aliciamay's 1001 List

Listed below are the books I have read from the 2006 edition of the list. I have listed the year read and my entirely subjective rating. I’m rather stingy with my 5 star ratings - those books are in bold. I have been hitting the older books hard because lots of them are public domain making them easy to get a hold of and also because it’s interesting to see the progression of genres. I have abandoned several books so far, but I count them in my totals because I made a valiant effort. Sometimes it was just the wrong book at the wrong time so maybe I will try them again eventually. And someday I would also like to get around to re-reading all of the books that I read before I started the challenge in 2010 – because there just are not enough books on the list : ) I hope you enjoy following my progress.

Pre-Eighteenth Century (13 of 13) or 100%
Eighteenth Century (44 of 45) or 98%
Nineteenth Century (124 of 158) or 78%
Twentieth Century (255 of 716) or 35%
Twenty-First Century (17 of 69) or 25%




Currently reading:

Pre-Eighteenth Century (13 of 13)
Aesop’s Fables, read in 2010, 2.5 stars
Metamorphoses, read in 2010, abandoned
Chaireas and Kallirhoe, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Aithiopika, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Thousand and One Nights, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Golden Ass, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Gargantua and Pantagruel, read in 2010, 3 stars
Euphues, read in 2010, abandoned
The Unfortunate Traveller, read in 2010, abandoned
Don Quixote, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Pilgrim’s Progress, read in 2010, 2 stars
The Princess of Clèves, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Oroonoko, read in 2010, 2 stars

Eighteenth Century (44 of 45)
A Tale of a Tub, read in 2010, 1 star
Robinson Crusoe, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Love in Excess, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
Moll Flanders, read in 2010, 4 stars
Roxana, read in 2012, 3 stars
Gulliver’s Travels, read in 2011, 2 stars
A Modest Proposal, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Joseph Andrews, read in 2011, 3 stars
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, read in 2012, 2.5 stars
Pamela, read in 2011, 2 stars
Clarissa, read in 2010, 2 stars
Roderick Random, read in 2011, 2 stars
Tom Jones, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Fanny Hill, read in 2011, 1.5 stars
Peregrine Pickle, read in 2012, 3 stars
Amelia, read in 2012, 2.5 stars
The Female Quixote, read in 2011, 3 stars
Candide, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Rasselas, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
Julie; or, the New Eloise, read in 2012, abandoned
Émile; or, On Education, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Castle of Otranto, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Vicar of Wakefield, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Tristram Shandy, read in 2011, abandoned
A Sentimental Journey, read in 2012, 2 stars
The Man of Feeling, read in 2012, 3 stars
Humphrey Clinker, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Sorrows of Young Werther, read in 2011, 3 stars
Evelina, read in 2010, 4 stars
Reveries of a Solitary Walker, read in 2015, 3 stars
Dangerous Liaisons, read in 2014, 4 stars
Confessions, read in 2013, abandoned
Cecilia, read in 2010, 4 stars
The 120 Days of Sodom, abandoned 2017, abandoned
Vathek, read in 2012, 3 stars
Justine, abandoned 2017, abandoned
The Adventures of Caleb Williams, read in 2012, 4 stars
The Interesting Narrative, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Mysteries of Udolpho, read in 2012, 3 stars
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, read in 2012, abandoned
The Monk, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Camilla, read in 2013, 3 stars
Jacques the Fatalist, read in 2016, abandoned
The Nun, read in 2014, 3 stars

Nineteenth Century (124 of 158)
Castle Rackrent, read in 2010, 3 stars
Elective Affinities, read in 2015, 2.5 stars
Rameau’s Nephew, read in 2012, 2 stars
The Absentee, read in 2012, 4 stars
Sense and Sensibility, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Pride and Prejudice, read in 2011, 4 stars
Mansfield Park, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Emma, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Rob Roy, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Ormond, read in 2012, 4 stars
Persuasion, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Northanger Abbey, read in 2010, 3 stars
Frankenstein, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Ivanhoe, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Melmoth the Wanderer, read in 2012, 3 stars
Last of the Mohicans, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Red and the Black, read in 2014 2 stars
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
Eugénie Grandet, read in 2012, 4 stars
Old Goriot, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Nose, read in 2011, 4 stars
Oliver Twist, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
The Fall of the House of Usher, read in 2010, 4 stars
Dead Souls, read in 2012, 3 stars
A Christmas Carol, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
The Pit and the Pendulum, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Martin Chuzzlewit, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Purloined Letter, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Three Musketeers, read in 2012, 4 stars
Queen Margot, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Count of Monte Cristo, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Jane Eyre, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Vanity Fair, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Agnes Grey, read in 2010, 4 stars
Wuthering Heights, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Mary Barton, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
Shirley, read in 2011, 4 stars
David Copperfield, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
The Scarlet Letter, read pre-2010, 4 stars
Moby-Dick, read in 2012, 4 stars
The House of Seven Gables, read in 2011, 4 stars
The Blithedale Romance, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, read pre-2010, 5 stars
Cranford, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Villette, read in 2012, 4 stars
Bleak House, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Walden, read in 2012, 4 stars

Hard Times, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
North and South, read in 2012, 4 stars
Madame Bovary, read in 2012, 3 stars
Adam Bede, read in 2011, 4 stars
A Tale of Two Cities, read in 2013, 5 stars
The Woman in White, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
The Mill on the Floss, read in 2011, 3 stars
On the Eve, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Marble Faun, read in 2013, 3 stars
Great Expectations, read in 2014, 4 stars
Silas Marner, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
Fathers and Sons, read in 2013, 3 stars
Les Miserables, read in 2013, 4 stars
The Water Babies, read in 2011, 4 stars
Notes from the Underground, read in 2011, 3 stars
Uncle Silas, read in 2013, 3 stars
Our Mutual Friend, read in 2015, 2 stars
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, read in 2010, 4 stars
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, read in 2011, 4 stars
Crime and Punishment, read pre-2010, 4 stars
Thérèse Raquin, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
The Moonstone, read in 2011, 4 stars
Little Women, read pre-2010, 4 stars
The Idiot, read in 2011, 3 stars
War and Peace, read in 2010, 4 stars
Through the Looking Glass, read in 2010, 3 stars
Middlemarch, read in 2010, 3 stars
Erewhon, read in 2011, 2 stars
The Devils, read in 2012, 2 stars
Around the World in Eighty Days, read in 2012, 4 stars
Far From the Madding Crowd, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
The Hand of Ethelberta, read in 2011, 3 stars
Daniel Deronda, read in 2013, 2 stars
Drunkard, read in 2011, 3 stars
Anna Karenina, read pre-2010, 1 star
Return of the Native, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
The Red Room, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Brothers Karamazov, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Ben-Hur, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Portrait of a Lady, read in 2011, 4 stars
Treasure Island, read in 2011, 4 stars
A Woman’s Life, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, read in 2010, 4 stars
Against the Grain, read in 2012, 2.5 stars
Bel-Ami, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, read pre-2010, 4 stars
King Solomon’s Mines, read in 2012, 4 stars
Kidnapped, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
The Mayor of Casterbridge, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
She, read in 2014, 3 stars

The Woodlanders, read in 2012, 4 stars
Pierre et Jean, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Master of Ballantrae, read in 2013, 3 stars
Hunger, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Kreutzer Sonata, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Picture of Dorian Gray, read in 2011, 4 stars
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, read in 2013, 4.5 stars
Gösta Berling’s Saga, read in 2012, 3 stars
New Grub Street, read in 2011, 4 stars
News From Nowhere, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, read in 2010, 4 stars
Diary of a Nobody, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Yellow Wallpaper, read pre-2010, 3.5 stars
Jude the Obscure, read in 2017, 3.5 stars
Effi Briest, read in 2012, 4 stars
The Time Machine, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Island of Dr. Moreau, read in 2010, 4 stars
Quo Vadis, read in 2013, 3 stars
Dracula, read in 2010, 4 stars
What Maisie Knew, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Invisible Man, read in 2011, 4 stars
The War of the Worlds, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
The Turn of the Screw, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Awakening, read in 2010, 4 stars

Twentieth Century (255 of 716)
Sister Carrie, read in 2012, 4 stars
Lord Jim, read in 2010, 3 stars
Kim, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Hound of the Baskervilles, read in 2011, 4 stars
Heart of Darkness, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
The Wings of the Dove, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
The Golden Bowl, read in 2013, 2 stars
The Riddle of the Sands, read in 2013, 3 stars
The Call of the Wild, read pre-2010, 3.5 stars
Nostromo, read in 2011, 3 stars
Where Angels Fear to Tread, read in 2011, 4 stars
The House of Mirth, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Young Torless, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Forsyte Saga, read in 2011, 4 stars
The Jungle, read pre-2010, 5 stars
The Secret Agent, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Mother, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
The House on the Borderland, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
The Old Wives’ Tale, read in 2012, 4 stars
The Iron Heel, read in 2012, 4 stars
Tono-Bungay, read in 2011, 3 stars
A Room with a View, read in 2011, 3 stars
Martin Eden, read in 2013, 4 stars
Howards End, read in 2011, 4 stars
Fantômas, read in 2013, 4 stars
Ethan Frome, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Sons and Lovers, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, read in 2012, 3.5 stars

Tarzan of the Apes, read in 2012, 4 stars
Rosshalde, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Kokoro, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Thirty-Nine Steps, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Rainbow, read in 2013, 3 stars
Of Human Bondage, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
The Voyage Out, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Good Soldier, read in 2011, 3 stars
Under Fire, read in 2013, 4 stars
Bunner Sisters, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Growth of the Soil, read in 2013, 4.5 stars
Summer, read in 2010, 3 stars
The Shadow-Line, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Return of the Soldier, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Night and Day, read in 2010, 3 stars
Women in Love, read in 2014, 2 stars
Main Street, read in 2011, 4 stars
The Age of Innocence, read in 2012, 4.5 stars
Crome Yellow, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
The Fox, read in 2015, 2 stars
Babbitt, read in 2013, 4 stars
Life and Death of Harriett Frean, read in 2013, 3 stars
The Glimpses of the Moon, read in 2013, 4 stars
Siddhartha, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Jacob’s Room, read in 2011, 2 stars
The Garden Party, read in 2010, 4 stars
Antic Hay, read in 2013, 2 stars
A Passage to India, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Billy Budd, Sailor, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Professor's House, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Trial, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Great Gatsby, read in 2013, 4 stars
Mrs. Dalloway, read in 2011, 3 stars
Manhattan Transfer, read in 2010, 3 stars
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, read in 2010, 4 stars
Blindness, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Sun Also Rises, read in 2012, 4 stars
To The Lighthouse, read in 2014, 4 stars
Quicksand, read in 2013, 4 stars
Decline and Fall, read in 2016, 3.5 stars
The Childermass, read in 2014, abandoned
Parade's End, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
Orlando, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Sound and the Fury, read in 2014, 2.5 stars
The Last September, read in 2010, 3 stars
All Quiet on the Western Front, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Red Harvest, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
A Farewell to Arms, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Passing, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Maltese Falcon, read in 2014, 3 stars
Cakes and Ale, read in 2014, 4 stars
Brave New World, read in 2014, 4 stars
Testament of Youth, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
Call it Sleep, read in 2015, 3 stars
Thank You, Jeeves, read in 2015, 4 stars
The Postman Always Rings Twice, read in 2015, 4.5 stars

Burmese Days, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
England Made Me, read in 2011, 3 stars
At the Mountains of Madness, read in 2014, 2.5 stars
Keep the Aspidistra Flying, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
Gone With the Wind, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
To Have and Have Not, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
Out of Africa, read in 2017, 3.5 stars
The Hobbitt, read in 2010, 5 stars
Their Eyes Were Watching God, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Of Mice and Men, read in 2014, 5 stars
Murphy, read in 2011, abandoned
U.S.A., read in 2015, 3 stars
Brighton Rock, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Rebecca, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Big Sleep, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Grapes of Wrath, read in 2015, 4 stars
The Power and the Glory, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
For Whom the Bell Tolls, read in 2014, 3 stars
Farewell, My Lovely, read in 2015, 4 stars
The Stranger, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Little Prince, read in 2015, 4 stars
Dangling Man, read in 2011, 2.5 stars
Loving, read in 2015, 2 stars
Animal Farm, read pre-2010, 4.5 stars
Christ Stopped at Eboli, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
Brideshead Revisited, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Path to the Nest of Spiders, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
The Victim, read in 2011, 3 stars
Cry, the Beloved Country, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
The Heart of the Matter, read in 2014, 4 stars
Nineteen Eighty-Four, read pre-2010, 4 stars
I, Robot, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Third Man, read in 2016, 3 stars
Molloy, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Catcher in the Rye, read pre-2010, 2 stars
Malone Dies, read 2013, 2.5 stars
Wise Blood, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Old Man and the Sea, read pre-2010, 3.5 stars
Invisible Man, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Adventures of Augie March, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
Casino Royale, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Junkie, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
The Unnamable, read in 2015, 2.5 stars
Story of O, read in 2015, 2 stars
Under the Net, read in 2012, 3 stars
Lord of the Flies, read in 2012, 4 stars
Lolita, read in 2014, 4 stars
The Talented Mr. Ripley, read in 2016, 4 stars
Lord of the Rings, read in 2015, 4 stars
Seize the Day, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
On the Road, read pre-2010, 3.5 stars
Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, read in 2012, 4 stars
Things Fall Apart, read pre-2010, 4 stars
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, read in 2017, 2 stars
Memento Mori, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Tin Drum, read in 2014, 3 stars
Rabbit, Run, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
To Kill a Mockingbird, re-read in 2013, 4.5 stars
The Country Girls, read in 2011, 3.5 stars
Catch-22, read in 2010, 4 stars
Stranger in a Strange Land, read in 2013, 2 stars
The Drowned World, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
A Clockwork Orange, read in 2014, 4 stars
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, read in 2016, 2.5 stars
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
The Bell Jar, read pre-2010, 3 stars

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, read in 2013, 4 stars
The Graduate, read in 2015, 1 star
Cat’s Cradle, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, read in 2013, 4 stars
Things: A Story of the Sixties, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Crying of Lot 49, read in 2013, 3 stars
In Cold Blood, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
A Man Asleep, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Master and Margarita, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Wide Sargasso Sea, read in 2014, 4 stars
One Hundred Years of Solitude, read pre-2010, 2 stars
In Watermelon Sugar, read in 2010, 4 stars
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, read in 2013, 4 stars
them, read in 2013, 3 stars
The Godfather, read in 2010, 3.5 stars
Portnoy’s Complaint, read in 2011, 3 stars
Slaughterhouse-five, read pre-2010, 3 stars
The Atrocity Exhibition, read in 2012, 2.5 stars
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Bluest Eye, read in 2010, 3 stars
Rabbit Redux, read in 2015, 2 stars
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, read in 2014, 4 stars
Surfacing, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Summer Book, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Breast, read in 2012, 3 stars
Sula, read in 2013, 2 stars
Fear of Flying, read in 2014, 4 stars
Breakfast of Champions, read in 2015, 4 stars
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, read in 2015, 2.5 stars
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, read in 2010, 4 stars
Dusklands, read in 2010, 3 stars
The Dead Father, read in 2010, 3 stars
Grimus, read in 2010, 3 stars
Correction, read in 2010, 2.5 stars
Dead Babies, read in 2015, 3 stars
Interview with the Vampire, read in 2017, 3.5 stars
Ratner’s Star, read in 2011, abandoned
In the Heart of the Country, read in 2010, 3 stars
The Shining, read in 2010, 4 stars
The World According to Garp, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Yes, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Cement Garden, read in 2011, 3 stars
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
A Bend in the River, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Name of the Rose, read in 2014, 3 stars
Confederacy of Dunces, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Midnight’s Children, read in 2011, 3 stars
Waiting for the Barbarians, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
Rabbit is Rich, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Names, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Comfort of Strangers, read in 2014, 3 stars
The Newton Letter, read in 2013, 2.5 stars
The House of the Spirits, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
Schindler’s Ark, read in 2012, 4 stars
A Pale View of Hills, read in 2013, 4 stars
The Color Purple, read in 2013, 4.5 stars

The Life and Times of Michael K, read in 2011, 3 stars
Blood and Guts in High School, read in 2011, 3 stars
Neuromancer, read in 2013, 3 stars
The Wasp Factory, read in 2013, 3 stars
Love Medicine, read 2010, 4 stars
White Noise, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Handmaid’s Tale, read pre-2010, 5 stars
Hawksmoor, read in 2012, 2.5 stars
Queer, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Cider House Rules, read in 2015, 4 stars
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, read in 2010, 4 stars
Foe, read in 2013, 3 stars
Watchmen, read in 2010, 3 stars
The New York Trilogy, read in 2012, 4 stars
The Black Dahlia, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Passion, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul, read in 2015, 4 stars
The Satanic Verses, read in 2014, 3 stars
Cat’s Eye, read in 2012, 4.5 stars
A Prayer for Owen Meany, read in 2014, 4.5 stars
Like Water for Chocolate, read in 2010, 3 stars
The Remains of the Day, read in 2016, 4 stars
Moon Palace, read in 2013, 3 stars
Sexing the Cherry, read in 2014, 2 stars
A Home at the End of the World, read in 2016, 3.5 stars
The Buddha of Suburbia, read in 2013, 3 stars
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, read in 2014, 5 stars
Wild Swans, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
Smilla’s Sense of Snow, read in 2013, 2.5 stars
The English Patient, read in 2013, 3 stars
All the Pretty Horses, read pre-2010, 3 stars
The Secret History, read in 2014, 4 stars
The Robber Bride, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
The Virgin Suicides, read pre-2010, 3.5 stars
The Stone Diaries, read in 2015, 3.5 stars
The Shipping News, read in 2012, 3 stars
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, read in 2015, 4 stars
The Reader, read in 2013, 3 stars
Buddha's Little Finger, read in 2014, 2 stars
Infinite Jest, read in 2014, 3 stars
Silk, read in 2017, 2.5 stars
American Pastoral, read in 2015, 3 stars
The God of Small Things, read in 2010, 4.5 stars
Enduring Love, read in 2015, 4 stars
Memoirs of a Geisha, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
Veronika Decides to Die, read in 2010, 4 stars
The Poisonwood Bible, read pre-2010, 4 stars
The Hours, read 2014, 3.5 stars
Cloudsplitter, read in 2016, 3 stars

Twenty-First Century (17 of 69)
After the Quake, read in 2013, 3 stars
The Blind Assassin, read in 2016, 3.5 stars
White Teeth, read in 2012, 3.5 stars
The Devil and Miss Prym, read in 2016, 4 stars
Atonement, read in 2010, 4 stars
Life of Pi, read pre-2010, 5 stars
Choke, read in 2010, 4 stars
Fury, read pre-2010, 2 stars
The Corrections, read in 2012, 4 stars
Middlesex, read pre-2010, 4 stars
Everything is Illuminated, read in 2014, 4 stars
Fingersmith, read in 2017, 4 stars
Kafka on the Shore, read in 2010, 3 stars
Unless, read in 2015, 3 stars
The Namesake, read pre-2010, 4 stars
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, read pre-2010, 5 stars
Cloud Atlas, read in 2011, 4.5 stars
On Beauty, read in 2013, 3 stars
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, read in 2012, 4 stars
The Inheritance of Loss, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
Half of a Yellow Sun, read in 2013, 3.5 stars
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, read in 2014, 4 stars
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, read in 2014, 4 stars
Home, read in 2016, 3 stars
The White Tiger, read in 2013, 4 stars
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, read in 2014, 4 stars
The Sense of an Ending, read in 2013, 3 stars
Freedom, read in 2013, 2.5 stars
The Marriage Plot, read in 2012, 3 stars
There but for the, read in 2014, 3.5 stars
The Art of Fielding, read in 2014, 3.5 stars

#329
A Farwell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
My Rating:

Here’s the book blurb, “In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experience came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer, and the men and women he meets in Italy, with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war. In it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.” Touching in some parts, laugh out loud funny in others, so it was a good read, just not exceptional for me.

#330
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
My Rating:

Reading Beckett is a chore for me. There must be something to him (Nobel Prize and all that), but every time I read him I think either I’m really stupid or he’s an evil genius and has tricked the world into thinking he’s a literary genius. I will admit that this book started out more promising than others – or my expectations were low enough. Malone Dies is the story of Malone alone in a room, making up stories to occupy the time until he dies. I even found it amusing how he would interrupt his own stories with criticisms. But then he would get distracted by the fact that he only has one boot (not that he needs even one since he’s bed ridden) and go on for pages about what might have happened to the other one. Went downhill from there.

I don't know how I am going to do the five Beckett's that I have left on the list.

I've never tried Beckett and you aren't convincing me to try! Luckily I have hundreds of other books I can read first.

I started Murphy and put it away after 50 pages or so. I wasn't up to it yet. You don't exactly convince me to try again!

>11 japaul22: I haven't read but watched a version of Waiting for Godot and found it...different, but interesting. And I just recently read Eleuthéria which I thought was intriguing and I'm definitely curious to read more of him. But the "so-called trilogy" aliciamay is referring to was the reason he went from novels to plays, he didn't like them, they depressed him, or something. He turned to plays as an escape from them. So, take from that what you will.

Sorry to be a downer about Beckett, but I'm actually encouraged now by PolymathicMonkey's comment. I have one more novel left in the trilogy and then onto plays!

I was just reading this week about the Nouveau Roman trend of the 1950s, which influenced Beckett. Apparently, followers of this trend considered things like plot, characters, ideas and narrative as old-fashioned.

Like PolymathicMonkey said, take from that what you will.

haha it's okay, you're allowed to dislike him, even after reading a play or two, too. ;) It always helps to check out different styles of an author, if you're not crazy about one you may still like another. That's why I like to give 3 tries, and preferably works that aren't too similar, to get a proper idea of an author. :)

# 15 Haha! Apparently I am very old-fashioned. Fortunately there's more than the Nouveau Roman trend! For now I'll leave the trilogy on the shelf, however I will try a play by Beckett. Just in case he made up his mind then, regarding plots and characters...

>17 Simone2: Weeeellll, not really. But for the plays I'd recommend Happy Days, Endgame, and, of course, Waiting for Godot. The latter is much better seen than read, if done well. It has some moments of wonderful humor, drawn from the vaudeville tradition, but most American productions seem to take it far too seriously.

>15 paruline: That is an interesting trend. I suppose when you are an artist it might be challenging to find a creative way to do something that has been done a gazillion times before. Maybe I should be glad that Hollywood churns out remakes or movies based on the book instead of throwing out those blasé things like plot and characters.

>16 .Monkey.: I like your approach of three different books to an author. Kind of like trying food – I thought I hated polenta, but after trying it again I found my college cafeteria just royally messed it up.

>17 Simone2: I’m rather old-fashioned too then. Luckily it seems like that trend has kind of lost its appeal for newer works.

>18 ELiz_M: Thanks for the play recommendations. I see you have recently added several of Beckett's novels to your library. I'll be keeping an eye out for your reactions.

#331
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
My Rating:

For some reason, this novel reminded me of a Norwegian Middlemarch…but better. It had the structure of life in a rural village, where occasionally something big and dramatic happens, but more often than not it is just same old busy work - sowing, reaping, making cheese. I don’t know how to explain the lives of Isak and Inger without it sounding terribly dull but I found this to be a real treat from the 1001 list. I will admit that this novel was probably more enjoyable for me since it seemed I could be reading about my great-grandparents and I saw a lot of the same mannerisms shared between Isak and my dad. Go read it if you are in the mood for a quaint and mostly feel good story, but with some juicy and exciting bits. And the Librivox narrator was pretty good too.

Your description of it being a Norwegian Middlemarch has me intrigued.. definitely will be adding Growth of the Soil to my TBR pile!

Ooh, I'd like to get to the sooner rather than later! Have you read his other book, Hunger, that's on the list? I haven't read either and wonder which to start with.

Yes, you both should read Growth of the Soil sooner rather than later. japaul22, I have read Hunger, and while I liked it and thought it was good, Growth of the Soil is definitely more likable. Hunger is stark and desperate and, well, about a starving artist. So it kind of depends on the mood you are in to pick which one to start with. Both are good though, so you can't go wrong in my opinion.

Thanks! Growth of the Soil sounds more my speed. I will definitely read it within the next year.

#332
them by Joyce Carol Oates
My Rating:

This was 500+ pages following an unlikable family in Detroit from about 1940-1970. Parts were very good and it certainly started off strong, but it became a chore to read. The character of Loretta especially got tiresome. She had the ‘woe is me attitude’ and couldn’t figure out why her kids didn’t turn out better. Um, maybe because the extent of your parenting was giving your toddler beer because he had too much energy. I’m glad that subsequent works by JCO are shorter because this was too repetitive and she had problems filling out the pages in a meaningful way.

#333
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
My Rating:

A delightfully quirky read featuring the philanthropist Mr. Rosewater who decides to forgo conventional life and move back to his 'hometown' in rural Indiana.

#334
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My Rating:

In spite of all the suffering endured and hardships faced, Celie keeps fighting and ultimately we get the happy ending she deserves.

Re-read
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
My Rating:

Better and more complex than I remember from when I read it in high school. And the prose is great. But I still don’t know why this is considered the great American novel.

#335
Neuromancer by William Gibson
My Rating:

I can see that this is a really great sci-fi book - innovative and what not, but I didn’t get it. Reading the wiki plot summary helped me figure out what Case was trying to steal, why and what ultimately happened, but I’m still rather confused. Regardless, it was an entertaining read and sci-fi fans will probably get more out of it than I did.

#336
Foe by J.M. Coetzee
My Rating:

An interesting premise to this short novel. Foe is the story of Robinson Crusoe told from the perspective of the women, Susan Barton, that ended up stranded on the island with Crusoe and Friday. The trio is saved by a passing ship and when Susan gets back to England she tries to sell her story. Foe is the only author interested. Not surprisingly Susan is an unreliable narrator, slipping further into insanity as she her situation becomes more precarious.

#337
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
My Rating:

After this I think I am due for a straightforward classic. The story started out strong as Oedipa tries to figure out why she was made the executor for her millionaire ex-boyfriend’s estate. But then it dives into a convoluted mystery with a conflict between two mail companies. Or are all the oddities just random coincidences that Oedipa imagines to be more nefarious? Lauded as a notable example of postmodern fiction, it was too disjointed to be enjoyable for me.

#338
Martin Eden by Jack London
My Rating:

I don’t know why I liked this as much as I did. This is the semi-autobiographical novel about a sailor with little education aspiring to be a writer. He’s decided on this career change after falling in love with an upper class girl. We follow Martin Eden’s self-education process, the challenges of getting his writing published (and being paid for it), his difficulties blending into to bourgeois society while his good suit is in pawn, and then his mixed feelings once he is successful. It was a cynical and depressing look at Eden’s (and London’s?) whole journey – granted it only became depressing in the last third – but London raises good points about the process and Martin Eden was a compelling character.

Two more books read over the last week. Didn't love them, but wasn't miserable while reading them...

#339
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
My Rating:

#340
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
My Rating:

This was a book of short stories, so if you are unsure about Murakami this might be a good place to start.

#341
Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
My Rating:

Women in Love picks up where The Rainbow left off and follows the romantic lives of Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen. I am now more convinced than ever that Lawrence's popularity is solely based on what was his shocking content. In this day and age the content is rather tame and I don't find a lot of substance to his works. And I have four left to go on the list...

I found those particular novels hard going. I much preferred The Fox and thought Sons and Lovers was amazing. Be interested to see what you think in comparison to these.

Looking back I rated Sons and Lovers three stars, a 'so-so' rating for me but I have no notes beyond that. Now I'm interested to look up your review. The Fox will be my next Lawrence, but I will give it some time for my aversion to wear off.

I also liked Sons and Lovers, but not as much as Lady Chatterley's Lover, which I loved. However, it's been a long time ago that I read it.

http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=3130 is my Fox review. In a very unusual lapse of attention, I forgot to review Sons & Lovers which is a shame as I thought it was excellent. In contrast, The Rainbow didn't merit much praise from me: http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=3482

>35 Simone2: Yay! Another endorsement for Lady Chatterley!

>36 arukiyomi: I was disappointed I didn't find a review for Sons and Lovers, but I did appreciate your review of The Rainbow...especially, "The novel was banned on publication, not as I expected for being tedious but for being obscene." I remember after I read The Rainbow I was confused by the comments about a lesbian scene, which was so tame that I saw it as nothing more than skinny dipping.

Leave Aaron's Rod til last....or til after you die.

Just kidding, sort of...but it was a tough slog for me. Perhaps not the best introduction to Lawrence I could have chosen!

>38 QuartInSession: Or save it for when I'm old and senile ; )

#342
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Pages: 480
My Rating:

Robert Jordan is a Spanish professor in Montana, but also knows a thing or two about dynamite and finds himself on a mission to blow up a bridge, helping the antifascist guerrilla forces in the Spanish Civil War. The book is full of complex characters contemplating the past, the future, or their impending death. The book moves very slow for the first two-thirds and then the pace picks up, as well as the death toll. I can’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the other Hemingway’s I have read.

#343
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Pages: 204
My Rating:

Well that was a rollicking good time. A more absurd and f'ed up story could not be had, but I enjoyed it none the less. Although I never want to stay in a Vegas hotel room. Now I must go look up the 1001 entry to see why the heck it made the list.

#344
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Pages: 112
My Rating:

I should have saved Fear and Loathing for after reading this. I knew the story from the movie, but the book was more heartbreaking and beautiful than I could have expected.

>41 aliciamay: I also just read Fear & Loathing! And mentioned why it made the list in my thread.

#345
The Stranger by Albert Camus
My Rating:

I’m pondering how a book can be simultaneously dull and intense. The story revolves around Meursault and a series of bad/bizarre decisions he makes following the death of his mother. He drifts through time with little emotion shown throughout, which I guess is patently existential. I don’t think I grasped all that Camus was trying to do, but at least I’m not afraid of reading Camus any more.

#346
She by H. Rider Haggard
My Rating:

This was a so-so read for me and was kind of a letdown compared with King Solomon’s Mines. “On his twenty-fifth birthday, Leo Vincey opens the silver casket that his father has left to him. It contains a letter recounting the legend of a white sorceress who rules an African tribe and of his father's quest to find this remote race. To find out if the story is true, Leo and his companions set sail for Zanzibar. There, he is brought face to face with Ayesha, She-who-must-be-obeyed: dictator, femme fatale, tyrant and beauty. She has been waiting for centuries for the true descendant of Kallikrates, her murdered lover, to arrive, and arrive he does - in the form of Leo Vincey.”

My main quibbles with the book were that the motivation for Leo and Horace Holly to embark on this dangerous adventure was unclear (boredom?) and then when they got to Africa the natives spoke English. Another book that left me wondering why it is included on the list.

I think we're on the same page with our views of this one: http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=1580

^ Yes we are, although you are much more insightful than I!

#347
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
My Rating:

I feel like the writing and story got lost in the literary gimmicks (aka: unsuccessful postmodern). I’ll have to wait a while to pick up my final Winterson from the list, Written on the Body, because her books are becoming increasingly disagreeable to me.

#348
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
My Rating:

I really enjoyed this back story of the woman in the attic from Jane Eyre. Learning about Antoinette’s (who Rochester calls Bertha for random reasons) history and tribulations make Jane Eyre more complex. Even without that context, the story of Antoinette and her ‘descent into madness’ can stand on its own.

Written on the Body was the first Winterson book I read and I loved it. My book club read it and had fantastic discussion about it. However, I think Winterson's writing style fits my tastes fairly well.

Thanks for the endorsement of Written on the Body...now I'm not dreading it!

I also just read Sexing the Cherry and didn't much like it. However, just like Amaryann, I loved Written on the Body. I have to add that I read it about 20 years ago, in a very different phase of my life, but still, I'd recommend that one, even after Sexing the Cherry.

My count is based on the 2006 edition of the book, but thought I would post my thoughts on this book...

There But For The by Ali Smith
My Rating:

I think this book is done a disservice by purporting to be about a dinner party guest who locks himself in the spare room for months. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to be explained. The book is broken down into four sections narrated by people loosely connected to this event and their reactions to it. Some of the sections are stronger than others and the puns got tiresome, but since I kind of knew what to expect I kind of liked it overall.

#349
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
My Rating:

This is the story of a young Jewish American who travels to Ukraine to find the family that saved his grandfather from the Nazis. The book alternates between passages from an old book about the history and life in the family’s village and the story of the translator while he is helping with the search.

I obviously preferred the sections of the book told by the translator Alex; they started off amusing with his bungled English and the antics of the seeing-eye bitch, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., but we soon find that his family has a significant skeleton in the closet.

#350
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
My Rating:

And here I thought Willa Cather was a one trick pony (strong female characters battling life on the prairie). Sadly, I kind of prefer her stories about prairie life to this one about a professor looking back on his life.

#351
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
My Rating:

“A hijacked jumbo jet bound for London blows apart high above the English Channel. Two figures, Indian actors of opposing sensibilities, Gibreel and Saladin, fall to Earth, and are washed up on an English beach. Soon curious changes occur -Gibreel seems to have acquired a halo, while Saladin grows hooves and horns at his temples. They are transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is the initial act in an odyssey that merges the actual with the imagined.” While I am now of the opinion that magical realism isn’t for me, I did like how it was used to portray the immigrant’s struggle with identity in their new country.

#352
Burmese Days by George Orwell
My Rating:

Not really an enjoyable read – the attitudes of the British to the Burmese was astounding and uncomfortable.

#353
A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
My Rating:

#354
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
My Rating:

#355
Yes by Thomas Bernhard
My Rating:

Let me start off by saying that reading Bernhard is a chore. But oddly enough I enjoyed this little book. The narrator is a severally depressed man who is pulled from his stupor by a new woman in the neighborhood, although she is at least as unstable as he. They take long walks where they discuss music and philosophy, but sadly this is not enough for either of them and *gasp* their story does not end well.

#356
Wild Swans by Chang Jung
My Rating:

This is a memoir that looks back on the lives of three women in China during a very tumultuous time in history. The grandmother was a warlord’s concubine, the mother was a communist revolutionary that later falls out of favor with the Communist party, and the daughter grows up in China to discover that Mao isn’t a deity, as she has been taught to believe. I was mesmerized by the sections that focused on the grandmother and mother, but I was put off by the daughter’s/author’s section. I’m not a big fan of memoirs because the author always seems way too self-absorbed (maybe this has something to do with having a whole book about them) and that was the case here, imo. Plus after reading about all that the mother went through, the daughter came across as a diva when she lingered on her hardships.

Reposted from my 2014 challenge thread...

#357
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
My Rating:

The book was a lot more tolerable (violence wise) than the movie thanks to some made up lingo. Also, there is an additional chapter included in this version that the U.S. editor cut from the original release that ends the book on a high note.

#358
The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad
My Rating:

I am amazed that Conrad could make a story about an epidemic breaking out on a ship at sea boring.

#359
The Names by Don DeLillo
My Rating:

Not sure what exactly I read. A corporate risk analyst is visiting his estranged wife and son in Greece where he learns about some savage murders maybe perpetrated by a cult. And that part of the story could have taken about one chapter.

#360
Pierre et Jean by Guy de Maupassant
My Rating:

Two brothers already have a strained relationship when the younger brother inherits a large estate from a family friend. The older brother suspects dubious parentage is the reason he was left out of the will, is he correct or just trying to tarnish his brother's good fortune?

actually, from what I've read, Conrad can make pretty much any storyline boring... sorry to hear that The Shadow Line is no exception to his rule...

Now that you mention it, Conrad is rather gifted at crafting a boring tale. I think my favorite of his has been The Secret Agent and that was still a boring book as far as spy novels go.

word!

Playing catch up...knocked off several short-ish books recently, with the exception of the long winded The Red and the Black.
Just give a shout if you're interested in any of my thoughts on these.

#361
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
My Rating:

#362
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
My Rating:

#363
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
My Rating:

#364
Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville
My Rating:

#365
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
My Rating:

#366
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
My Rating:

#367
The Nun by Denis Diderot
My Rating:

A young woman is forced by her family to become a nun. Even though she is virtuous and devout she cannot bear losing her freedom and committing her life to a convent. She encounters a myriad of problems in her convents and she is writing her melodramatic story to an interested Marquis in the hopes that he can help her flee the convent.

#368
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
My Rating:

If I wasn’t favorably predisposed to Dickens I probably wouldn’t have liked Great Expectations as much. Pip was so unlikeable with how entitled he soon became and how quickly he abandoned his family and roots. And there were the far-fetched coincidences that brought the story too nicely together. But Pip grew up and matured and there were many other characters that were fun to follow throughout the story. Plus the ending, while not being saccharine sweet, was pretty near perfect all things considered.

#369
The Childermass by Wyndham Lewis
My Rating:

My complaints about previous books being long winded or incomprehensible have been unfounded. Before starting this book I did not realize that Lewis is likened to an anti-Semitic James Joyce. The first bit of the book I kind of got…two school mates find each other in Purgatory after dying in World War I. And because they have so much time on their hands they wander around and describe the weirdness that is Purgatory. They met the Bailiff who is verbose about early 1900s culture and there are some literary jabs at Joyce and Gertrude Stein, which not having read their works fell on deaf ears. So the lesson that I learned from this book is that I’m not ready to tackle Joyce or another Lewis for a good many years.

#370
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
My Rating:

This book was a very deadly introduction to the hardboiled genre, but not graphically so. A PI is called to a mining town only to find his client is murdered before they can meet. The PI stays on to clean up this corrupt town. And by clean up, I mean pit all the factions against one another so they all are killed. I did find it enjoyable how well the PI played all sides and was always a step ahead of everyone else, or at least able to anticipate what was next.

#371
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
My Rating:

Just when I had been thinking that sci-fi wasn’t so bad, I come across this book. An Antarctic expedition uncovers a lost civilization. The expedition leader is telling the untold story on their expedition to dissuade any further expeditions for the good on the human race.

Haha, when I read that one I said to my husband, "people like Lovecraft? Why?!" You may enjoy this, though, about Lovecraft and "I can't even.": https://medium.com/message/i-cant-even-33ac06fe8ddf

Oh, god, Lovecraft. Truly, I can't even. Cthonic Cthulhu. Cthuhhhck.

Cyclopean was my trigger. Ugh.

Mind you, right now I'm dabbling with Lord Foul's Bane borrowed on a whim from the library. I think Donaldson studied at the knee of Lovecraft. I understand that someone has compiled a list of his vocabulary. God, he's turgid.

>64 ursula: That article is great! And nailed the reason why the book was continually boring and un-scary...with all his flowery prose I somehow missed that he wasn't describing anything. That crafty Lovecraft. Thank you both for making me secure in my decision to stay away from his other books, and apparently Donaldson's too (turgid, what a great and under utilized word).

I probably picked 'turgid' up from either Lovecraft or Donaldson ;)

#372
Passing by Nella Larsen
My Rating:

We share a few pages with two light skinned African American women in 1920s New York. The women grew up together in Chicago and they bump into each other several years later at a white only restaurant where both women are ‘passing’ as white. Irene only passes occasionally for convenience’s sake in restaurants and stores, but Clare lives her life as a white woman and is married to a white man that does not know her secret. Tensions rise as Clare spends an increasing amount of time in Irene’s black social circle.

Larsen is talented in creating vivid scenes and characters in short amounts of time and this book was also enlightening of an issue I didn’t realize affected African Americans in the early century. I was disappointed that with the unique racial tension that she builds, the end is tarnished with the too common problem of infidelity.

shame you didn't enjoy At the Mountains of Madness as it was hugely influential and the legacy of its plot is found in many later horror and science fiction writings.

Ha, yes, Lovecraft is probably the most influential horror writer of 20th century and one whose name can be used as description but even the fans mock his adjectives.

I can definitely see how Lovecraft was influential, but he is not standing the test of time very well, imo.

I get more enjoyment from those influenced by him than I ever could from him.

>74 fundevogel: That reminds me, who are a few of the authors that were influenced by Lovecraft?

>75 aliciamay: I don't know the novelists, but there's definitely some Lovecraft in the Hell Boy comics and the little bit of Wormwood I've gotten my hands on. They are both excellent. And there's the podcast Welcome to Nightvale which oozes a crepuscular dementia paired with earnest community spirit. All Hail The Glow Cloud.

He did have an influence on other Weird Tales alumni and other pulp fantasy writers, Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry Kuttner, CL Moore, Fritz Leiber, August Derleth etc.
As a kid I read also some Lovecraft pastiches by Stephen King without realizing that they were pastiches and when I came across some names found also on Lovecraft, I wondered if there actually was an old book called Necronomicon or if these Cthulhu & co were genuine ancient myths :)
See also Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, HR Giger, Alan Moore... And tentacles have become something of a joke in manga and anime...and Batman comics and movies feature Arkham Asylum...andandand...

... and let's not forget sci-fi classics The Thing and Alien...

Oh my, guess he is kind of a big deal. I'm a sci-fi newb so it will be fun to keep a look out for his influences in the future.

#373
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
My Rating:

This is a long and messed up book detailing the memoirs of Oskar, our unreliable narrator. Oskar is telling his life’s story from an insane asylum, although we don’t find out until the end of the book why he is there. Oskar is born in Poland in the 1920s with the intelligence of an adult. Rather than grow up to run his father’s grocery store, he decides to stop growing at the age of 3 and focuses on playing his tin drum and shattering glass with his voice. The story concludes 27 years later in Germany and Oskar has survived the occupation and liberation of Poland, joined a traveling dwarf troupe, become the leader of a youth gang, was a nude model, worked for a stint as a tombstone engraver, and finally becomes a world famous drummer. He’s also had numerous love affairs and maybe fathered a child (who grows up, much to Oskar’s dismay) with the woman that becomes his stepmother.

I could tell the novel was more than what was presented and is full of political and religious allegory, but I failed to grasp most of it. As one reviewer said, “I apologize to the author for penalizing his work for my own shortcomings.”

#374
Young Torless by Robert Musil
My Rating:

Torless is a young lad at an elite boarding school in Austria. He and his friends bully their roommate because he is gay, while all the while Torless is in love with him. So sad how cruel these boys were.

#375
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
My Rating:

I received a 40th anniversary copy thanks to the Early Reviewers program, but I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, other than it should be thought-provoking since it is a seminal feminist book. I was nicely surprised by how much I enjoyed it and found that it still resonates to today’s reader. Isadora Wing travels to Vienna with her psycho-analyst husband to attend a conference. Then she takes off on a jaunt through Europe with another man and we are treated to the story of her life. We learn about Isadora’s struggles; what is her role as a woman when she wants to be more than a just a wife and also has sexual fantasies about other men, what does it mean that she’d rather be a writer than a mother, is she strong enough to ever be without a man? One interesting tidbit that resonated with me was how Isadora refused to learn how to type (even though it would help her immensely as a writer) because she felt that would box her in as a stereotypical woman and somehow define her. It made me appreciate that I don’t feel this is the case any longer and allows women the freedom to pursue a full spectrum of skills, jobs, hobbies, etc.

I was a women's studies major in uni and for whatever reason, never read this one. I might have to rectify that sooner rather than later!

good review which very much echoes how I felt about this book.... although many, I hear, regarded the ending as a cop out that compromised the message of feminism in the rest of the novel.

>83 Yells: I think you should pick it up soonish. It is one of the rare books that I am going to hang onto for a re-read.

>84 arukiyomi: Your review was still fresh in my mind and was part of the reason I finally got Fear of Flying read. I really liked the ending. It was ambiguous enough that you could choose yourself how Isadora lives the rest of her life (or at least how/when she leaves the hotel room). So if people say it was a cop out, I guess I know what ending they chose for her!

The three day labor day weekend snuck up on my husband and I and we realized we had no plans! So I got a lot of reading done : )

#376
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
My Rating:

#377
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
My Rating:

#378
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
My Rating:

I'm not much of a rereader, but I think The Fear of Flying might be one I should reconsider. I read it in 1981, when it was "old," and I was 18. It seemed dated and dumb. Now that I read people's comments, I think it was over my head but I didn't realize (which is different from knowing something was over my head, which was a lot of other stuff at 18).

>87 Nickelini: I can see how Fear of Flying wouldn't resonate at all with a teenager just because there are a lot of Isadora's experiences and struggles would be incomprehensible. So I think you should make a reread exception for it!

... particularly if you've experienced some of the vicissitudes of marriage since then Nickelini!

If you want to know what happens to Isadora, just read what Jong wrote next. The character continues...

Didn't realize there was a sequel and my library has a copy of How to Save Your Own Life! Onto the TBR list.

>86 aliciamay: that's a lot of reading in 3 days!

Well, to be fair I had a chunk of The Name of the Rose done before the weekend and finished The Sound and the Fury a day or two after the weekend.

The Name of the Rose is the book I hope to treat myself to this weekend. I have tried three times to complete this book, and three times life has thrown me a curve ball to stop me about half way through. I am determined to make it to the end this time, especially as I recall really enjoying it.

Here's wishing a quiet weekend for you! And if you've liked the first half you are in for a treat when you finish. I thought the book lagged for the first two-thirds and then it really started moving.

#379
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
My Rating:

Yet another coming of age story and I’m sure if I had read this in the 50s it would’ve been quite entertaining and salacious.

#95, I keep having that same feeling about books from the 50s. I don't know why they should feel more dated than books from the 1850s or the 1930s. Maybe because, for me, the 50s is my parents generation which is automatically the most dated of all!

^ Glad I'm not the only one that thinks 50s books are incredibly dated, even compared to older works. I wonder if it is partly because I see older books through an 'historical' lens.

#380
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
My Rating:

Book blurb: “In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball and kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying.”

And another coming of age story! But it was so much more and this one had many things going for it: likeable and interesting characters, a bit of mystery, and ominous foreshadowing. Plus, since the book’s jumping off point was the 50s it didn’t seem as dated as The Adventures of Augie March. I still can't figure out if this is a satire and there were a few other nit-picky things that irked me, but I really liked the book overall.

>98 aliciamay: One of my favorite books. For me, I can't stand all the present-day nattering about Canadian Anglicanism, but other than that I love everything.

>98 aliciamay: By far, my favorite John Irving novel. I read it in high school and I think something resonated.

Owen may think he is all that and a bag of chips but Garp could kick his butt anytime, anywhere.

>99 ursula: That was one of my quibbles too. That and I couldn't understand why John was friends with Owen to begin with. I mean what upper class 10 year old boy would choose to be friends with the small, weird voiced, granite quarry kid? Regardless, an outstanding book.

>100 amaryann21: It's my favorite of the two I've read. I fear The Cider House Rules won't be able to compete, so I'll leave it on my shelf for a while longer.

>101 Yells: But Owen is a biter. It'd be hard for Garp to put a wrestling move on a biter ; )

I loved The World According to Garp and hated Cider House Rules. I'll have to try A Prayer for Owen Meany sometime to see which side it falls on!

>102 aliciamay:... well, there was biting in Garp... but not that kind of biting... :)

>104 Yells: O yeah, I remember that biting!

>102 aliciamay: The Cider House Rules can definitely compete with Owen and Garp! I loved all three of them, no other Irving ever reached that level again.

>103 japaul22: I'm guessing you'll like Owen, since it kind of has the same feel as Garp (absurd, comedic, but still packs a punch).

>104 Yells: Oh that biting scene! As it was unraveling I kept thinking, Irving isn't going to go all the way with this - he can't! And then he did and it was an actual LOL moment for me : )

>105 Simone2: And a resounding endorsement of Cider House Rules to equal out japaul's hatred! It will be interesting to read when I get around to it because (if it is similar to the movie) it is a much more serious book with little to break up the seriousness.

I was pretty much entirely okay with Cider House Rules. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it as much as I expected to from having seen commercials for the movie.

I saw the movie maybe 15 years ago, so I only remember a few things from it. But when I do get around to reading Cider House Rules I am sure I'll picture Michael Caine as the Doctor.

#381
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Narrated by Juliet Stevenson
My Rating:

Masterfully written with so much said in so few words.

#382
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
My Rating:

It took me nearly two years to read this book. It wasn’t that it was that long, but there were so many depressing and gruesome passages that often times I was loathe to pick it up. Parts were great and Wallace can certainly write, but the subject matter of addiction and the consequences was so bleak.

#383
Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernieres
My Rating:

Senor Vivo is a professor in a fictional South American country (but sounds like Colombia) who starts writing newspaper editorials pointing out the atrocities of the cocaine trade. This naturally brings the wrath of the Coca Lord down on Vivo, but through chance and luck he is able to avoid the many assassination attempts. The book is violent and tragic events ensue, but de Bernieres’ crafty use of magical realism distracts from the gruesome reality and ultimately makes this book optimistic. I loved the book and it is staying on my shelf for the future, but I can’t blatantly recommend it due to the sex, violence, and weirdness.

#384
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Read by Jeremy Irons
My Rating:

I am mighty impressed with Nabokov. He turned a repulsive subject matter into a book that I want to keep reading. He tip toed around the serial rape bits and left you with a beautifully written tale of a misunderstood man, misunderstood because the book is told fully from his perspective. I am utterly creeped out that I felt this way while reading the book and only when the lovely Jeremy Irons wasn’t talking in my ear could I see Humbert Humbert for what he is. Extra ½ star for Irons’ narration.

I had the same reaction to Lolita.... it's such a beautifully written book about an absolutely horrible subject. It's felt so odd to give it a high rating, yet that is what it deserved.

Me too, I loved Lolita, although the subject is of course horrible.

#385
Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin
My Rating:

This was a modern Russian novel that alternated between scenes in a mental ward and the Russian revolution. A weird mix of Russian history, philosophy, and Buddhism. Didn’t work for me.

#386
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
Read by Paul Hecht
My Rating:

Pere Goriot is a retired vermicelli merchant who has spent all his money spoiling his daughters and setting them up in successful marriages. To repay their father’s generosity and doting, the daughters and sons-in-law banish him to a boarding house and he is only allowed to see his daughters in secret. The book started off slow, but then as the poor decisions compounded and a bad end loomed the pace really picked up.

#387
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Read by Hollywood for the Ears
My Rating:

The poster boy of classic noir. While the idea of Michael Madsen as Sam Spade is golden, avoid this audio edition.

Well Happy New Year all! Just shy of the two month mark posting here...well not too bad. Here's just a listing of what I've read since then:

#388
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
My Rating:

#389
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Read by Michael Cunningham
My Rating:

#390
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
Read by Joseph Porter
My Rating:

#391
Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
My Rating:

#392
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Read by Clare Higgins
My Rating:

#393
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Read by Rob Inglis
My Rating:

I don't have high hopes reading wise for the next few months. There's a new class schedule, my day job, and then the Morning News' annual Tournament of Books to distract me with non-1001 reads. But in the next little while I am hoping to get caught up on the 1001 threads I've neglected.

#394
Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My Rating:

A fun little read. Makes me think I should start at the beginning to see how Jeeves and Wooster start off.

#395
Story of O by Pauline Reage
My Rating:

Prior to getting to far into the book, I read a few reviews that appreciated the Story of O because of the psychological parallels. Didn’t help. Couldn’t there be a different way to tell the story of a woman trading her soul for love than sexual slavery? Towards the end I just grew numb to it all.

Getting close to 400!

Yes, I should finish #398 today (a bit behind on 'reviews')! It snuck up on me too and I don't have any grand plans for 400.

#396
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Read by Bronson Pinchot
My Rating:

Southern Gothic in the vain of Carson McCullers, but Carson does it so much better (IMO). I can’t figure out why there are three O’Connors on the list and no McCullers. Not that this was bad. And I did like the randomness of it...like the main character’s Church Without Christ, "where the blind don't see and the lame don't walk and what's dead stays that way." But ultimately the characters stayed one dimensional and I was apathetic to their fates.

#397
The Red Room by August Strindberg
Read by William Peck (librivox)
My Rating:

The second book in a row that was hurt in my opinion because I kept comparing it to a better work; in this case, New Grub Street. The Red Room focuses on a group of Swedish artists and the obstacles they face daily, whether it’s not getting enough to eat or an a-hole brother.

Alicia -- I'm restarting The Story of O and expecting my reaction to be identical to yours. Which makes me ask myself why I'm reading it (Because it's on the 1001 and I own it. Is that good enough?)

>122 Nickelini: I don't know why I didn't abandon it. I think being on the list is a good enough reason to start a book, but not to finish it : ) At least it is short!

#398
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
Read by Grover Gardner
My Rating:

In this short novel we spend the day with Tommy Wilhelm, a man with no money, no job, no support from his father. What he does have is a wife that won’t divorce him and is bleeding him dry with child support payments. He also has an overabundance of optimism and trust, which for him turns out to be regrettable character flaws.

#399
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Read by Steven Crossley
My Rating:

The book starts with a our main characters on a nice picnic in the English countryside, but they are quickly interrupted by an out of control hot air balloon (there goes my desire to ever ride in one). The rest of the book focuses on the bizarre ramifications from this event. There’s the typical McEwan touch of an ominous overtone and an unreliable narrator...or is he unreliable?

#400
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
Read by Michael Jayson
My Rating:

I saw the movie when it came out and left the theater thinking, ‘wow, it takes some talent to make a spy movie so boring.’ Having read the book I now know there was no talent involved at all, the movie just closely followed a very boring spy novel. Should have stuck with Queen Margot, since this was kind of an unfortunate pick for my 400th book!

Congratulations on the 400.

I enjoyed Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy when I read it recently, and I'm currently really enjoying Queen Margot (Catherine de Medici is wonderfully ruthless villain, isn't she) - hopefully the latter will make up for your disappointment with the former.

Congratulations! Too bad you didn't enjoy it that much...

Congratulations on 400!

Thanks all! And onto the next 400 : )

>126 puckers: I got sidetracked from Queen Margot early on, must really get back at it!

Wooooo! Awesomesauce!

When I think of how long it's going to take me to get to 400 I stop thinking about how long it's going to take me to get to 400 :-)

>130 M1nks: Thanks! At your pace you'll be to 400 in no time : )

I have managed to find some reading time over the last few months, even if my LT time has dried up. I'm done with spring classes in a month and really looking forward to summer and free time again!

#401
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Read by Stanley Tucci
My Rating:

#402
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
Read by George Guidall
My Rating:

#403
Queen Margot by Alexandre Dumas
Read by Simon Vance
My Rating:

#404
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
Read by Grover Gardner
My Rating:

#405
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
My Rating:

Yikes...I have a bit of catching up to do over the next few days.

#406
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Read by Dylan Baker
My Rating:

So disappointed by the ending...was that supposed to be the glimmer of hope after all of the tragedies endured by every working class person in the book?!?!

#407
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Read by George Guidall
My Rating:

And now I know what Kafkaesque refers to.

You are the first person I've ever heard say that they were disappointed in the ending of The Grapes of Wrath. It usually elicits strong emotions but disappointed is a new one to me. I still remember the visceral shock it gave me, so much so that I can remember where I was and who I was sitting next to when I closed it, it imprinted itself so strongly on my mind.

#408
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
My Rating:

This book was entertaining, but took a long time to get to the point. I’ll be reading The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul soon to see where the story goes.

#409
Reveries of a Solitary Walker by J.J. Rousseau
My Rating:

My favorite of the Rousseau's on the list (not that this says much). It seems that he mellowed in his old age, which made his ramblings not unenjoyable. I even jotted down some quotes; the first I found funny and the second I think summed up his reveries.

“To lie to one’s own advantage, is a cheat; to lie to another’s advantage, is a fraud; to lie to do harm, is calumny...to lie without profit or prejudice to one’s self, or others, is not lying, ‘tis fiction.”

“In whatever light mankind chose to see me, they cannot change my being; and however great their power, and whatever be their secret cabals, I shall continue, do what they may, to be, in spite of them, what I am.”

#410
U.S.A. by John Dos Passos
Read by David Drummond
My Rating:

I liked the concept of this book (following the lives of about a dozen characters in the early 20th century) more than the execution. Plus I think the audio version did a disservice to the book with the ads and singing between chapters...I think it would have been better to skim these cause they were very distracting in audio form.

#411
Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My Rating:

A happily married couple invite two guests for an extended stay at their home. The husband falls in love with the young girl, the wife falls in love with the dapper soldier and everyone knows and they just keep living under one roof. I found the wife’s attitude and actions too implausible and so the plot was made laughable as a result. But I suppose that's the 1800s for you.

#412
The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Read by Sean Barrett
My Rating:

Perfectly forgettable, but with a good narrator. I read an analysis that this book was more important to Beckett’s artistic growth than having any value to most readers.

#413
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
My Rating:

This was a fast paced noir with lots of twists and turns. A very good summer read!

#414
Dead Babies by Martin Amis
My Rating:

Not quite as bad as what I was anticipating...yes, the beginning is a drug/alcohol filled chronicle of a weekend in the country, but towards the end the book takes an unexpected and dark turn.

#415
Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi
My Rating:

This is a memoir documenting the year of an Italian man who was a political prisoner in a small, poor, rural village. Levi wasn’t imprisoned, but exiled to a small, poor village, and it was interesting to learn about life during the Fascist regime in Italy, watch his interactions with the village people, and follow him around doctoring the peasants and painting.

#416
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Read by Alyssa Bresnahan
My Rating:

Book blurb: “Daisy Goodwill is on a journey of self-discovery. From her last days in a Florida nursing home she looks back in an attempt to make sense of her life story. Her birth in a turn of the century farmhouse is a shock, born to a woman so obese she doesn't even realize she is pregnant. Widowed on her honeymoon, there is another marriage, children and a beloved hobby that becomes a career, of sorts. It is a life like any other, filled with the richness of human relations and the sting of disappointments both big and small.” Even though we spend the whole book in the company of Daisy, her character never came to life for me. Still an enjoyable read.

>141 aliciamay: I hear wildly different reactions to this book - from making all-time favorite lists to really hating it. Sounds like you were in the middle. It's on my shelf and I'm hoping to get to it sooner rather than later.

>142 japaul22: I loved it, but that was 20 years ago. Maybe it can't stand the time or is it perfectly suited for young girls. I remember I liked the way the book was written, the different parts, but that's about all. Reading Alicia's blurb above, doesn't make me think wow...!

>142 japaul22: I suspect you'll like it more than I did : )

>143 Simone2: I liked the format more than the content for sure. The faux autobiography, but with alternating points of view was interesting and almost read like several related short stories. So it reminded me of Alice Munro – always a good thing!

#417
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
Read by BBC Audiobooks Cast
My Rating:

Faster paced and more action packed than the first Dirk Gently and I loved the portrayal of Odin and Thor. Also, most of the time I’m not a huge fan of the cast audiobooks, but this reading was enhanced by this format.

#418
The Graduate by Charles Webb
Read by Scott Brick
My Rating:

The book is so much worse than the movie. All the characters are insufferable and it was particularly awful following around the manic depressive main character.

Oh dear, considering that I didn't particularly care for the movie either...

And finally caught up on my most recent reads : )

#419
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
My Rating:

In a nutshell, a man whose life is seemingly the epitome of American pastoral is far from it. I did a lot of skimming and feel that this book would’ve been a lot better at about half the length.

#420
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
Read by Nadia May
My Rating:

I started the book without any idea what it was about and not having read anything else by the author. What a pleasant surprise. The characters are mostly the affluent English class whose charmed lives I always enjoy reading about, but with a macabre and mysterious twist.

>147 hdcanis: I didn't like the movie much either and unfortunately this is one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book. The book adds this section where Ben moves to Berkeley to stalk Elaine that makes both of them more ridiculous and the ending that much more implausible.

>149 aliciamay: I totally agree!

And a couple quickies to keep up the momentum...

#421
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Read by Humphrey Bower
My Rating:

A cute little story featuring the Prince traveling to other planets and encountering adults who are too busy with minutiae to enjoy life’s roses.

#422
The Fox by D.H. Lawrence
My Rating:

Two women are struggling to get by running a farm when their life is thrown into turmoil when a soldier comes back to his childhood home to find it occupied with these soon to be old-maids. The first half of this novella was okay and then it just became too melodramatic...so much emotion tied to every look and phrase that the characters had trouble functioning.

#423
White Noise by Don DeLillo
My Rating:

Once again I missed the point DeLillo was trying to make...some comedic commentary on death and consumerism? At least it was readable.

#424
Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
Read by Steven Crossley
My Rating:

Book blurb, “Parade's End is the story of Christopher Tietjens and his progress from the secure world of Edwardian England into the First World War and beyond. Tietjens embodies the values of that ordered, predictable, hierarchic society of pre-1914. Contrasted with him and portrayed with equal clarity and depth is his wife Sylvia--beautiful, arrogant, reckless--a symbol of the new times.” This book was a train wreck. I was continually astounded by the actions of the main characters and how they treated one another. This book is less of a war novel than an expose on really shitty relationships.

#425
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Read by Arthur Morey
My Rating:

I was expecting Rabbit to be horrible, so I didn’t get hung up on that. What I wasn’t expecting was the writing to be so lyrical and just plain pretty. I wish this hadn’t been my commuting book so I could’ve jotted down some quotes.

Wow, your review is the first one to make me consider reading Rabbit, Run.

>154 paruline: It really helped to start the book off with low expectations! I've actually jumped right into Rabbit Redux because now I'm intrigued by Rabbit.

>156 Cliff-Rhu-Rhubarb: Please tell me that Rabbit Redux is the weakest book in the series...

#426
Rabbit Redux by John Updike
Read by Arthur Morey
My Rating:

I went into this book with two expectations: Rabbit would have matured a bit (since this takes place a decade after Rabbit, Run), and the writing would be just as beautiful. Silly me. Rabbit is still horrible, if not worse than before. And his disdain for women and other races means that the dialogue is peppered with far too many c and n words, jolting you away from that lovely prose. Still, I will carry on with the next one, if only to see how Nelson turns out. It can’t be good.

#157 -- I just finished the first Rabbit book and am also sorry to hear that Rabbit doesn't get any better. Updike's writing is so wonderful and his characters so useless. It does set up an interesting dichotomy but not enough to hold my interest, even in the future of Nelson! The books are also set near my home town, and I thought that would be interesting too, but not really.

>158 Cliff-Rhu-Rhubarb: That's an interesting idea that I reacted more to the language because I did the audio book. I will have to pay more attention to books I read to see if my brain is glossing over such words. Upon reflection I do think I judged Rabbit Redux too harshly.

>159 annamorphic: Updike's writing is so wonderful and his characters so useless. It does set up an interesting dichotomy... Great observation! That gives me a whole new perspective on what Updike was doing. I think I will be starting the third once I clear a few non-1001 books off my plate. Are you going to slog through the remaining ones eventually?

#427
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Read by Elliott Gould
My Rating:

Good classic noir, with exceptional use of language (especially considering the genre), and an ending I didn’t see coming - although it was rather obvious when I thought about it. Elliott Gould was the perfect narrator for it too.

Oh lordy...five 1001 books read in three months. Good thing I didn't make any resolutions!

#428
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
Read by Will Patton
My Rating:

My least favorite Hemingway so far, but somehow still compelling (I think Will Patton helped a lot).

#429
Loving by Henry Green
My Rating:

Not looking forward to more Green.

#430
Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
Read by Arthur Morey
My Rating:

At least Rabbit has gotten less angry as he has aged. I even went on to finish the series with the non-1001 Rabbit At Rest and that turned out to be my favorite.

#431
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Read by Rupert Degas
My Rating:

Even though I read this only a month ago all I can remember is that it was weird, even by Murakami standards. But apparently I enjoyed it at the time!

#432
Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
Read by Richard Brown
My Rating:

Meh

I've been managing to read some books over the last few months, but 1001 books have not been striking my fancy. Here's the few that I was able to tick off:

#433
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Read by Simon Vance
My Rating:

This was my last remaining Dickens on the list and a letdown for this Dickens fan. Overly convoluted and overly reliant on coincidence to drive the plot – even by Dickens standards.

#434
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Read by Anna Massey
My Rating:

Well written and suspenseful.

#435
Unless by Carol Shields
Read by Liza Ross
My Rating:

I didn’t find anything about this book remarkable, but I didn’t mind reading it either.

#436
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Read by Pete Larkin
My Rating:

An interesting story about abolitionist John Brown from the perspective of his son Owen. But a long book about John Brown is not fun and the ending was tragic. Which left me wondering how much was true versus artistic liberties.

#437
The Third Man by Graham Greene
Read by Martin Jarvis
My Rating:

A good mystery set in post-war Vienna.

#438
Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot
My Rating:

I was reading this book off and on for many months. At the beginning the random banter between Jacques and his Master was amusing, but never compelling enough to dig into. Life is too short - did not finish.

Good to see you again! Have you been reading other books or didn't you feel like reading at all?
I loved Rebecca by the way!

Hi Simone! I've been reading, but I'm in grad school so I have been gravitating to books that don't require a lot of thinking and ones I can get an audio version of to listen to while commuting to work or school. So unfortunately this rules out a lot of the 1001 books that remain to be read!

Have you read The Talented Mr. Ripley? I'm reading it now and it's very readable - might fit the bill!

I have not, will have to track down a copy. Thanks for the recommendation!

I'm about half way through Our Mutual Friend, have to say I agree with your review, its a bit disappointing compared to Dickens other works

>163 aliciamay: I was interested to see your review of To Have and Have Not. I adore Will Patton as a narrator and maybe I could even stomach Hemingway with him as the reader. I'll have to see if I can find it.

#439
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Read by Simon Prebble
My Rating:

In this case, don't judge a book by the movie...especially when you watched the movie as a teenage and were way too young to find it at all interesting.

I was fascinated by Ishiguro's portrayal of the perfect English butler and his internal struggles between personal and professional. The book also provided a glimpse into the diplomacy that was a foot between WWI and II and the fall of genteel society and that way of life. Did not find it at all boring this go round.

The movie is very faithful to the book so you'd probably like the movie if you saw it again.

Oh dear, another 6 months of not posting. Here's the few books I managed to read since my last update.

#440
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
My Rating:

I generally find Waugh very readable, but other than that I didn’t find this book at all remarkable.

#441
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
My Rating:

Very enjoyable mystery that had me tense and rooting for the bad guy on more than one occasion.

#442
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
My Rating:

Meh. An interesting perspective of WWII in Italy, but so slow.

#443
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
My Rating:

I liked the beginning, coming-of-age parts of the book way more than the love-triangle-living-in-NY latter half.

#444
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coehlo
My Rating:

Love me some Paulo Coehlo and his creativity.

#445
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
My Rating:

I found the story within a story within a story bits distracting from the better aspects of the book.

#446
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe
My Rating:

Maybe something was lost in translation, or the writing was intentionally juvenile to match the narrator’s maturity.

Good you are here again! We think alike about a lot of books I think. So I don't feel encouraged to read Kenzaburo Oe!

Hi Simone! Yes, I've noticed we have similar tastes : ) The Oe was especially disappointing considering he won a Nobel.

#447
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
My Rating:

Sufficiently creepy with some good twists and turns. But I did find that it was rather boring in parts, especially for a vampire tale.

#448
The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade
My Rating:

#449
Justine by Marquis de Sade
My Rating:

Catching up on the 1001 threads and reading the February discussion around these books was the impetus I needed to throw in the towel and abandon these two de Sades unfinished. I started both a while back, would read a few pages until I had my limit, and set aside for a while. Too many books to waste precious reading time on this torture.

I can't say I blame you re de Sade. I made it through 120 Days of Sodom and it just gets worse.

The Marquis de Sade is a bedamned pox upon the earth. The whole of literature should lament the day he was born, celebrate his passing, and cast to the pit everything he did in between.

I managed to get a few 1001 books read over the last few weeks. And decent reads at that!

#450
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Read by Jenny Sterlin
My Rating:

Oh the tangled web that results when 21st century opinions about love and relationships are stuck in the bodies of people living in the 19th century. I seem to remember someone in this group loathing this book, so I was pleasantly surprised.

#451
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Read by Susan Lyons
My Rating:

Ignoring how dated this book reads, I found this it to be a little uneven - rushing over some parts and then lingering on minutiae about minor characters. It seemed better suited to a collection of essays. My favorite parts were the description of the shepherd boys coming in to watch the cuckoo clock and the doe that was rescued and raised on the plantation.

#452
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Read by Juanita McMahon
My Rating:

I knew nothing about this book prior to reading it, other than I could probably expect some lesbian love scenes due to Waters’s reputation. That turned out to be a great way to approach this page turner of a book so I will say nothing more : )

>178 aliciamay: I'll move the Hardy and Waters up on my tbr list!

Three good reads there . . . Jude -- loved it but so scaring. Out of Africa - loved it too. I liked the rescued doe too, and also loved the giraffes going to Germany. And Fingersmith -- like you, I didn't know much about it and enjoyed the ride.

>179 Simone2: I hope you enjoy them when you get around to reading!

>180 Nickelini: The giraffes were great too! Dinesen did a wonderful job making her stories come to life.