatiana claims. That would make the night in the casino just another incident. I'll never know, because Lol stays unreachable. I don't get to know her at all.

Fascinating. Both Lol V Stein and Duras, who uses just as few words as necessary.

3,5*

How the heck do you find time to read this many books? Ten, some quite substantial, and the month is not even over! Even when I was hanging out in Amsterdam "researching my dissertation" for three leisurely years, I don't think I ever equaled your reading volume, and a lot of what I read was mysteries and children's books. So impressed.

> 205 Annamorphic, I was just thinking the same about you! Every few days I see a new update from you, which impresses me much. I did read a lot this month indeed, but some of them are quite short and a few I started earlier and have been spreading out over a longer time.
In fact I do read a lot but I also have a fulltime job and two kids, so not that much time I think. Maybe it's got something to do with Amsterdam, where I am hanging out permanently :-)

Yes, I was suspecting it was about Amsterdam!

385 - Their Eyes Were Watching God

Call me crazy but I can't see what the fuss was all about. I was looking forward to being swept away by this so much hyped book, but it did nothing for me. Just another love story.

3*

I was so underwhelmed by it that I gave it a 2-star.

386 - Concrete

I was a bit afraid of reading Bernhard, until Annamorphic recently reviewed and recommended Concrete. Then I concluded it was about time I started reading my first Bernhard. To my surprise it turned out to be an easy read. What's more, I liked it a lot. For example the way Rudolph thinks, the twists in his mind about his sister, his house and Vienna. Bernhard formulates them so easily, yet effectively. Really impressive, as was the unexpected end of this short novel. I wouldn't call it uplifting but certainly recommend it. I won't wait as long with my next Bernhard and am glad to see another positive review by Aliciamay on Yes.

4*

387 - A Hero of our Time

Lermontov was 26 when he died duelling. Yet he writes like a man who knows the world (more specifically the Caucasus) and who knows his way with women. Fighting boredom is the main theme of this book and by fighting it Petsjorin, the hero, gains respect from his fellow travellers and soldiers and gains the love of the women he meets. Liked it a lot!

4*

388 - Blood and Guts in High School

In a strange way I liked this novel. I liked the post modern interpretation of Hawthorne's A Scarlett Letter, I liked some of the storylines, I liked the fact that it reads like a (bad) trip and I liked the poem with whitch it all ends.
And yet I don't see why it is one of the 1001 books I should read before I die.

2,5*

and was yours illustrated as gruesomely as my copy is. It's not a book I can read in public. I can't even risk putting it in my luggage for Saudi. It's in the garage back in the UK!

Yes, that's the one! Certainly not suitable for reading in public. I can't even begin to think of what could happen by bringing it into Saudi Arabia. Smart to leave it in the UK!

My copy went promptly in the garbage after reading - I couldn't bring myself to donate it to Goodwill (what would the little old biddies think?) I think it's probably the only book I have ever thrown out but I just couldn't pass it along.

heh... the old biddies will probably fish it out. "Ooh Doris! Do you remember this?"

Ha! True enough.

389 - The Radetzky March

This book describes the fall of the Habsburger empire along the lives of three generations. An interesting theme, a style of writing I liked and some interesting and well worked out characters. Still I was a bit disappointed at the end. Maybe I expected too much or maybe I missed the point. Unsatisfying.

3*

390 - The Quest for Christa T

Apart from some wonderful thoughts, this one was really too abstract for me.

2*

391 - Wuthering Heights

I finally finished Wuthering Heights, being distracted by the Soccer World Championship, but stimulated by my discovery of Shmoop.com/literature, thanks to Nickelini. And after struggling with the first fifty pages or so it really gripped me and now that I've finished it, I think it's a great novel. I know the discussion about it being one of the most overrated classics, but I like the fact that actually nobody is likeable and the way they treat eachother in that desolate place. I even wonder if I have ever read a novel with so many not likeable characters. And still they're human, Emily Brontë manages to keep her personages under control and even believable. It's different from any other book I read and that's worth a lot to me.

4,5*

392 - A Dance to the Music of Time

Wow. I finished it. And what a grand final it was! I absolutely loved the 12th part of it! How it all came together, literally, in this bizar dance, reflecting the changing winds of time, and Widmerpool's role in it. Widmerpool. I don't think I'll ever forget him. In fact I have been seeing him all the time; in the street, on television, in politics etc.
Sometimes I thought The Dance going too slow, introducing too many new people, not all of them interesting. However, this last part makes up for that. Nick meets or hears about almost anyone who played a part in his life during the decades, which leaves me breathless and satisfied. I even forgive Powell for not introducing me properly to Isobel! A great, great work.

4,5*

I enjoyed your review of A Dance to the Music of Time.... I just finished book six, so I'm halfway through. My thoughts mirror what you've written here... so I'm glad to hear it all ties up nicely in the end.

yeah... I agree. It's nice to hear what the end of the road looks like. I'm also where amerynth is as per my 7 pages a day a year schedule. Enjoying it but do not like the fact that both that and Proust have really left me little time to read anything much else this year. Hope it will be worth it!

Holidays! I have been travelling through the Balkan for a few weeks (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia), ending with a week of sailing in the Greek Mediterranean. Quite special and fortunately plenty of time to read as well.

393 - Cost
This book tells the story of a mother who arranges a so-called 'intervention' with her family to help her youngest son with his drug addiction. This intervention-stuff is way too Oprah-ish for me. I can't identify at all with the way this family deals with the situation. The only one reacting normal is the brother, but he is drawn into this intervention-stuff as well. He is also the only one who seems to know the boy, the rest of the family hasn't got a clue about the boy's life for at least the past ten years. All this distracted me from the possible quality of the book, but to me in the end it was just another novel and I am pretty sure this won't be a classic must-read a hundred years from now.

3*

394 - The Book of Daniel
Wow. It as if Daniel really is the Rosenberg's son. Doctorow writes such a good portrait of the family, their relations and emotions, and the psychological effects of the execution of his parents on Daniel's coming of age. The way he relates to other people (especially his wife and son) as a grown-up is very disturbing yet in a way understandable. I also really admired the twists in Doctorow's writing, the way the story builds up and the changes between the first and third person. Absolutely recommended.

4*

395 - On Beauty
One that had been waiting on my TBR shelves for years. I read a lot of critical comments on the book, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. Maybe because it is an easy-read, perfectly fit for my holiday mood, but then again I really liked the various characters; they really came to life for me. However, with this one again I wouldn't be surprised if it will be forgotten in another hundred years. In general I do like the more recent entries of the 1001 list but I have a hard time believing they can last as long as some of the classics do.

3,5*

396 - The Wasp Factory
Creepy novel about this very strange and lonely boy who killed three people by the age of 13. This is not a spoiler, this is the starting point for a story in which he leads his life on a small Scottish island where he lives with his father. While waiting for his brother to come home (who one day started setting fire to dogs and has therefore been committed to a mental hospital), he spends his time torturing little animals and a lot of other pretty neurotic actions. Scary and completely different from any other book I have ever read, not to mention the twist at the end. A book that will stay with me for some time to come.

4*

397 - Rabbit Run
I love Updike and so looked forward to his Rabbit books. And again I enjoyed his style and his description of the characters and their interaction. It promised to be a great book, however after finishing it I am still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. Maybe the next one in the cyclus. I am more than willing to give Updike the benefit of the doubt and am looking forward to read more about Rabbit.

3,5*

398 - A Gate at the Stairs
My holiday's best read. I loved all about it. The main characters, their story, the thoughts behind it, the themes, the humor, the dialogues, the twists, the end. I didn't know Moore but I am definitely going to read more by her soon. Suggestions are very welcome.

4,5*

Welcome back! Sounds like a great trip, and some good reading.

Doesn't sound like your holiday could have been better! Travelling through the Balkans must have been fascinating. And you are quickly closing in on #400...any big plans?

#225 Thank you Puckers

#226 It is a fascinating region indeed, with its recent history, different cultures and beautiful scenery. If you live in Europe, I'd really recommend you to go there once!

About the #400 approaching, I do not really have big plans. I have devised some sort of complicated system whereby I choose among ten consecutive numbers from the list, sorted by release date. I know, it sounds quite incomprehensible and neurotic .... it probably is. For the 400 I have to choose between numbers 131 and 140. It will probably be The Scarlett Letter or Cranford, both of which I own.

Simone2: I must share your neurosis.... I do the exact same thing, except my pool of books is a lot larger.... the chunks I choose my next read out of have 100 books.

I am reading Cranford right now and it's making me laugh. It's also rather short if that helps! (read Scarlet Letter in university and hated it... but that was 20 years ago so who knows how I would feel now).

>Amerynth I am really glad to discover that I am not alone in my neurosis and that you do the same thing! It is probably wiser to make the choice larger. I decided on the 10 books-pool to make myself read more oldies and still be able to skip the ones I really want to postpone for now!

>Bucketyell Thanks, Cranford it will be!

Yes, Cranford is completely delightful and charming. It makes you feel good about humankind. I loved it.

399 - So Long a Letter

This short novel is written in the form of a letter from Ramatoulaye to her childhood friend, Assiatou, on the death of her husband. These two women share the experience of a happy marriage until the moment their husbands have taken young, second wives.
In her letter Ramatoulaye writes her thoughts on polygamy, mourning, widowhood and motherhood. An intimate portrait of an emancipated woman in Senegal, filled with hope.

3*

400 - Cranford

My number 400 turned out to be a real feel-good book. The way the widows and spinsters of Cranford try to live up to their believes of what is good and bad and - especially - how one should behave, is very touching. Their struggle to justify their way of living and their acting differently in extraordinary situations, made me laugh and even almost cry. The dialogues are witty, the characters (they would drive me crazy in real life!) are very well worked out.

Sounds like a good choice for the 400 milestone - congratulations!

> 234 Thanks Puckers!

401 - Fathers and Sons

The story of two fathers and two sons and the fact that these sons are making their own choices and no longer seem to care about the values their fathers raised them with.
The main character is Bazarov, a nihilist without any ideas or plans or whatsoever, quite destructive. I felt very sorry for his father - and his mother.
An impressive story, yet I wonder if I have understood what Turgenev has meant with it and or/in what way Bazarov symbolizes the first Bolsheviks.

3,5*

402 - The Graduate

This is one of those cases where the movie surpasses the book.

Benjamin is not sure what he wants to do with his life after graduation and - out of boredom - becomes involved first with Mrs. Robinson (the wife of his father's business partner) and then with her daughter Elaine.
I couldn't figure out what happened to disillusion Benjamin and the "anti-establishment" tone throughout the book is never explored. An easy read with funny, empty dialogues; that's about it.

3*

403 - Therese Raquin

Oh, the drama of adultery and its consequences! One of my favourite themes! This one shocked France at the time of its publication (1867), an effect it didn't have on me in 2014. Nevertheless, a real page-turner, described so visual that I can visualize most settings and scenes as if it were a movie.

3,5*

"one of my favourite themes".... hopefully only in literature and not in real life Simone! I too found this a great read. Zola is like that. You'd probably enjoy The Kreutzer Sonata too then which is by far the shortest Tolstoy... if you can't face the incredible Anna Karenina.

> 239 This was my first Zola, but I have Nana on the shelves, so I won't wait too long with my next one. In what way does The Kreutzer Sonata remind you of Zola? I still have to read that one, but I agree that I will probably like it, I loved Anna Karenina...!

no no... it's not Zola that's the connection. It's adultery. I take it you've read Madame Bovary and many of Edith Wharton's excellent novels which deal with this.

Ah, of course, my favourite theme :-). Yes I've read all those you mentioned! And what to think of Lady Chatterley's Lover, The End of the Affair, Rabbit Run and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, just to mention some more?!

404 - The Mill on the Floss

I am a little ahead of September's group read; I thought it would take longer reading The Mill on the Floss. But it is an easy read.

It tells the story of Maggy Tuliver, smart and rebellious daughter of Mr Tuliver, owner of the mill. Where her brother Tom chooses exactly the path his parents had in mind for him, Maggie (the alter ego of George Eliot herself) often gets into trouble. She would like to live a noble and obedient life, but doesn't always succeed. For example, she wants to be faithful to her childhood friend Philip, but falls in love with Stephen.

I liked somt parts of this book much better than others. Occasionally I thought it all a bit too sweet, with an overkill of bonnets, table linen and tenderness. Take cousin Lucy for example, people like her don't exist in real life, do they?!
In contrast, I really liked the discussions within the Dodson clan; the sisters of Maggie's mother who judge everything and everyone on the degree of kinship.

Last but not least: the end. The end is beautiful. The end shows the real lovestory. And I didn't see it coming.

3,5*

405 - The Moon and the Bonfires

Because I loved The Harvesters, I looked forward to reading this book. Pavese writes beautifully, some of his sentences still linger in my mind, but the memories of the narrator who, after a stay in America returns to his native Italy, did appeal less to me.

2,5*

I don't pay attention to group reads, so I didn't know that Mill on the Floss is the next one. I just happen to be reading it right now too--well, listening to it on audiobook. I really like it, although it's terribly long-winded. I think Maggie is a fabulous character, and I agree that the aunts are very entertaining. Looking forward to the end now that you've intrigued me!

I will stop by the group read now too.

406 - Loving

My first Henry Green, soon to be followed by two more, because I have three stories bundled in Loving, Living, Party Going.

Loving is set in a castle in Ireland during WWII, where English servants keep the household running while 'upstairs' a woman misses her son and spends her time complaining about the servants. In the meantime her daughter-in-law doesn't miss her husband that much and falls in love with another man.
However, the emphasis is on the servants 'downstairs', their whereabouts, thoughts, fears and relations. It certainly is amusing to read, but that's about it.

3*

407 - Great Expectations

My first real Dickens (apart from A Christmas Carol). It is not a difficult book to read, in fact I regard it as an adventurous coming-of-age story. Still it took me some time to finish it because I read other books in between. I hardly dare to admit that the story could only moderately interest me. I was not really curious how things would go for Pip, didn’t find him a very interesting character (the most interesting to me was Wemmick, I wish there was a book about him and his father!)
I guess I’ll have to read another Dickens soon, because after reading this one it is not immediately clear to me what's so special about him.

3*

I've picked up Great Expectations a few times, but it's such a chunkster and the reviews are somewhat mixed. Someone advised me to read it the way it was published, i.e. in installements. Maybe it would work better for me that way, but I'm taking my time...
Looking forward to what you'll read next!

Personally I like him for his characters, his humour and his empathy for the pains and foibles of his fellow creatures and the way he funnels his skills into righting some of the social injustices of his day. I also love his actual stories.

I don't like his appallingly pathetic 'heriones' and occasional preachey rants.

>249 M1nks: Thanks M1nks, I am aware now that what you say is very true; he is certainly describing social injustices in a special way. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I am sure I'll appreciate Dickens more the next time.

408 - Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Actually, I liked the story about the book (how and when Verne wrote it without ever having visited Iceland) better than the book itself.

Maybe it's dated, maybe it's because it was a re-read from the eighties; anyway, I found the story rather boring and was not grabbed for a moment. Most of all the nagging of the narrator, who saw problems everywhere (in itself not surprising if you're traveling through a crater at the center of the earth) annoyed me. This however may be due to the fact that this was my first audio book ever... I myself might have ignored that whiny tone but through my headphones, I obviously could not avoid it!

2*

Great Expectations isn't his most accessible work (although I still think it's great). If you are interested in some Dickens to see if you could grow to like him more I would recommend:

1. A Christmas Carol - Very short (well comparatively), very entertaining and very much a part of popular literature and language; even if people haven't heard of Dickens or read anything of his most people know the story of the Ghosts of Christmas past etc. A lovely and heart-warming tale. And once you've finished it I suggest watching 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol for a good laugh :-)

2. The Pickwick Papers. His first real book and the one that launched him into super star status. The funniest and most light-hearted of all his novels but it still has elements of social commentary. Pickwick is delightful and once Sam Weller, his wonderful manservant turns up this book becomes an absolute gem.

3. Martin Chuzzlewit - Probably my favourite of his works because I love the theme of hypocrisy and selfishness and it contains Mrs Gamp who is a front runner for my all time favourite Dickens character. Mark Tapley is priceless too and his wonderful life ethos keeps the tone of the book high even when things turn a little dark.

Most of all the nagging of the narrator, who saw problems everywhere (in itself not surprising if you're traveling through a crater at the center of the earth) annoyed me LOL

>253 Trifolia: You're right, this sounds ridiculous! It must have been the audio book: that voice made me hear the nagging all the time!

I'll let you know if I have the same feeling if and when I read it. It's on my list!

409 - Living

It took some time to get used to the language in this book, which lacks conjunctives and uses few articles. This probably reflects a Birmingham accent, because the story documents the lives of Birmingham factory workers in the 1920s/1930s.

Green describes the social classes in Britain: the problems of its time and the patriarchy of the system, in which women are hardly allowed to work. It is a hard world, but it is also filled with hope and dreams, especially by Lily, who tries to escape and afterwards is able to notice the beauty and possibilities of her time and life.

3*

The touchstone is referring to "Living Dead in Dallas" by Charlaine Harris. I don't suppose this is the book you read?

>257 Trifolia: You're right, it is Living by Henry Green. I changed the touchstone, thank you for noticing!

410 - The Marriage Plot

I liked this Eugenides a lot. I liked it better than his other two novels on the list.
It is a page turner about Madeline and the two men in her life. All three characters are worked out really well, as a reader I can feel who they are, why they act the way they do and how they interact with eachother.
It is an hommage to the Victorian novel with its marriage plot, set in the 80s. Quite original and sharp. I could copy lots of great quotes here but I won't. Just read it!

4,5*

cool... got this on the shelf and have read the other two so you've given me something to look forward to

411 - Party Going

Henry Green has a great imagination. This novel is about a number of people who want to travel together by train to southern France, but get stuck at the railway station because of the mist hanging over London.
We know nothing of these people, fall in the middle of their lives, and leave them at some point again without really becoming much wiser.
Triggering, but in the end a book I'll forget about soon, I guess.

3*

412 - Life and Times of Michael K

Somehow Coetzee’s books don’t do anything to me. I have read four now; I know he can write well and his themes also appeal to me, but that’s about it. Without any feeling I read one page after another, waiting for something that won’t come. Pity.

2,5*

413 - Money to Burn

I love Latin America and that is what makes ​​this book special: its typical Latin American character and setting. The story is a reconstruction of a robbery in Buenos Aires in 1965 and the flight of the thieves to Montevideo, where they're hiding for the police. They are hiding in an apartment, accompanied by large amounts of money, drugs and weapons. It's a book about violence and on the psyche of the robbers. Well written, an easy read.

3*

414 - American Rust

In a bankrupt mining town in Pennsylvania two friends accidentally murder someone. The consequences of this murder are described from their own perspective and that of their families. These stories sketch a depressing picture of the demise of the American dream. Black, but worth reading.

3,5*

415 - As A Man Grows Older

This is the meticulous account of the feelings of a man for his libertine girlfriend, his meek sister and his flamboyant friend. Jealousy, naivety, manipulation and boredom alternate. Sometimes enough to make one squirm, sometimes painfully recognizable. Quite an expert on the human psyche, Svevo, as I also noticed in Zeno’s Conscience.

3,5*

416 - Paradise of the Blind

After the reviews, I thought the book would disappoint me but it didn't. Not at all. It clearly was not written for people all over the world, but how bad is that? I have read it as a story about Vietnam for the Vietnamese. The detailed descriptions of the food, the village of the aunt and the life in the city, I thought beautiful; they show the timelessness of the country and the way people live there - by the way exactly as I remember it after a trip to Vietnam in 1994. I think it is the story of a country and its people that has always managed to remain authentic, despite the influences of other countries.

3,5*

417 - Return of the Soldier

A soldier returns home from the front in WWI, suffering from shell-shock. He has forgotten his life over the last fifteen years and therefore doesn't remember his marriage and his wife. Instead, he dreams of his first love.
It is a very short story. For me it could have lasted a lot longer, I really liked the writing. The choice of Jenny as the narrator, while she actually plays hardly a role in the story, gives the story a special twist, because now you only get a very subjective view of his wife and his first love.

3,5*

418 - Through the Looking Glass

Should have read this probably when I was a kid. Still, 2 Carroll's on the list??

2*

419 - The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

This is the story of the Brazilian Bras Cubas, as told by himself after his death. The most he has achieved during his lifetime are the facts that he never had to work and never had children to pass on the burden of living life in this world.
In the meantime, he is unable to marry, to become a minister, to edit a newspaper succesfully and to patent some kind of miracle plaster.
An amiable man, despite his shortcomings. Someone here compared Bras Cubas with Oblomov, a comparison which I do agree on. Except, Bras Cubas is a lot more self conscious, giving this particular novel its satirical style. Recommended!

4*

420 - Morvern Callar

Somewhere in the book her foster father says to Morvern: 'Heres you, twenty-one, a forty-hour week on slave wages for the rest of your life; even with a fortnight in a resort theres no much room for poetry there, eh?'

This is Morvern's story. She escapes the forty-hour week job, hides for the truth in a resort much longer than the planned fortnight, but there is still no room for poetry. She searches and tries but there is no escape. Not really.

3,5*

421 - Half of a Yellow Sun

Nice, occasionally such a page turner among all heavy literature. This one is educational as well. Half of a Yellow Sun is the story of the short existence of the state of Biafra. Ignored by the rest of the world, the people are not capable of building their own state, especially because of the British support to Nigeria - their former colony. Biafran people starve and are being defeated. This hard truth is woven into a beautiful story about family, love and loyalty. Recommended.

4*

don't, whatever you do, bother watching the film. Highly not recommended.

>272 arukiyomi: I won't, I promise, just tell me why not!

Impressive how you work your way through the 1001-list. I like your short comments. They're just enough to see if I'll like the book or not.

>274 Trifolia: Thank you! I am glad you like them.

badly acted with laughable 'effects' and a screenplay which does absolutely no justice to the intricately balanced relationships that Aidichie crafted. My wife, who hadn't read the book, could not follow the storyline as it jumped from place to place and event to event with little but a caption to summarise any connections. I spent most of the film trying to give her enough of the storyline to help her attempt to enjoy it. I still can't believe they weren't handing out refunds when I left the cinema.

422 - Man's Fate

I know it is a classic and not even that hard too read, but the theme (the Shanghai uprising of 1927) seemed quite outdated to me and I frankly think I can die without finishing this one...

2*

Was the translation done by Haakon Chevalier? I usually take a look at works other people have read and this translation was very bad according to a couple of reviews. I'm not sure if anyone else has done an english translation though so I might be stuck with it regardless.

>278 M1nks: No, I have read it in Dutch. The translation was done by E. duPerron, a close personal friend of Malraux. So I think it is an authorized translation, but still..
I think it was mainly the subject which didn't interest me enough to read about it for 400 pages. I have to admit the existentialist parts of the book were very good, but they didn't make up for the rest of it.

Well, it's staying in the 'when I have nothing else interesting to read' pile then. Although I should be careful - I don't want the last 100 or so books to be all the crappy leftovers. Can you imagine!?

But maybe then you wouldn't feel too bad when the eventual death finally comes :)

#280, I have this same fear! ; -)
But since there are 350 or so books (from all editions) over the required 1000, I figure those will be the ones I never read.

423 - In a Glass Darkly

An early work of gothic stories. They are filled with ghosts, spirits and real vampires. Before I started on the list, I never would have imagined I would like stories like these so much, but since then I did love The Monk and The Woman in White.
These short stories aren’t that good, but still fun to read. Remarkable however is that I liked the story best in which in the end no supernatural powers were at work.

3,5*

This is probably true. But I cling to the fantasy that I will not only read 1001 but I will also go on to read everything in the combined list as well.

Of course I'm not sure I'll live up to that! I'm doing well so far but this is definitely not a short term goal...

Hahahahah! Classic!

424 - Diary of a Nobody

Although the book is meant to be funny, I think it was particularly interesting to read how an ordinary family, English middle class, spends its time in the 19th century. In addition, the book was indeed rather funny and I occasionally I felt sorry for Mr. Nobody, who means good but acts clumsy. A book to be quickly forgotten probably but amusing to have spent some time with.

3,5*

425 - Measuring the World

Highly recommended by others here, but it didn't do much for me. Being not much of a beta, the scientific part didn't interest me much, nor did the history of both German scientists. The humor also was wasted on me. So... well written, but I read it mostly diagonally.

2,5*

426 - Testament of Youth

In this book Vera Brittain describes her memories of WWI, when she was in her early twenties. It is a story I have read real slowly because I was quite moved by it. Partly because so much is happening and the effects of it on Brittain are painfully clear, thanks to her perfect memory and her style of writing, partly because I didn't want to know what or who would be next. It is hard to imagine Vera's life during the war. She is so brave and lonely, she loses het youth and so much more. The fact that she writes the book in 1933 and doesn't know what is yet to come, makes it even more painful and powerful.

4*

427 - Nana

Boring. Way too many people living their decadent lives in 19th century Paris. I wasn't interested in one of them. Read diagonally, impatient... So maybe I missed why this book deserves to be on the list.

1*

428 - Black Dogs

It's always the same with me and McEwan: I am drawn into a story at once and a bit disappointed after finishing it. I love his themes, his originality, maybe it's just that my expectations are too high. Of the eight McEwans I have read so far, only Atonement could match them. I also liked On Chesil Beach and Saturday and was intrigued by his ridiculous view of my country in Amsterdam, but all the others made me feel let down.

The same goes for Black Dogs, which starts strong, with a man writing the biography of his mother-in-law because he wants to know the truth about why she left her husband and goes on loving him at the same time. What happened in 1946, when they were travelling through post-war Europe and both members of the Communist Party? Who tells the truth?
Nice start, huh? However, at the end of the novel I didn't care any longer.

Still, I just ordered McEwan's latest, The Children Act from Amazon yesterday...

3*

429 - Orlando

Quite an original (and readable!) novel by Woolf. I absolutely loved the first chapters, in which the Thames is frozen. I can see and feel it as if I was there during the Great Frost. I also loved the scenes of Orlando (then still a man) and his Russian princess Sasha. Later chapters couldn't live up to these magnificent start, although I also enjoyed the meetings with Nicholas Greene, the poet.
The book is all about gender and the differences between men and women in the times described. A recognizable theme for Woolf, which I really thought quite good worked out in Orlando.

3,5*

I absolutely loved the first chapters, in which the Thames is frozen.

Me too! Wasn't there a line where it described the cold as so extreme that birds were freezing in mid-flight? I thought that was wonderful

Re: Black Dogs - I had a really hard time with that one. I don't think I got it at all. But I've kept it and may reread it again some day and see if it works better the second time around. I generally like his books but that was my least favourite.

>292 Nickelini: Yes, and the woman you could see below the ice! Wonderful!

430 - The Siege of Krishnapur

I had a hard time reading this book, it took me over a week while it isn't a difficult read. It just didn't capture me, despite the good plot and the English behaving so very Englishly even in the circumstances of their Residence being under siege. I don't know what was missing for me.

2*

Funny, I just loved Krishnapur. But then I'm a sucker for English behaving Englishly.

431 - After the Quake

I have read several books by Murakami and they all have this typical Murakami atmosphere. I like them a lot, but still I wonder why we need to read five of them for the list.

After the Quake consists of six short stories, losely related to the earthquake in Kobe. What all stories share is the fact that they are about people whose worlds have been moved lately.

I liked the last one best, it made me decide to give this book 3 stars, despite the fact that I am a bit filled up with Murakami.

3*

432 - The Little Prince

One I should have read years ago, during French classes in high school. Now I have read it in one day, enjoying it, sure, especially De Saint-Exupery's illustrations, beside that, it didn't do much for me.

2,5*

#298, I read it in high school (and acted in a play of it at French camp when I was 11!) and it never did much for me either.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. My friend thrust it into my hands a few years ago and demanded I read it. I obligingly did and looked enquiringly at her when she asked 'what did you think of it?'.

I am fairly convinced that she is now sure I have no soul.

I read The Little Prince in my mid-30s after I'd run into a bunch of people who said things like "this is my favourite book EVER" and "I give this book as a gift to everyone I know because I think it is so wonderful." I felt incredibly dumb after I read it because I found it flat and boring. I've asked people who love it to tell me what I missed, and none of them has ever actually expressed anything meaningful. So either the right person has never explained it to me, or it is just one of those books that you love, or you don't. I think I gave it 2 stars in my library, but it might as well be zero.

You do have to get the right translation. I will give it that; the difference between them is marked.

433 - Sula

The novel tells the story of a friendship between two African-American women and shows us how African-Americans lived in the US of the first half of the 20th century: how they deal with fear, love, sex, and death. Both elements are very interesting. Sula is a unique character, she lives without compromises, which at first attracts Nel, but later turns against her.
Morrison's writing is beautiful; she knows how to say so much with so little words.

3,5*

434 - 2666

Impressive novel about practically everything concerning the 20th century. 2666 exists of 5 novels which can be read separately and are hardly connected to each other. They all describe a phase of life, without a beginning and without an end. After every book you hope to get to know more about it in one of the next books but you seldom do. Frustrating and fascinating, like life itself.
So are the many, many characters Bolano introduces and gets rid of ten pages further.

Part 4, the central part I guess, is about the ongoing murdering of women in Santa Teresa, a Mexican town near the US border, where many women come looking for work in one of the many 'cheap labour' American manufacturing factories. This story is based on the true situation in Ciudad Juarez. The impunity is shocking, as is the halfhearted way the police investigates the murders, which Bolano describes in every gruesome detail, time and time again. Sometimes I wanted to stop reading, but I couldn't. Another storyline is about the German writer Benno von Archimboldi, of whom I can't say too much without giving away spoilers.

In the fifth part, both stories come together a bit, but as I expected by that time, there are no answers. Bolano leaves me wondering, excited, confused and satisfied. Highly recommended!

4*

435 - Smell of Sadness

This is a coming-of-age novel starting in bombed Rotterdam during WWII. It is a non-typical Dutch novel about the war and its permanent effects on them who were young in de 1940s. In the choices Thomas and his friends make in marrying, in friendship, art, career etc. the psychological effects of the war seem to be continually in the background. Indirectly, which gives this novel its special character.

I really enjoyed reading it although I wonder why it made the list. In The Netherlands the book has not been reprinted for a long time, the author almost forgotten -perhaps unjust. Other Dutch writers, who are generally assumed to be most representative for Dutch literature (history) are not represented on the list. The choice from Boxall et al doesn't seem logical. Still, I am very glad I discovered this forgotten novel!

4*

THat sounds like enough of a reason for it to be on the list to me! Is this one that is translated into and available in English?

>306 japaul22: I don't know if there is a translation or that someone made up the English title. I can't find it on LT nor on Amazon. I doubt it, as I said it was even hard to get a copy in Dutch. And you're right: that's a shame. It is a very good read!

That sounds really good! It's been a long time since I've read a novel in Dutch but I'm going to try this one -- managed to get the last one available on AbeBooks.

>308 annamorphic: Very good! I hope you'll be as impressed as I am. And in Dutch, wow!

436 - Less Than Zero

What a depressing story. Easton Ellis' first, written when he was twenty. The lifestyle of rich teenagers in Los Angeles in the 80s. Drugs, sex, violence, they are doing it all without feeling anything. Clay, the storyteller, watches all that happens, seemingly without participating actively. But neither does he stop anything from happening although he at times feels the need to cry. But there's no one to talk to, no one who listens. Even his shrink talks mainly about himself. Recommended.

4*

Los miserables es un excelente libro

>311 Alejandro_100: Yo sé eso. Lo he leído!

437 - Bel-Ami

This book turned out to be a real page-turner, something I never expected. My first De Maupassant and what a pleasant surprise. It is a story of unlimited ambition; the ambition of George Duroy who, by the end of the book, has turned himself into Baron Du Roy de Cantel. He uses his women just to reach his next goal, he wouldn't have been able to reach them by himself, just being a good-looking farmer son.
De Maupassant takes you on a wild ride through Paris at the end of the 19th century, its politics, its customs, its society and its role in Northern Africa. Recommended!

4*

438 - Hideous Kinky

Easy read of a child and her sister being a bit neglected by their restless mother who keeps looking for adventure. She takes her children to Marrakech, where they live on hardly any money and the mother wants to become a Sufi. The children don't go to school and live their lives happily in whatever place their mother takes them to.

Interesting read, autobiographical (written through the eyes of the youngest child), with great descriptions of one of my favourite countries. Not Freud's best though, and I do wonder why it made the list.

3,5*

439 - The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

One of the first picaresque novels. A poor Spanish boy works for various masters and becomes a bit wiser by all of them. It is a novella about honour and rather critical of the church, which is unheard of in 16th-century Spaink. To me the most special about the book is that it survived for all those centuries.

2,5*

440 - Gabriel's Gift

I should really read Boxall's entry on this one. There are so many better books than this boring story of a boy (who behaves completely unbelievable) and his midlifecrisis parents.

2*

Oh dear... sounds lovely! Not.

There are a few books on the list that have given me that reaction.

441 - The Swarm

What a trip, this book. A page turner from the first page on. It is a thriller unlike any other I ever read. It is an eco-thriller with a lot of biological and ecological facts. It is the story about the mystery of how the oceans and its inhabitants suddenly seem to take revenge for all the oil and gas we took from it and all the debris we dumped in it. It is the story about Yrr. Read it!

4*

442 - Cider with Rosie

A book for the senses. Laurie Lee describes his youth in rural England just after WWI. His home, its surroundings, his family: all are full of colours and smells. Nice read but a bit too sweet for my taste.

2,5*

443 - Arcanum 17

Only 100 pages and still I couldn't finish it. I didn't understand one bit of it, despite introductions on the internet. I decided it would be a waste of time. On to the next.

1*

Simone, I felt the same way as you did about Arcanum 17, though I soldiered on and finished. I got absolutely nothing out of it, however.

You'll be happy to know that you didn't miss anything by not finishing it.

>321 QuartInSession: Do you still remember what you read? I could't remember what I read ten pages earlier so I thought I could as well stop!

>322 paruline: I read your review before I started reading it. You made it sound manageable, but it really went over my head!

>323 Simone2: That was me trying to make sense of something senseless...

444 - King Solomon's Mines

I had never heard of this story and I expected little of it, but instead I enjoyed it thoroughly! An old fashioned adventure story, which gripped me from the first page.

It is the adventure of three English men in colonial Africa, looking for the brother of one of them and meeting with quite a few challenges.

It did remind me a bit of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but I liked this one much better!

3,5*

I don't remember anything except that one of his inspirations was the Rocher Percé, which is located not that far away from me, in the scheme of things. Other than that...hmmm, nope, nothing else comes to mind. :P

445 - Schindler's Ark

At its release, the movie swept me off my feet. I didn't know the story about Oskar Schindler then, I knew of course about the horrors of WWII, but seeing them visualized as they were in the movie... Some of those scenes have been lingering in my mind ever since and I cried the whole time.
In the book I recognized a lot of the scenes. However, in this case the written words couldn't match those images still in my head. The character of Oskar himself though, was better worked out in the book than in the movie. It is an important book, I completely understand why it made this list and won the Booker Prize. It just couldn't have the same impact the movie had years ago.

3,5*

446 - The Namesake

Beautifully written novel about an Indian/Bengali boy, born and coming of age in the US. Nothing too difficult, just a moving story of coming to terms with who you are and where you came from.

4*

447 - Dictionary of the Khazars

A really strange book about the ancient Khazars, who had to choose between one of the three big religiosa. This book tells their story dictionary-like from the point of view of the Christians, the Muslims and the Jews. Some entries have the same topics but a different point of view. The author invites the reader to read crisscross through the entries.
This reading sections diagonally gave me an opportunity to skip through the book rather quickly. I read all entries which are in all books and some others which I thought relevant.
Then I turned to the appendices. They did clarify a bit what I was looking for, although I was not sure what I was looking for.

2*

448 - Kidnapped

Maybe I would have liked this book better when I read it as a kid. But somehow I doubt that. I have never been a big fan of adventures like this one.
However, I did like the dialogues between David en Alan. They were very real, Stevenson worked out their friendship and its ups and downs very good.

2*

449 - By the Open Sea

This is a rather complicated book about a civil servant who comes inspect fishing in a remote Swedish fishing village. Local fishermen are not happy with his arrival and the inspector thrives in his forced isolation until, successively, a young woman and her mother, a pastor and an assistant arrive in the village. What follows is a psychological game, described from the perspective of the officer, who feels quite superior to the others. Strindberg's descriptionn of the desolate landscape and the isolation of the protagonist give the book an oppressive atmosphere, which I really liked. The end, of course, can not be happy.

3*

450 - The Water Babies

I guess I am too old for fairy tales, for being explained the moral and for being called 'little fellow'.

1,5*

451 - The Garden Party

Do we really only have to read this short story by Katherine Mansfield for the list? Does anyone know?
I liked it a lot. In short it's about the rich denying reality.

4*

I think it's really the collection you should read (The Garden Party and Other Stories 1st pub 1922). Although I'm sure you can check it off if you don't want to bother. She writes great short stories though and if you liked The Garden Party you'll probably like the rest of the anthology.

At the Bay is wonderful. Actually, they are all wonderful :-)

>333 Simone2: Yep, just the short story. I really liked it too and went on to read everything that the author wrote (not an extensive oeuvre by any count). My favourite is "How Pearl Button was Kidnapped."

452 - Family Matters

I find Mistry such a wonderful writer. All his sentences are full of love and meaning without overdoing it. This is the story of a family, taking care of their old grandfather who comes to live with them in their small Bombay flat. This has a big effect on all of them, especially on the father, who feels guilty about not being able to feed his family properly and starts looking for ways to earn more. Through him Mistry shows us the circumstances of workers' life in India, Bombay.

A beautiful story, except for the epilogue, which did not add anything. The book should and could have ended without it.

4*

thanks for that review... got this on the shelf and am now looking forward to it.

453 - To Have and Have Not

Short stories about live in and trade between Cuba and Florida. Harry Morgan is a shipper who will take on all kinds of deals sailing between the two coasts. In between there are a lot of alcohol and fights. I didn't especially like the book. At least it was short.

2*

I remember this one being very forgettable

454 - Drop City

This is the story of a Californian hippy commune, moving to Alaska. They think of this move and their new way of live (surviving the Alaska winter) as a big adventure, what turns out to be rather naive.
In Alaska, another set of (local) people also prepares for a winter of 'living off the land'. The differences between the two are big, but Boyle succeeds in describing all his characters as humans, despite their differences. I could relate to all of them, more or less, that is what I liked most about the book. Plus the descriptions of the scenery, I can visualize the river and its landmarks completely.

3,5*

455 - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Well, that was a boring trip. To read about at least.

1*

456 - The End of the Story

This is the story of a woman, writing about writing this novel and about her relationship with a past lover. She explores and analyses her thoughts, emotions and motives regarding her lover and their time together unbelievable minutely (is this the right word? I mean very accurate). She is so honest, she won't make herself seem nicer than she is. Rather selfish actually. I have to admit it was painfully recognizable sometimes, which is probably why I like this book so much.

The parts on the process of writing it I also found quite interesting. Leaving stuff out, making things up, she is constantly worrying if she remembers well, if it is worth mentioning, in what part of the book, etc.

4,5*

457 - Tess of D'Urbervilles

A shame that I didn't read this book earlier. Other than that, there are a lot of classics I like better than this romance. Tess never really came to life for me and Alec I found more a caricature than a wicked man. Still a nice read though.

3*

458 - The Sea, The Sea

What a novel! I had been looking forward to this book for a long time and I am not disappointed!

It is the page turning story of Charles Arrowby, a retiring theater director, who moves from London to the North Sea coast to write his memoirs.
At first he describes his daily life there, the food, the sea (quite beautiful) and the memories of his childhood. He seems quite likable, but after a while you realize that is because you know everything only from his point of view.

Then people from London come visiting him and his first love appears to live in the village. Suddenly, you get to know another side of Charles: sometimes directly by letters others write to him, but mostly indirectly by his own story.
He turns out to be a jealous, egocentric man, not very much interested in others as long as it's not regarding their relationship to him, the famous showbiz man.

A lot happens in the story that kept me wanting to read on. Besides that, I so admire how Iris Murdoch succeeds in creating his character. I feel like I know him and I am really annoyed with him for not asking the right questions to the people around him. They have so much to tell, but he just won't listen and he doesn't even realize it! The frustration with which this left me after finishing this book.... wow!

4,5*

459 - Silence

Because I am preparing for a trip to Japan, I am reading a lot about it now and have read this book before the group read of July.

Silence is a historical story about Christian persecution and martyrdom in Japan in the 17th century.

The silence of the title is the silence of God, who oversees how thousands of Japanese are being tortured and put to death because of their Catholic faith. A Portuguese priest, padre Sebastian Rodrigo, travels to Japan, to follow his former teacher, Father Ferreira. The story goes that Ferreira has, under pressure from the Japanese governors, renounced his faith by putting his foot on the fumie, a board with the image of Jesus on it.
This denial is initially incomprehensible for Rogrigo, but gradually he starts doubting his own faith as well. People are dying in the most horrible ways because of their faith, and still God is silent.

These doubts, the honesty with which he shares them with the reader, show the inner struggle of Endo himself (being a Christian in Japan).

4*

460 - In the Forest

This is the true story of a triple murder in Ireland in the 90s. Edna O'Brien's writing style is such, that she describes the most horrifying and scaring scenes with a flatness that makes them extra creepy. The fact that she also writes from the point of view of the murderer (O'Kane, a young man who was neglected and abused in his youth and afterwards starts to hear voices) make this a quite special novel in which I somehow feel sorry for O'Kane.

3,5*

461 - Elective Affinities

Based on the chemical process wereby elements, when they meet, quickly grasp eachother, Goethe describes in this book his vision on relationships.

They are only then interesting when causing separations, and the most remarkable are those cases in which the attractive force works crosswise, when four until then two by two connected beings, brought into contact with one another, reconnect.
This is what happens to the four main characters in the book. The story tells the power game of attraction and rejection, it is a conflict between the ordered world of morality and the demonic forces and nature of love. Fate haunts the passionate Eduard, his wife Charlotte - who is able to keep her love for Captain Otto under control - and the innocent Ottilie.

Goethe shows himself an advocate of freedom of marriage (as is his own situation), which is revolutionary for its time (early 19th century) and was a precursor to books like Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary.

Remarkable!

3*

I agree with you on Hideous Kinky (post 15). I thought it was a bit flimsy.

Though having said that, I guess it was an antidote to all those works that celebrate characters sloughing off the trappings of society and discovering themselves. It shows the other side of the coin: the abnegation of responsibility that can go along with all that, the consequences for everyone else and the essential selfishness of it.

She's a better writer than great-granddad, however.

>348 Cliff-Rhu-Rhubarb: Is he really her great-granddad?

yep

462 - Almost Transparent Blue

Eventually the fascination won of the horror.

In Almost Transparent Blue writer and narrator Rye does nothing besides having sex and doing drugs with his friends or his girlfriend Lilly. None of the main characters comes to life and all descriptions are cold and without any emotion. They are, however, full of flavour. Odors of sweat, a decaying pineapple, semen et cetera make Ryu vomiting regularly, which he describes in detail.

An empty existence, but at the end of this plotless book we are allowed an occasional glimpse of the underlying characters. Their backgrounds, their doubts, their search for more, for meaning.

The cold and distant way Murakami uses in writing this story raises a lot of questions and this is why the book fascinated me and keeps me thinking now that I have finished it. Not in the least because of the way the book ends: a letter from Ryu to Lilly, three years later, which only leaves me with more questions.

3*

Spring Snow

Because I go to Japan this summer, I started The Sea of Fertility by Yukio Mishima, Japan's greatest writer. The Sea of Fertility consists of four parts that together describe Japan in the 20th century. Spring Snow is the first part.

This book is about a boy named Honda (who will return throughout de tetralogy), but especially about his best friend Kiyoaki, son of the marquis. Kioyaki falls in love with Satoko, a girl he has known all his life, but their relationship is complicated en based on a lot of misunderstandings. They let their chance of being happy together, go past

The book, however, is anything but an ordinary love story, it is so Japanese ... I don’t think I am able to explain what I mean exactly, but the choice of words, emotions, the scenery, dialogues: everything breathes the Japanese culture. Subdued, serene, intelligent; I really look forward to part 2 and my journey through the country.

463 - Goodbye to Berlin

An incisively portrait of Berlin in the 30s, with Hitler and the nazis coming up along the communists. Isherwood lives in Berlin and writes about the people he meets, the conversations they have. A lot is being unsaid, partly no doubt because Isherwood couldn't imagine what would happen, partly because it is the somehow polite way he writes. Is it English? In any case, he doesn't judge people and lets them be. With all that happened so soon afterwards, it makes this story rather special.

3*

464 - At Swim-Two-Birds

Quite experimental. Could have been interesting but it wasn't, for me. I did like the book, but not the book within it.

2*

465 - Dracula

Finally finished Dracula. It took me more than a week. Although I liked it, it doesn't come close to my favourite gothic novels The Woman in White and The Monk. And I think it was about 200 pages too long.

3*

Ah, I just finished The Monk last week and enjoyed it too. Also really liked The Woman in White. Dracula didn't do it for me, though.

466 - Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

A wonderful novel about living in Czech before, during and after the fall of communisme. The central question is how one is to live his life when truly free.

Pavel is a cameraman who registers what happens around him, but who knows the rules of the censors. He hates what he is doing, but knows no other way to live his live. Except for the screenplays he writes and in which he describes life just a little different.

After the fall of communism Pavel can make all the films he ever dreamt of but he loses himself in memories of the past, unable to face the future. Highly recommended.

4*

Runaway Horses

In Part 2 of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy, Honda is 38 years old and meets Isao, the boy in whom he recognizes the reincarnation of Kioyaki, his best friend when he was young. Kioyaki died of passion, Isao is as passionate, although for a totally different reason. He hates the way Japan becomes corrupted by Western influences. With his passion and charisma he is able to form a group of young people who want to fight the most corrupt people and afterwards commit seppuku, the traditional Japanese suicide.

It is an impressive story of a rapidly changing Japan in the 20th century after years of isolation.

3,5*

467 - Jazz

I guess I am the exception to the rule. I am not that fond of Toni Morrison as many others here. It's not that I don't like it, it is just that I find her way of telling a story a bit too smooth, too preachy. The story line I did like, though.

2,5*

Back from Japan. Many hours to read in the super fast shinkansen trains. I finished the following 1,001-books:

468 - Babbitt

Midlifecrisis in the 1920s. But not another novel of a cynical middle aged man. George Babbitt really believes in the American dream and possibilities and behaves exactly as society expects. Still there is this doubt and uncertainty. He tries his best but in the end he stands up for himself, which costs him a lot. He is not strong enough to hold on to his individual values and surrenders. Back in his old life, its habits and rituals, he wishes for his son to make the choices he never dared. I had to laugh at Babbitt and felt sorry for him all the same. Most of all I recognized his situation although it was written almost a century ago.

3,5*

469 - Nemesis

Great novel about polio and guilt. Another Roth I really liked.

4*

470 - Brideshead Revisited

I had really looked forward to finally reading this classic. I was a little disappointed however. I liked the various characters, but they left me with the feeling that I never got to know them.

3,5*

471 - Moon Palace

A story in three parts of which I liked the first best. The second did bore me a bit, although I am still a fan of Auster's style.

3,5*

472 - Excellent Women

Real English novel about a spinster who lives a quiet live (church, parttime job, helping others, no man, no romance). The arrival of Rocky and Helena Napiers is quite disturbing for her and her quiet - excellent - beliefs and way of live.
Everyone seems to love this novel and I liked it, but not as much as the rest of you I guess.

3*

473 - Austerlitz

A wonderful novel about Jacques Auterlitz, who was raised in Wales by foster parents in the early 1940s. He knows they are not his real parents but he refuses to think of his past and lives his life fleeing the truth while he is hardly aware of doing just that. He flees into architecture (various parts of the book are about historical buildings, brilliantly described) and into his own isolation.

Until one day he hears about transports of Jewish children from Prague to the UK just before WWII. He realizes he was one of those children and that he no longer can or wants to flee from his past and his roots.

The book is so beautifully written, as a reader you really are completely drawn into Austerlitz's meandering thoughts and emotions - even though his story is being told by an unknown third person.

4,5*

great review... makes me want to read it NOW!

474 - Midaq Alley

'This crisis too, like all the others, finally subsided and the alley returned to its usual state of indifference and forgetfulness.'

Midaq Alley in Cairo is the world to most of its inhabitants, who hardly ever leave it. And indeed it is, with all that happens to the people who live there. Mahfouz creates personages and an atmosphere that make the alley incredibly real to me. The joy and the sadness, the interaction between the neighbours and their faith in god make it a such an authentic and unforgettable story.

4,5*

475 - The Driver's Seat

I knew nothing about this book and just started to read. So I was completely surprised by Lise, whose thoughts we never know, which makes this book so creepy and funny at the same time.
In the end, she is certainly in the driver's seat. Recommended easy-read!

4*

Easy but strange, my favourite kind :)

The Temple of Dawn

This third part in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy I liked less than the first two parts. I think it is because I liked the serenity of the other books, the calmness and tranquility, the aesthetics which I found so remarkable for Japan (I just travelled there this summer). Now suddenly Mr Honda appears to be human after all, and even one with weaknesses! Mishima brings sex into the story and voyeurism. I think I should have known that the Japanese have sex as well :-), it's just that I liked to read a book about a world so different from mine.

3*

476 - The Stechlin

Lake Stechlin and the eponymous Pruisiese noble family are the focus of this novel, which is set in the late 19th century, a time of great social change. Mainly by dialogues, the novel sketches a picture of Prussia into a fermenting Europe.

3*

477 - The Sea of Fertility

With The Decay of the Angel I finished this Japanese tetralogy. The fourth book in the series is really a book about decay, mostly that of the main character Honda. He started as such a kind boy, became a respected man and judge, grows older and finally falls into disgrace. His behaviour, his health and all that he believed in and lived for: in the end nothing is wat it seemed.

I don't know if this resembles the way Mishima thought of his country. I became very interested in the author himself, who committed seppuku after finishing this book. I became interested in him much more than in the book itself.
I liked the first two books better than the last two - because of the beauty and hope life still had then for Honda. However, I learned a lot by reading it and I see its importance for Japanese literature.

3*

478 - An Obedient Father

What a strange book. It combines the story of corruption and politics in India with one about incest. In both cases the father is guilty. He feels sorry however, deeply sorry. And the strangest thing is, you start feeling sorry for him yourself, because he is so obedient. But he did rape his daughter and betray his political allies. The story is not that interesting; it is the way Sharma is able to make you feel. Me at least.

3,5*

479 - Troubles

This is the story of the Major who stays in the decaying Majestic Hotel in Ireland way too long. However, many of the guests never leave, although the place is taken over by cracks in the walls, roots through the carpets, cats and rats.

The parallels with the situation in Ireland are clear: these are the 1920s and Ireland experiences its 'Troubles'.

The guests at the hotel try to hide from reality although they have a strong opinion of the Irish.

All of the above could have led to a real interesting story. It did not however. For me the characters are way too one-dimensional (I felt like watching them, not getting to know them) and a lot of storylines are not worked out at all, which I thought was quite frustating.

3*

480 - Buddenbrooks

I finally finished this saga of the Buddenbrooks, one of the upperclass families in 19th century Germany. Four generations, one family firm, in the hands of the eldest son.

Everyone obeys the inritten rules of how a well-to-do family should behave. But time goes by and we witness the slow decline of the family and its traditions.

An intimate portrait of their lives, so much that it sometimes made me feel uneasy. And made me feel very sorry for their losses and sorrows.

4*

481 - them

I have to reconsider my opinion of Oates, whose novels I until now thought of as a little too much 'American dream'-ish. This book is all but the American Dream; it shows in a very realistic way the grim existence of 'them', the poor family Wendall, living in Detroit in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century.

To me they started out as 'them' for sure; mother Loretta is so very far away from anyone I know or can imagine. Her harshness, her quite unconventional (to say the least) love for her children, but also her strength and willpower.
Her children Jules and Maureen, however, were becoming more and more real to me. Their different reactions to the circumstances under which they grow up are quite moving and in a way I can relate to it, which makes 'them' no longer 'them'. I think this is the point that Oates wanted to make with this novel.

Besides that I was shocked by the Afterword after reading the Author's Note! It changed my image of Oates as a writer completely!

Just one question remains: what is the role of the youngest sister Betty and why hasn't she been given a voice?

4*

482 - City of God

A complicated read with various storylines about science, religion, poetry, war etc. I don't think I understood all of them (for example: what happened to Moira?), but I enjoyed the more accesible parts, about life in a Lithuanian ghetto during WWII. Sarah's father lives here as a boy. He smuggles the diaries of one of the inhabitants out of the ghetto to a priest in the city, who keeps them as an account of what happens to the Jews during the war. After the war, Sarah's husband and after him a priest, doubting christianity, start looking for those diaries in Europe.
But this is just one of the storylines and some of them went way over my head.
Still I love Doctorow's writing and the way he writes about judaism, christianity and religion in general

3,5*

483 - The Comfort of Strangers

This is a creepy book for sure. I read it quite slowly, did want to treasure every word of it. All have a meaning, whether it is about Mary and Colin's relationship, Venice or about meeting Robert and Caroline. You feel the tension building up, without understanding what's actually happening. Definitely one of McEwan's best.

4,5*

Absolutely agree on this one. Read it in German and (like you) in Venice, and must reread in English one day.
McEwan can write the creepy very well..

484 - Death in Venice

A struggle at first, but more intriguing by the page. This is the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, who travels to the Lido in Venice. His admiration for a young, beautiful boy, who is staying there as well, becomes obsessive and ultimately, destroys him. So sad.

3,5*

485 - Siddharta

A boy looking for the meaning of life. A mix of philosophy and mysticism which I guess I once would have liked, but do not today. At the moment I am not too busy looking for the meaning of life, that's probably it.

2*

486 - Young Torless

I hated this book. Not because of its style but because of its subject. The humiliation of one boy by other boys (while calling -mentally- torturing 'confusion') is disgusting. Even worse is the complete lack of conscious the bullyers show. It being Germany in the beginning of the 20th century didn't help either.

Maybe I should rate this book with 5 stars because it has this effect on me but I just can't.

2*

#378, I found this book vile as well. I think I gave it an extra half-star for teaching me something about the backstory of Nazism.

487 - Wings of the Dove

This was one of the strangest reading experiences I ever had. It has taken me about a month to finish it, helped by Shmoop, where I re-read every chapter I finished to make sure I knew what had been going on.
Because that is quite difficult in this book. So much observations in such long sentences, and such weird conversations in which everyone is being as cryptic as he or she can be.

It also took so long because I didn't care much about the characters or what would become of them.
The story is about Kate and Merton who are in love but cannot marry because he's got no money. Then he meets Milly, who is in love with him and very rich. Kate convinces Merton to marry Milly (who is very ill) to inherit all her money, so they can marry themselves afterwards.

And then, suddenly, it gripped me. Especially the development of the characters and the way they relate to what's going on. Suddenly they become so very real to me, with their strength and weaknesses.

While reading 3/4 of the book I thought it would be a 2,5 star read. After I finished it, I decided on a 3,5 and one hour later I realized I couldn't stop thinking about them and I upgraded it to a 4 star read.

Not easy but worth the effort. And a stunning ending!

4*

>380 Simone2: Interesting. I'm half way through and thinking 2 to 2.5 rating so looking forward to the uplift that you found.

>381 puckers: I hope you'll have the same experience and look forward to your thoughts.

488 - House of Leaves

Basically this is the story of Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Will Navidson, who moves to a house in Virginia with his wife and kids. However, the house is much bigger from the inside than it appears from the outside. Suddenly there appears a door in a wall, leading to a space much greater and deeper and spookier than anyone can imagine. The space frightens and attracts the inhabitants. All is filmed by the husband and others, written down by the mysterious Zampano and commented upon by Johnny Truant, who at the same time tells his own story.

I read the discussion about whether this is a horror book or a love story and I am inclined to the latter, but most of all I was intrigued by the format, the flow and the footnotes. Sometimes I had no idea what was going on, sometimes I could visualize all that was happening. Sometimes I was bored, sometimes I was moved (especially by Johnny's past).

Besides, the design of the book is great, I could literally feel the agoraphobic and claustrophobic effects of the house.

4*

489 - The Collector

This is the story of a young man, Fred, so obsessed by a girl that he kidnaps her and keeps her as his own posession.

Reading his thoughts and reasoning is creepy but so fascinating. The girl, Miranda, keeps a diary, so we know her thoughts and fears as well. She is an intelligent, good girl, but, strange as it may sound, I preferred reading Fred, whose thoughts I found so much more interesting.

Man, that Fowles with only words gets me to this point where I do kind of sympathize with Fred, feel sorry for him. The Stockholm-syndrom in 280 pages.

Great read.
4*

>384 Simone2:

It's great, isn't it? It's twenty-plus years since I read it, but it left quite an impression.

490 - The Day of the Triffids

I read this book this weekend, while also constantly watching the news and my social media for updates on the attacks on Paris. This made it a strange reading experience. The book describes the end of the world as we know it, in the mean time I was wondering if the same could be said of our world today. Quite scary. Probably I didn't give the book as much attention as it should, because I was not so overwhelmed as many of you are in your reviews.

PS I was afraid it would be kind of the same as Saramago's Blindness, but it isn't at all!

3,5*

I'm reading Midwich Cuckoos at the moment. Pretty creepy too. Not sure which way it will go at the moment so wondering if it will be better than the Triffids.

>387 arukiyomi: Good luck, I liked the Cuckoos a lot.

Just read your review of Cold Comfort Farm by the way, which I am starting now. Your review is a bit negative but you grade it with a 7.9. Makes me curious.

just goes to show that my rating system prevents me from trashing a book just because I didn't appreciate it! But I did think it was clever. I just wasn't experienced enough in lit 5 years ago to be able to judge its genius objectively.

491 - Cold Comfort Farm

An easy read which I, however, didn't think as funny as I was supposed to be. I read a lot of English classics but I don't get what Gibbons trying to do. To me it is just a nice read of Flora, who settles things and brings order to Cold Comfort Farm.

3,5*

492 - The Romantics

Nothing much happens in yet another novel about contemporary India. That is the strenght of this book but I guess that leaves little to remember it for.

3*

493 - Waterland

What a weird book. I liked the concept of the History teacher telling stories to his class. I liked the description and history of The Fens (a place in England I had never heard of) and I liked most storylines which all came neatly together in the end.
I just wonder if Swift needed all of them, if the story wouldn't have been just as powerful with a little less of, well, of everything.

3,5*

>392 Simone2: Have you read The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers? It's another 1001 book set in the Fens.

>393 annamorphic: No I did not, but I do have a copy so will read it soon. What a coincidence - I think. Thanks!

>394 Simone2: Oh you are in for a treat!! And then watch the BBC production with Ian Carmichael. I feel a reread coming on for the holidays....

494 - The Forsyte Saga

This is the great story of the Forsytes, an upperclass family in Victorian/Edwardian England.

The story contains wars, money, feuds, marriages and deaths, all centered in one way or another around Soames Forsyte and his (ex) wife Irene.
I loved the way Galsworthy describes these characters and the ones surroundings them. I really did not know at times whose side I was on. No one is either good or bad, everyone is almost painfully human. Except for the beautiful Irene, whose thoughts we never know although her role is so important to the story and the people surrounding her.

I think Galsworthy did a great job in this way of telling the story. Highly recommended!!

4,5*

At the end of the year it is time for some statistics! A wrap-up of my reading in 2015.

I read 61 listed books, equal to 21,500 pages. This brings my total to 494 books, which means 37,9% of the total.

After a period of real classics, in 2015 I obviously (though not aware) focussed on the 20th century (39 books), followed by the 21th (12), the 19th (9) and the 16th (1) century.

Of the books I read, 48 were written by men, 13 by women.

I read books from the following countries:
- 19 from the UK
- 16 from the US
- 7 from Germany
- 3 from India and Japan
- 2 from France and Ireland
- 1 from Australia, Chile, Czech Republic, Egypt, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Serbia, Spain and Sweden

For 2016 I want to finally read a book by writers with 4 or more books on the list of whom I haven't read any. These are:
- Elizabeth Bowen
- Heinrich Böll
- William Faulkner
- André Gide
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Wyndham Lewis
- George Perec
- Thomas Pynchon
- Jean Jacques Rousseau
- Anthony Trollope
- HG Wells

495 - Molloy

Okay, another one for 2015. But one unfinished. I tried twice and for several days, but I really can't get through it. Man, and it is only the first I read by Beckett. Worse, I read on Wikipedia that Molloy is one of the more readable.
Annamorphic I read your review of this book and do admire you!

1*

>398 Simone2: Possibly it helped me to listen to Molloy on audiobooks, although I also enjoyed the other Becketts that I went on to read afterwards.

496 - Virgin Soil

According to Google, a 'Virgin soil epidemic' is an epidemic 'in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless.'

This definition must have been based on Turgenev's novel!

Anyhow, he is a very readable Russian, this Turgenev! In this book he writes an interesting story about Russia before the revolution. Ruled by czars and aristocrats, the country looks just like other European countries, in with the rich live their lives in a similar way as when I read a 19th century English novel. People speaking French, dining out, travelling in carriages in beautiful dresses, etc.

The story is about Nezhdanov, a young man with a Cause: to create awareness among the population that they are being exploited by the aristocrats and thus realize a revolution. He shares this idea with some other people. Although he is some kind of leader in the group and people admire him, deep down he starts realizing that he is not made for the Cause and its implications. Sure, he wants another world but he is uncertain what kind of. Instead of a revolutionair he is more of an idealist and a poet.
His struggle is moving, as are the people surroundig him: everyone has a different attitude towards the Cause and that makes Turgenev's story really believable.

4*

497 - Rabbit Redux

More than a year after the first of the series, I read this second part. It didn't matter much, I recognized Harry Angstrom immediately. You have to like him, even though he is disgusting at times. In this novel he is a lousy father, starts with a very conservative political view, is horrible towards Jill, the 18-years old runaway who comes to live with him, lets her be abused by Skeeder etc. And still... He has his good sides as well.

Updike gives us a perfect insight into the US in the sixties (I think), his dialogues are great. He is really a great writer, even though I don't appreciate the Rabbit's as much as I did some of his other novels.

3,5*

498 - Malone Dies

I tried another Beckett and this one I actually finished!
I can't say I understood all of it but it read like a kind of delirium and I liked that and admire Beckett for being able to write this way. Someone told me once that Beckett was hiding from the nazi's writing this story, maybe that has something to do with it. The waiting, the urgency to write... Maybe.

Malone is dying in his bed in a place unknown to him where he gets food and where someone empties his chamberpot. He has a stick with which he is able to reach all objects in the room, because he can't leave his bed.

Lying there waiting for death he writes down the story of Sapo, later Macmann, who seems to be Malone himself. Macmann also ends in bed and is fighting about a stick. In his delirium he even changes between the first and third person.

A strange story in which I (sentimentalist) liked the short love affair with Molly best, especially the poems Malone writes for her.

3*

>401 Simone2: I've been meaning to try some other Updike's after finishing the Rabbit series last year, just because he is such a good writer. What are you recommendations?

>403 aliciamay: I liked The Witches of Eastwick, Marry Me and Too Far to Go a lot!

499 - Tono-Bungay

I don't know what to make of this book. It started out well and I liked the idea of a handful of nothing (Tono-Bungay) turned in a commercial success.
Then however many more storylines were introduced, a lot of which I did not understand or were not interested in. I wish HG Wells would have sticked to the trade-aspect and well, the love stories were not bad either, but I ended up being utterly not interested.

So much for my introduction in the works of Wells!

2*

500 - Steppenwolf

A magic number, my 500th book from the list. I didn't celebrate it with a special read, just followed my very stringent system :-), which led me to Herman Hesse once again.

I feel so not connected to his characters that it is always a hard read for me - with the exception of Narciss and Goldmund which I read and loved as a student, but that was a long time ago.

I didn't finish Demian when I tried reading it, I was not very interested in Siddharta and now I read about Harry Haller; half man, half steppenwolf, as he reads in a tractate given to him by the man of the magical theatre. Conscious of what he is reading he realizes suicide can be a way out of his struggle between his very varying moods. Then he meets Hermine, and their relationship is very healing to him. Hesse himself assures us in his afterword that Harry is being cured.
I don't know what to believe. I don't know what's real in the story and what's not.
Despite some very good scenes and thoughts, Hesse lost me once again along the way.

2,5*

Congratulations on 500!! Even if it was with a 2.5 star book. I'm not a Hesse fan either.

Well done. Half a book to go to half way done!

Congratulations!