June 2013 - What books are we reading?

On a short summer vacation, hoping to read a book a day. As it's vacation, reading some of the newest additions to the 1001 lists (pretending modern-day books are easier/"lighter" than the older ones).

So, I have finished American Rust, set in a failed Steel town in Pennsylvania, two young men that could have left the dying town long ago but haven't, accidentally start a chain of events that will shake up the lives of those close to them. The story is told through five, alternating narrators. Somewhere about 2/3 of the way through it really picks up the pace as various characters take the irrevocable steps that will alter their lives forever (usually not for the better).

Next up: Cost, Cain, The Sea, The Art of Fielding, Home, A Gate at the Stairs

ETA: Oops, forgot to put "1001" in the topic title. Can't find a way to edit the topic title or delete it and start over.

That sounds like a nice vacation!

I'll be finishing Fantomas in the next day or so. I have been pleasantly surprised by this one - it's kind of like a French Sherlock Holmes.

For the third Month in a row I am still currently reading Bleak House on my Kindle. However, I'm about 75% of the way through and the tension is building so much I doubt I will be able to stop myself picking it up at every opportunity! I've been thinking about Don Quixote as my next Kindle book but off the back of Bleak House it might be a bit much so will probably break it up with something a bit lighter!

On real life paper I'm about the start The Kindly Ones and will then move on to the group read The French Lieutenant's Woman

I've just started The Tale of Genji, it'll take a while though at a thousand pages!

>4 soffitta1: I really enjoyed Genji as my subway book -- it has lots of short episodes that could get repetitive if one tries to read it all in one go. For me, it was very much like a book-version of a sitcom, such as "Friends", a core group of characters, many bit players, and while the details of each story differ, the general pattern/story arc is the same.

I thought Genji was fun at first, but the repetitiveness got to me after awhile. And I did try to read it in one go, so I'd say follow @ELiz_M's advice and read it in bits. But then that would take even longer!

Last night I finished Lost Illusions by Balzac. I enjoyed Lucien's rise and fall in Paris, and since I thought he was a bit of a douchbag I didn't mind the "fall" part a bit, but then the last third of the book is nonstop horrible things happening to David and Eve, and I ended up skimming most of it because it became a bit much. I do love Balzac's writing style, although what did he have against journalists?

I think I'll take your advice - it does seem good for dipping into. I recently read The Pillow Book, which was similar in tone at times.

FINALLY finished 2666, which I'd been working on for a few weeks. Really felt like more of a 'feeling' and atmosphere than a story. Still kind of digesting it....not sure what sort of rating I would give it yet.

I've decided to go through the list (more or less) alphabetically by title, thus taking my obsession with ordering things and lists to a whole new level. Obviously, if there's something I'd like to read out of order, I will do so with (almost) no hesitation. ;)

Got all the numbers done, so I'm now onto Aaron's Rod. This is my first Lawrence - finding it hard to keep the characters straight and finding it quite different from most things I've read. Seems to be quite obscure, so not sure if it's representative of his writing.

My pile of books to read 'next' on the coffee table is turning into a joke... it would take me well into July to read them all. But currently second from the top is A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz so I hope to get to it in June.

I just finished June's group read, The French Lieutenant's Woman. I can highly recommend you to join this read! Now starting in Hallucinating Foucault and Oblomov.

Just finished up with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay this morning, which I liked. I'll be joining the group read of The French Lieutenant's Woman next.

Started The Godfather by Mario Puzo yesterday. Just what I needed, an easy-to-read pageturner. The only problem is that now the musical theme from the movie is stuck in my head and won't go away. I pick up the book and the music starts... I am surprised at how close the first movie has been to the book, so far it's almost 1:1. Don't remember part II too well, I must rewatch this weekend.

I am very slowly reading Memoriale del Convento (Balthasar and Blimunda) by José Saramago. Seems to be a great book, but I need to read it very slowly to fully enjoy those typical page(s)-long Saramago sentences. I might take it into the July GR.

And I finished this month's Powell, The Kindly Ones, so now I am half through the Dance to the Music of Time series and loving it more and more.

I just started The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. I'm not really far into the novel but it seems promising...

I finished Bel-Ami in a night and am now moving on to Pierre et Jean, also by Guy de Maupassant.

@ 12 - and now I have the music in my head too! Not such a bad thing though.

Having just finished Bleak House I'm going to be starting Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

I've started The French Lieutenant's Woman. And I'm very behind in the A Dance to the Music of Time! Oh dear, I did want to read one a month, I think I've only managed two all year so far! Best laid plans...

Loved The French Lieutenant's Woman.... moving onto A Home at the End of the World next.

>16 wookiebender: You are doing better than me on A Dance to the Music of Time - I haven't even finished the 1st book. Every month I tell myself that I will get caught up, and then I get distracted.

I've started Camilla, which so far is more entertaining than I was expecting.

Finished Absolute Beginners last night and today finally finished North and South. Next up is Candide.

I'm reading three 1001 books at the moment, or reading 2 and listening to one. On audio, I'm Not Scared -- enjoyable but so far I don't understand why it's on the 1001 list. On paper, the first volume of the Kristin Lavransdatter series by Sigrid Undset: in its own way kind of amazing and I get why it won a Nobel prize for literature. Also on paper, Rickshaw by Lao She, which is OK but no as good as I was expecting.

I am still plugging along reading Les Misérables. It is mostly a good read but sooooooo long. My goal is to finish it by this month.

I'm starting Virginia Woolf's least popular novel, Night and Day.

Read Conversations in Sicily and The Devil and Miss Prym and Candide over the last few days.

Finished up A Home at the End of the World last night. My next book (which will be my 200th) will be A Boy's Own Story merely because that's what has migrated up to the top of the TBR pile.

I've just started Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I've always wanted to read the novel that is the basis for so many movies.

Finished Philip Roth's Nemesis, next up is A Visit From the Goon Squad.

>1 ELiz_M: - I returned home from vacation a few days ago and what I actually read was:

Cost - better than American Rust as the characters feel more real. It does have a certain melodrama quality to it (hard to avoid given the subject matter). I can't believe it was never picked for Oprah's Book Club.

Home - same locale, same time-frame as Gilead, but the focus of Home is Reverend Robert Boughton's family (with Minister Jonathan Ames, the narrator of Gilead, as a minor character). The writing is brilliant.

Like Life - the writing is good, but I suspect I would have appreciated the subject matter more if I was older.

The Sea - probably a wonderful book, but it was just not the right time for me to be reading it; I was unable to give it the proper attention.

The Art of Fielding - enjoyable, not necessarily memorable.

The Story of the Eye - while, ahem, eye-opening, it was less shocking than expected. Although it may be a while before I can eat hard-boiled eggs again.

Summer - not Edith Wharton's best.

The Stranger - different than I expected and wonderfully written.

Dangling Man - written in journal form, this should have been a good choice for traveling, but I found it required more introspection than afforded in airports/planes/subways.

And now I am returning to Buddenbrooks, which was left at home due to its mass.

I finished The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles and Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall, both good reads though in a very different way.

Now I started a challenge to get through some of those long-waiting books from my shelf instead of constantly buying new ones, beginning with Atonement by Ian McEwan. I didn't like the movie much and therefore was never much tempted to read the book, but so far (only 3 chapters in) I am enjoying it a lot.

Just finished The Abbot C....not sure what to say. I'm certain a lot of it went over my head. Short but intense.

Now onto Absalom, Absalom!, which will be my first Faulkner. I've read a bit about it to prepare myself - sounds beautiful, but difficult.

I finished The Master of Ballantrae. I think this was only on the 2006 list and it is certainly not Stevenson's best, but it was okay.

Finished The Thirty-Nine Steps and on to The Inferno now.

Stats are now 155 read out of 1305 from all four lists; 121/1001 from the current 2012 list.

I am ready to start the second book in the Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy. I liked the first one a lot but must confess that I was distressed to see that book 2, which arrived in the mail today, was about twice as long! This is a bigger project than I had anticipated. I wonder how long Book 3 is...

#282 - The French Lieutenant's Woman - 4.5 Stars - Read it with the group for June. Outstanding piece of literature.

A Visit From the Goon Squad and Henri Barbusse's The Inferno done.

Finished both Atonement and the really short They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.

Finally making some progress with Baltasar and Blimunda/ Memoriale del Convento, almost 70%. This will be an interesting GR next month... yesterday I encountered a sentence that went over many many many Kindle pages. I don't want to give a wrong impression - I quite love the book and am very impressed by the writing. It's just a very difficult and time-consuming (though rewarding) read in a foreign language. It's a pity I couldn't find it in German. I use a dictionary, but I feel I'm still missing much.

I am also listening to A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro. Nice, but so far not as good as Never let me go and The Remains of the Day.

Finished The French Lieutenant's Woman which was good, although I may have to re-read the final chapters to get a handle on what was happening.

Now reading The Big Sleep, as wickedly charming as Chandler always is.

I finished The Butcher Boy recently and I'm now reading The Golden Notebook. Attempting to finish it in the next few days so I can return it to my daughter. But it's not really a race-through-it sort of book so far, so we'll see.

Still reading Buddenbrooks (almost done!), but also reading shorter works in-between.

Waiting for the Barbarians was much, much better than I expected (I don't care for Coetzee's other works) and Willard and His Bowling Trophies by R. Brautigan; it was odd. It was a very fast read, which probably means I read it too fast. I suspect it would make a better Coen Brothers movie than book.

Finished A Pale View of Hills and Memoriale del Convento, quite a good 1,001 month so far with 7 books read!

Now started two more books on my 'clean the 1,001 shelf' quest: Il castello dei destini incrociati by Italo Calvino (thanks God it's short, not at all 'my' book so far) and Money by Martin Amis.
Still successfully avoiding The German Lesson but it stares at me menacingly from the shelf..

Oh, The German Lesson is in many ways surprisingly good. It is flawed (the man needed a good editor), but the core of it is good. I think I gave it 3 stars. So have no fear! (Or less fear, anyway).

Finished up with A Boy's Own Story today, which I liked. Probably heading on to Baltasar and Blimunda next since it's so close to July's group read.

I recently started Mother by Maxim Gorky. Surprisingly accessible for Russian lit.

I'm also about 1/3 in to Freedom. So far I don't like it as much as The Corrections, but maybe it will improve.

I'm going to give The Inheritance of Loss a try, although to be honest it looks like a bit of a snooze.

Just started A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

The last week or so has been very slow reading for me (helping my wife prepare for a job application and interview today...fingers crossed!) but I have now finished Kim and am about 100 pages out from finishing The French Lieutenant's Woman.

In Kindle world I've finally taken the plunge and started Don Quixote

I'm almost halfway through Tipping the Velvet, just started Midnight's Children and will be starting The Shroud- touchstone is incorrect, by John Banville, which I can't find as an option.

With my June reading:

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

I bring my totals to: 116 authors and 157 books.

Invisible Cities was an oddly, interesting book. Each brief chapter described the geography of a city, the habits of its inhabitants, and other municipal characteristics. The chapters presented a mathematical progression with cities be revisted with a new level of information up to six times. The selection of this book intrigues me.

In Lucky Jim, James Dixon seems not too sympathetic. As the story unfolds, he becomes a more complex and less dislikable. Until the end, after the author explores the role of chance in our lives, Jim "gets the girl" and we cheer.

I finished 4 more since my last entry which brings my count to 276:
- Martin Amis' Money which was surprisingly good (and I usually hate books about drinking/ drugs!), it's all in the writing;
- Schande/ Disgrace, my first Coetzee - not as bad an experience as I had feared;
- Italo Calvino's Il castello dei destini incrociati which I hated although I acknowledge Calvino's genius and another Italian book:
- L'amore molesto/ Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante, that one was quite good but only towards the ending.

I have Invisible Cities on my shelf as well and plan to read it soon. I always have problems with Calvino, but somehow his books are also tempting.

I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed The Book of Evidence by John Banville. Now I'm on to a combination of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and The Drunkard by Emile Zola.

I finished The Buddha of Suburbia last night. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. Seems I've been reading a fair amount of men's 'coming of age' stories and I really must take a break from those.

Finally finished Buddenbrooks about a week ago. It is wonderful, epic in scope, reads easily but also has some depth to ponder over.

This summer is going to be good for reading time. In June I also finished Remembering Babylon, which is quite quite good. The frisson produced in the small frontier town with the appearance of the unlikeliest of characters is well-portrayed and leaves a lot to thin bout the human condition.

The French Lieutenant's Woman read much faster than I anticipated. I usually adore meta-fiction and this was no exception. I thought the juxtaposition of Victorian England with the present-day thoughts and analysis of the author was just right.

After a full three months of reading, I finally finished The Count of Monte Cristo the other day. Loved it!

Currently reading The Castle of Otranto as I adore Gothic literature and this is considered to be the first true Gothic novel. I must say that as a historical curiosity it isn't too bad, but the genre definitely got a lot better as time went on. To be fair, this translation was written in the 1760's and the story itself dates back to around the time of the Crusades.