Group Challenge: Read ALL of the books off of the combined "1001 Books" lists, Part 2

Thanks to the hard work by JonnySaunders in compiling the books that we’ve read off of the combined edition lists, we know that we have only 213 books out of the 1305 to read before we have completed the list as a group. This thread is to track our reading of the list as a group to see if we can complete the list together.

I know there are some who post in this group who chose not to be a part of the Progress Index. Please feel free to contribute to this group challenge regardless. All who are tracking their 1001 books reading are welcome here! As you read books off of this list, please post your completions and I will keep the list updated. Happy reading!




This challenge began on 11/18/2013.
Thread 2 began on 3/24/2014 with 1212 books completed, 93 books to go!

Unread books from the Combined 1001 Books lists

Pre-1700s COMPLETE
Tirant lo Blanc - Joanot Martorell - 1490 StevenTX
La Celestina - Fernando de Rojas - 1499 StevenTX
Amadis of Gaul - Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo - 1508 StevenTX
The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra - 1617 StevenTX
The Conquest of New Spain - Bernal Díaz del Castillo – 1632 puckers

1700s
COMPLETE

1800s
The Monastery - Sir Walter Scott - 1820 puckers
The Albigenses - Charles Robert Maturin - 1824 QuartInSession
The Lion of Flanders - Hendrick Conscience - 1838 JustJoey4
Camera Obscura - Hildebrand - 1839 JustJoey4
Facundo - Domingo Faustino Sarmiento - 1845 soffitta1
Castle Richmond - Anthony Trollope - 1860 puckers
King Lear of the Steppes - Ivan Turgenev - 1870 hdcclassic
Pepita Jimenéz - Juan Valera - 1874 puckers
The Crime of Father Amado - José Maria Eça de Queirós - 1876 wayne44
Virgin Soil - Ivan Turgenev - 1877 BekkaJo
Bouvard and Pécuchet - Gustave Flaubert - 1881 BekkaJo
The Regent's Wife - Clarín Leopoldo Alas - 1884 japaul22
Marius the Epicurean - Walter Pater - 1885
The Quest - Frederik van Eeden - 1885 simone2
The Manors of Ulloa - Emilia Pardo Bazán - 1886 Anoplophora
The People of Hemsö - August Strindberg - 1887 andejons
Under the Yoke - Ivan Vazov - 1888 wayne44
By the Open Sea - August Strindberg - 1890 andejons
Thaïs - Anatole France - 1890 StevenTX
The Real Charlotte - Somerville and Ross - 1894 japaul22
The Viceroys - Federico De Roberto - 1894 Deern
Compassion - Benito Pérez Galdós - 1897
Dom Casmurro - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis – 1899 annamorphic

1900-1949
Solitude - Víctor Català - 1905 JustJoey4
Three Lives - Gertrude Stein - 1909 soffitta1
Martin Eden - Jack London - 1909 aliciamay
Impressions of Africa - Raymond Roussel - 1910 ursula
Locus Solus - Raymond Roussel - 1914 StevenTX
Pallieter - Felix Timmermans - 1916 JustJoey4
The Shadow Line - Joseph Conrad - 1917 puckers
Life of Christ Giovanni Papini - 1921 arukiyomi
The Last Days of Humanity - Karl Kraus - 1922 Deern
Aaron's Rod - D.H. Lawrence - 1922 QuartInSession
The Green Hat - Michael Arlen - 1924 puckers
The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein - 1925 (Anoplophora)
The Counterfeiters - André Gide - 1925 Cecilturtle
The Artamonov Business - Maxim Gorky - 1925 wayne44
The New World - Heruy Wäldä-Sellassé - 1925
Chaka the Zulu - Thomas Mofolo - 1925 Eliz_M
The Plumed Serpent - D.H. Lawrence - 1926 puckers
Under Satan's Sun - Geroges Bernanos - 1926 (Eliz_M)
Alberta and Jacob - Cora Sandel - 1926 annamorphic
The Case of Sergeant Grischa - Arnold Zweig - 1927 Deern
The Childermass - Wyndham Lewis - 1928 aliciamay
Hebdomeros - Giorgio de Chirico - 1929 Deern
Harriet Hume - Rebecca West - 1929 puckers
Retreat Without Song - Shahan Shahnoor - 1929 StevenTX
I Thought of Daisy - Edmund Wilson - 1929 annamorphic
The Apes of God - Wyndham Lewis - 1930 (StevenTX)
Her Privates We - Frederic Manning - 1930 wayne44
Insatiability - Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz - 1930 StevenTX
To the North - Elizabeth Bowen - 1932 annamorphic
The Forbidden Realm - J. J. Slauerhoff - 1932 annamorphic
A Day Off - Storm Jameson - 1933 annamorphic
The Bells of Basel- Louis Aragon - 1934 (hdcclassic)
Summer Will Show - Sylvia Townsend Warner - 1936 annamorphic
Eyeless in Gaza - Aldous Huxley - 1936 wayne44
The Thinking Reed - Rebecca West - 1936 japaul22
Wild Harbour - Ian MacPherson - 1936 nickelini
In Parenthesis - David Jones - 1937 Eliz_M
The Revenge for Love - Wyndham Lewis - 1937
After the Death of Don Juan - Sylvia Townsend Warner - 1938 QuartInSession
Alamut - Vladimir Bartol - 1938 QuartInSession
On the Edge of Reason - Miroslav Krleza - 1938 wayne44
The Hamlet - William Faulkner - 1940 Cecilturtle
Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton - 1941 soffitta1
Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf - 1941 puckers
Broad and Alien is the World - Ciro Alegría - 1941 annamorphic
The Harvesters - Cesare Pavese - 1941 Simone2
Caught - Henry Green - 1943 puckers
Transit - Anna Seghers - 1944 Eliz_M
Arcanum 17 - André Breton - 1945 paruline
Bosnian Chronicle - Ivo Andric - 1945 GerrysBookshelf
Andrea - Carmen Laforet - 1945 annamorphic
Back - Henry Green - 1946 annamorphic
House in the Uplands - Erskine Caldwell - 1946 xuesheng
Froth on the Daydream - Boris Vian - 1947 Bur
All About H. Hatterr - G.V. Desani - 1948 QuartInSession
Disobedience - Alberto Moravia - 1948 Eliz_M
Journey to the Alcarria - Camilo José Cela - 1948 soffitta1
Ashes and Diamonds - Jerzy Andrzejewski - 1948 annamorphic
The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge – 1949 Eliz_M

1950-1999
The Guiltless - Hermann Broch - 1950 Eliz_M
The Opposing Shore - Julien Gracq - 1951 (paruline)
Watt - Samuel Beckett - 1953 annamorphic
The Hothouse - Wolfgang Koeppen - 1953 Deern
Self Condemned - Wyndham Lewis - 1954 annamorphic
A Ghost at Noon - Alberto Moravia - 1954 hdcclassic
The Unknown Soldier - Väinö Linna - 1954 laura_88
A World of Love - Elizabeth Bowen - 1955 hdcclassic, annamorphic
The Trusting and the Maimed - James Plunkett - 1955 annamorphic
The Ragazzi - Pier Paulo Pasolini - 1955 Deern
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands - João Guimarães Rosa - 1956
The Glass Bees - Ernst Jünger - 1957 Anoplophora
Our Ancestors - Italo Calvino - 1959 hdcclassic
Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse - 1959 annamorphic
Down Second Avenue - Ezekiel Mphahlele - 1959 wayne44
Promise at Dawn - Romain Gary - 1960 Bur
The Magician of Lublin - Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1960 ursula
Halftime - Martin Walser - 1960 Deern
Bebo's Girl - Carlo Cassola - 1960 hdcclassic
How It Is - Samuel Beckett - 1961 StevenTX
Memoirs of a Peasant Boy - Xosé Neira Vilas - 1961 Eliz_M
Girl With Green Eyes - Edna O'Brien - 1962 Eliz_M
Time of Silence - Luis Martín-Santos - 1962 (annamorphic)
Inside Mr. Enderby - Anthony Burgess - 1963 puckers
The Third Wedding - Costas Taktsis - 1963 wayne44
Dog Years - Günter Grass - 1963 Deern
The Passion According to G.H. - Clarice Lispector - 1964 StevenTX
Albert Angelo - B.S. Johnson - 1964 annamorphic
Garden, Ashes - Danilo Kis - 1965 Deern
The Birds Fall Down - Rebecca West - 1966 puckers
Trawl - B.S. Johnson - 1966 puckers
Death and the Dervish - Mesa Selimovic - 1966 hdcclassic
Pilgrimage - Dorothy Richardson - 1967 StevenTX
No Laughing Matter - Angus Wilson - 1967 annamorphic
Z - Vassilis Vassilikos - 1967 wayne44
The Manor - Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1967 puckers
Belle du Seigneur - Albert Cohen - 1968 Cecilturtle
The Cathedral - Oles Honchar - 1968 wayne44
Tent of Miracles - Jorge Amado - 1969 Bur
Ada - Vladimir Nabokov - 1969 QuartInSession
Jacob the Liar - Jurek Becker - 1969 amaryann21
Heartbreak Tango - Manuel Puig - 1969 hdcclassic
Here's to You, Jesusa! - Elena Poniatowska - 1969 amaryann21
Mercier et Camier - Samuel Beckett - 1970 CayenneEllis
Jahrestage - Uwe Johnson - 1970 (Deern?)
A World for Julius - Alfredo Bryce Echenique - 1970 annamorphic
The Wild Boys - William Burroughs - 1971 puckers
Cataract - Mykhaylo Osadchyl - 1971 (Eliz_M)
G - John Berger - 1972 QuartInSession
The Honorary Consul - Graham Greene - 1973 arukiyomi
The Port or Luka - Antun Soljan - 1974
W, or the Memory of Childhood - Georges Perec - 1975 paruline
Amateurs - Donald Barthelme - 1976 QuartInSession
Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor - 1976 Deern
The Public Burning - Robert Coover - 1977 (amaryann21)
The Engineer of the Human Soul - Josef Skvorecky - 1977 ipsoivan
Yes - Thomas Bernhard - 1978 aliciamay
The Safety Net - Heinrich Böll - 1979 hdcclassic
Fool's Gold - Maro Douka - 1979
Southern Seas - Manuel Vásquez Montalbán - 1979 Eliz_M
Smell of Sadness - Alfred Kossmann - 1980 (Simone2)
Lanark: A Life in Four Books - Alasdair Gray - 1981 puckers
Couples, Passerby - Botho Strauss - 1981 Deern
Concrete - Thomas Bernhard - 1982 annamorphic
The Names - Don DeLillo - 1982 aliciamay
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa - 1982 Korrick
Worstward Ho - Samuel Beckett - 1983 mhenry4
The Christmas Oratorio - Göran Tunström - 1983 andejons
Fado Alexandrino - António Lobo Antunes - 1983 wayne44
The Bus Conductor Hines - James Kelman - 1984 annamorphic
Professor Martens' Departure - Jaan Kross - 1984 annamorphic
Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel - Julián Ríos - 1984 amaryann21
The Young Man - Botho Strauss - 1984
A Maggot - John Fowles - 1985 soffitta1
Anagrams - Lorrie Moore - 1986 Eliz_M
Extinction - Thomas Bernhard - 1986 (RachelLeah)
Ancestral Voices - Etienne van Heerden - 1986 (Eliz_M?)
The Afternoon of a Writer - Peter Handke - 1987 QuartInSession
Cigarettes - Harry Mathews - 1987 Eliz_M
World's End - T. Coraghessan Boyle - 1987 ALWINN
Enigma of Arrival - V.S. Naipaul - 1987 arukiyomi
The Taebek Mountains - Jo Jung-rae - 1987
Ballad for Georg Henig - Viktor Pasokov - 1987 StevenTX
All Souls - Javier Marías - 1987 amaryann21
The Last World - Christoph Ransmayr - 1988 hdcclassic
A Disaffection - James Kelman - 1989 ipsoivan
Obabakoak - Bernardo Atzaga - 1989 amaryann21
The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor - 1989 Eliz_M
Vineland - Thomas Pynchon - 1990 amaryann21
Vertigo - W.G. Sebald - 1990 amaryann21
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge - 1990 amaryann21
The Midnight Examiner - William Kotzwinkle - 1990 puckers
The Shadow Lines - Amitav Ghosh - 1990 soffitta1
The Daughter - Pavlos Matesis - 1990 mhenry4
Typical - Padgett Powell - 1991 (Eliz_M)
Downriver - Iain Sinclair - 1991 puckers
Astradeni - Eugenia Fakinou - 1991 amaryann21
Life is a Caravanserai - Emine Özdamar - 1992 (amerynth?)
A Heart So White - Javier Marias - 1992 amaryann21
Asphodel - H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) - 1992 (amaryann21)
The Triple Mirror of the Self - Zulfikar Ghose - 1992 amaryann21
Disappearance - David Dabydeen - 1993 soffitta1
Looking for the Possible Dance - A.L. Kennedy - 1993 puckers
Operation Shylock - Philip Roth - 1993 amaryann21
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll - Álvaro Mutis - 1993 QuartInSession
Land - Park Kyong-ni - 1994 (CayenneEllis)
City Sister Silver - Jàchym Topol - 1994 amaryann21
Love's Work - Gillian Rose - 1995 JoLynnsbooks
The Clay Machine-Gun - Victor Pelevin - 1996 (aliciamay)
Democracy - Joan Didion - 1996 paruline
Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutiérrez - 1998 soffitta1
Pavel's Letters - Monika Moron – 1999 (annamorphic)

2000s
Small Remedies - Shashi Deshpande - 2000 Eliz_M
Bartleby and Co - Enrique Vila-Matas - 2000 Deern
That They May Face the Rising Sun - John McGahern - 2001 arukiyomi
Gabriel's Gift - Hanif Kureishi - 2001 jdaniel3760
At Swim, Two Boys - Jamie O'Neill - 2001 amaryann21
London Orbital - Iain Sinclair - 2002 ipsoivan
Your Face Tomorrow - Javier Marías - 2002 Simone2
Thursbitch - Alan Garner - 2003 soffitta1
Islands - Dan Sleigh - 2003 puckers
Lady Number Thirteen - José Carlos Somoza - 2003 Bur
Dining on Stones - Iain Sinclair - 2004
Slow Man - J.M. Coetzee - 2005 puckers
The Kindly Ones - Jonathan Littell - 2006 Bur
A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore - 2009 bucketyell

Thought the old thread was long enough that we needed a new one. Only 93 books to go!

I have bought The Christmas Oratorio, but will probably not get around to reading it for a few weeks yet.

looking at this I'm not sure which books are currently being read or intended to be read by people who already have them.

I'd like to get a couple more of these and knock them off the list, but dont' want to clash with anyone. As I was getting closer to the end of Enigma of Arrival, I was worried that I'd see someone else pop up a day before I finished it and say "Done!"

Would it be possible to add the name of whoever has already volunteered to read an unread book to the titles above so we can make sure we're not doubling up? For example, andejons could be added to The Christmas Oratorio.

I think as we get closer to our goal this is going to be more necessary. Thanks!

I'm currently reading The Midnight Examiner (which is an amusing story so far). I have The Birds Fall Down and Downriver lined up on the shelf, and then I'm finished my contribution to the challenge for a while.

I am still trying to read Halftime/ Halbzeit by Martin Walser.
I'd also "book" Jahrestage and Dog Years if no-one else does, but I am in no hurry to get to those. I expect deeply intellectual German philosophizing and complete joylessness from all 3.

Wolfgang Koeppen's Hothouse is available in my library, another option. I also just downloaded Karl Kraus' The Last Days of Humanity in German, which seems to be a play(??). Another one that promises to be deadly serious and joyless... but hopefully at least good.

I've been reading Amadis of Gaul off and on for a while. This week I started focusing more on it, but I have a long way to go, and it's likely to be weeks before I finish it. After that, if no one else has stepped in, I'll read Persiles and Sigismunda

I have plans to read Southern Seas - Manuel Vásquez Montalbán and possibly In Parenthesis - David Jones in April for a mini award-winning books challenge. There are handful of others that I own and will get to....eventually. I won't "reserve" the titles until I start reading one of them, though.

I'm definitely willing to add a name in parentheses next to any book that someone is working on or close enough to reading to feel that they want to "claim" it. That being said, any book notated that way is still up for grabs, meaning that if you finish it without realizing someone else was working on it, I'm still going to cross it off. From the other side, if you claim a book and later decide it's not something you want to read, no hard feelings - just let me know.

Also, I'm not going to go through the entire previous thread, so if you want a book claimed and I haven't updated it by the end of the day today, add it here please.

Thanks!

Also, let's feel free to get in touch with someone who has "claimed" a book to check in on the reading status since some of these are only planned reads. We all know that sometimes what you're in the mood to read can change!

"the last days of humanity" was only part of the 2006 edition of which I don't own the Boxall book. I can only find the theater play in 5 acts, but it seems there was a novel/ prose version earlier (1918), but I can't find that one, neither as e-book or real book. Does anyone know which version the 2006 list demands? I decided to read that play anyway, it starts out promisingly, just don't know if it counts.

>16 Deern: They show "first published" 1922, and later refer to this as the final edition. They describe it as a play, but say "with its over 800 pages, it is more like a novel than a play in length."

okay, thank you! then it must be the play I have here. on amazon it said "print length 296p", but I've been reading quite long today and the percentage counter didn't move forward, I am now at only 3%, so 800p is more believable. those PLs for the free gutenberg books are often incorrect.

I'd like to claim A Heart So White, please.

1213. The Midnight Examiner - William Kotzwinkle. The staff of Chameleon Publications (publisher of a number of sensational tabloids, including The Midnight Examiner) find themselves mixed up with the Mafia after a couple of their colleagues are kidnapped. An amusing story full of eccentric characters. 3.5/5

Have started Back though think it will be a slow read.

I'm reading Marius the Epicurean... but I am going to be at it for at least another year. If someone could beat me too it so that I can throw it a wall that would be awesome!

I'll tackle Life of Christ by Giovanni Papini

I'd like to claim W, or the memory of childhood.

well...which is it? make up your mind won't you!!

;-)

Done with Back (review coming soon, what an odd book) and would like to claim I thought of Daisy for my next read.
Back was not a slow read at all, and since I was trapped with a very delayed flight for most of yesterday, I read it much faster than I usually manage these days!

I finished All Souls this morning. If Vertigo is still unclaimed, I'd like that one as well.

1216. Downriver - Iain Sinclair. A nightmarish vision of the East End of London. Sinclair writes in a challenging narrative style so it is difficult to follow what plot there might be here. However he does successfully create an atmosphere of London in decay, filled with seedy characters, and the Thames mud oozes through every page. Some of the prose is clever, but much of it feels too much like hard work. 2/5

The Guiltless by Hermann Broch. An unusual book -- five chapters initially written & published as stand-alone short stories 1917-1933. when the publisher wanted to issue a short story collection, Broch instead wrote six new stories and linked them to the original five with lyrical poems to create this work.

1218. Vertigo by W.G. Sebald. His first novel and I'm intrigued to read more of his work now!

1219. The Birds Fall Down - Rebecca West. Laura, the 18 year old granddaughter of an exiled Russian Count, finds herself caught up with a revolutionary and a double agent on the eve of the Russian Revolution. The slow pace and verbose narrative take this beyond what might be called a thriller, but tension pervades through much of the book and it is a bit of a "page-turner". 3/5

Downriver - Iain Sinclair. A nightmarish vision of the East End of London. Sinclair writes in a challenging narrative style so it is difficult to follow what plot there might be here. However he does successfully create an atmosphere of London in decay, filled with seedy characters, and the Thames mud oozes through every page. Some of the prose is clever, but much of it feels too much like hard work. 2/5

Puckers - at least that one isn't very long. I have the same author's London Orbital in my TBR and it's a big thick one. Not penciling in my name.!

#32. I can now understand why all three of Sinclair's books are on our "unread" list, and why all three were dropped from the 2008 update. One of the back-cover reviews of Downriver described it as "an orgy of prose" which I think summed it up nicely. Good luck!

I just got a copy of Andrea aka Nada by Carmen Leforet, so put me down for that. This is my favorite period so I figured I should mop up the stragglers.

I'm about to pick up Amateurs by Donald Barthelme from the library, so please mark me down for that one!

I'd like to reserve Stone Junction and Here's to You, Jesusa, please!

Have now finished I thought of Daisy. Could have died without reading this. Review on my thread.

Read Here's to You, Jesusa quickly and let me know how it is!

Elena Poniatowska was in an anthology I read and her story ("Love Story") really impressed me. I thought my library didn't have Here's to You, Jesusa, but I just took another look and there it is.

Assuming I'm able to get the one book available through our inter-library consortium, I'd like to take House in the Uplands by Caldwell.

1221. A Heart So White is finished. I think I liked it more than All Souls, but neither of them was fabulous. Marias' writing style is very introspective and musing, though this one seemed to do a little better on plot.

I've read Los Mares del Sur (Southern Seas) by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. A quite unremarkable mystery.

I'm also putting in a claim on Samuel Beckett, Watt, unless somebody else has it. Having finished Molloy I am now on Malone Dies and I think I might just keep reading Beckett for a while. It's that kind of experience.

Finished Amateurs by Donald Barthelme. It's a collection of darkly absurd, bizarre and quite confusing stories. Some of them were quite enjoyable and others just left me saying 'Wha....?'

Stone Junction is done! Easy read, but a bit of a twisted trip.

In Parenthesis is done. Not an easy read - fragmented prose and many many allusions to English/Welsh folklore and songs with which I am unfamiliar. Even when all the words were familiar, some things did not parse. But the writing seems fitting for the confused memories of WWI trench warfare and there are are moments of chilling beauty in the writing.

Just finished Here's to You, Jesusa!. Anoplophora, it was good! It's basically the story of Jesusa's life, as told to Elena by Jesusa. The introduction is beautiful- the only time we hear about the experience of getting to know Jesusa from Elena's perspective.

I'm planning to read The Great Indian Novel in May.

Finished Andrea better known as Nada by Carmen Laforet. Review coming on my thread.

I think that I will also lay claim to Ashes and Diamonds since it's in my period, and Self-Condemned although I feel that I may live to regret that. Also Concrete. That's probably all the books on the list that I'll want to read. If anybody else would like Self Condemned go ahead and take it! If you're Canadian it might appeal to you. I just need to read a book by Lewis and that seems like the least unbearable.

You can scratch Amadis of Gaul from the top of the list. My full review is here

I will claim The Regent's Wife. Long, but seems like something I will enjoy.

I've finished The Christmas Oratorio

finished the monstrous and incredible last days of humanity by karl kraus. 5 stars and probably the strongest and most intelligent anti-war book i ever read, but also incredibly complex and it feels much longer than the app 800 pages.

I'm almost done with W, or the memory of childhood and already planning the next one. I'd like to claim The opposing shore.

Finished Ashes and Diamonds, another book that was in NO way uplifting.

I'm going to claim The Forbidden Realm which I've finally managed to track down in English. I'm sure it's very good in Dutch too... I am done with Concrete for this challenge, which was grand fun, just what I needed.

Since I'm steaming through books these days (pneumonia! friend of 1001 books!) I will also take The Trusting and the Maimed and probably The Forbidden Realm. It was difficult to track either of those down but I've found them and will try to read them.

Oh no! now I remember why I bought The Forbidden Realm.... it just magically appeared through the post a few weeks ago :)

I've read the first few chapters - but it's in the bathroom so a 'go slow' book, so I'm sure you'll finish before me!

Sorry to hear about the pneumonia by the way - hope you are okay?

I would like to claim Impressions of Africa and Operation Shylock. I'm unable to find a lot of these through my local library system, unfortunately.

>59 amaryann21: I was actually coming here to post that I've just finished Impressions of Africa.

I was thinking it was going to be one of those "it would be better/more understandable in the original languages" books, but after reading the introduction, it appears that it was just as impenetrable in French. I appreciate it after reading about it, but the experience of actually reading it was not what I would call pleasurable.

Thanks for the warning! I've requested it from the library, so I'll struggle through if I must :)

Finished W, or the memory of childhood which was VERY good. Two stories told in alternating chapters. At first, they don't seem related but they actually parallel each other. Recommended.

I'd like to claim Obabakoak, though I have a feeling I may regret it. :)

#63, having finally received my copy of Self Condemned I am definitely regretting that! But I think "it's a tough job but somebody has to do it!"

Today feels like an ignore all the books I'm currently reading / have checked out from the library and check out yet another one sort of day.

So I want to claim Small Remedies by Shashi Deshpande. Unlike everyone else, I do not expect to regret this.

Just updating that, while I do intend to read it at some point, I don't see myself getting to The Regent's Wife as soon as I thought, so no hard feelings if someone else wants to read it first!

I finished The Hothouse by Wolfgang Köppen. Another pleasant surprise, should be on the school syllabus in Germany. And again timeless, dealing with the powerlessness of an idealistic member of parliament in post-war Germany, but looking at the current political situation with almost indistinguishable main parties who lost contact to their voters, it reads like a fresh novel.

Forgot to write that I ordered Dog Years by Guenther Grass, I should get it next Thursday and then start it directly.

Edit 12.05.2014: just checked the list again and in my quest to read at least all German and Italian works from the list (most of which are great but utterly joyless), I just ordered Hebdomeros by Giorgio de Chirico. It's not easily available even in Italian and might take some weeks to be delivered.

Wikipedia describes it as: "a book that presents itself as a novel, but in reality is a kind of indefinite narration: without a recognizable story, (...) more like an uninterrupted stage direction". Clearly something to look forward to... at least it's short.

My library has also Thomas Bernhard's Extinction in German, but this seems to have > 600 pages, so I'll sign up for that only if no-one else does. After 2 Bernhards without paragraphs I'm not yet ready for the next one.

Also noticed the Grass has 700 pages. Fun, yay!

I ordered a copy of Yes and I'll also be reading The Names. Although a lot on my reading plate now, so probably be starting in June.

I suddenly have absolutely no time to read, so someone else have Small Remedies.

Hi everyone! I just came across this thread but can perhaps help since I've already read The Daughter by Pavlos Matesis and Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett!

I have dutifully begun Self Condemned, which is less bad than I expected although the main character is completely intolerable. It's a long book. Sigh.

>70 Settings: I'll tackle Small Remedies; I had just tracked down a copy when you claimed it :)

I've read 'The Book of Disquiet', so you can put my name up next to the cross off. It's one of my absolute favorites, so I encourage everyone to read it without minding the fact that it's been checked off already.

Took a look at the local library database what of the remaining books they happen to have, too bad they didn't have the one I actually wanted to read (Bernanos) and several they did have tended to be rather thick tomes, and I'm not sure I can muster time to read them...

Not actually reserving these, but putting myself a reminder that if I am wondering what to read in near future, go pick up The Last World, Death and the Dervish, Engineer of the Human Soul or Ancestral Voices.

Finished Self Condemned. You should all be grateful that I read this so you don't have to.
I'm going to lay claim to The Bus Conductor Hines which looks kind of entertaining. Unlike Self Condemned.

I just picked up Cigarettes and Two Adolescents (which contains Luka, which I believe is another title for Disobedience) from the library. I should be reading them soonish.

And I finally finished The Great Indian Novel which was a lot of fun. Although it uses the structure and mythological figures of The Mahabharata for a satirical retelling of India's independent movement, I found it amusing even though I have only a surface knowledge of Gandhi & India's partition.

Disobedience has been read. Well-written, but I may have read it at the wrong time (adolescent boy quietly struggling with societies constraints by giving up all ties to life, one by one).

Operation Shylock can finally be crossed off. I had many naps while reading it. I think I'm not the target audience.

We made great progress in such a short time!
I'm almost done with Dog Years and will read either Halftime or Hebdomeros next.

Finished Dog Years. Recommended if you like magic realism. A bit too long though I'd say, the repeated use of some stylistical elements gets too obvious, for example the half-finished sentences occur countless times. The first time you might think "what an original idea", later "oh, here we are again". But I liked the frame of 3 parts told by three people, the dog idea... a very good book that could have been truly great, if Grass had been able to put at least some reins on his overboarding language lust.

I started Yes and The Names. Yes is probably going to be a slog, although at least it is short. The Names is looking promising a whole chapter into it.

Read The Trusting and the Maimed.

I will take Professor Martens' Departure and, if nobody else wants it, I'll try London Orbital while I'm in London in July. Although I do not plan to walk around the M25.

Finished Cigarettes -- interconnected stories of rich upstate people and the NYC art world in the 1930s/1960. Interesting, but I should have kept a character map!

I'd like to claim Cataract, I think I'll get to it this summer.

Finished The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda.

This completes the pre-1700 category, and it looks like we've now collectively read everything on the list published prior to 1884.

I couldn't decide so I started both Halbzeit(Halftime) and Hebdomeros. The second is boring but at least quite short and I might finish it over the weekend. The first one however is long and very, very well-written, but a real mood-killer. I feel depressed and like my mind is poisoned and I still have another 650 thin pages in tiny print to read. I fear that after that book I'll never be able to read anything by Walser again.

If I counted right there are only 60 unread left, 40 of those not yet claimed. And we started with 213. This is so great!!

#89, I contemplated Hebdomeros and decided to give it a pass. After reading Self Condemned by Wyndham Lewis I was feeling like early 20th-century painters should have stuck to painting. At least, as you say, De Chirico kept his novel short!

Claiming Death and the Dervish, picked it from the library. Hopefully it is not dreary but the premise sounds interesting...

I've just picked up Devil to pay in the Backlands... but if anyone beats me to it I won't be offended! I'm also still reading Marius the Epicurean but if anyone finishes that before me I would probably send them flowers...

I will tackle Insatiability.

Yes! I've finished Yes. I liked it, but I'm not going to claim the other Bernhard on the list. At least not now anyway.

Hmmm... I may not get to them for a while, but I own Ancestral Voices and am interested in Typical.

I went through and added touchstones to the titles of works we still need to read and some of the ones people were iffy about committing to. There was one, The Port by Soljan, that I couldn't find a touchstone for, but I tried to get all the rest linked to the correct book. Be a little careful with that though, and double check that the touchstone took you to the right place since most of these books are rather obscure and I had to force touchstones for many of them.

58 books to go - happy reading!!

>96 japaul22: Try the alternate title for The Port - Luka

>97 ELiz_M: Thanks! That worked.

I'm going to seriously claim The Manors of Ulloa, one of the ones I was most surprised no one had read. I mistakenly thought it was a lot more popular than it is.

Finished The Forbidden Realm aka The Forbidden Kingdom by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff. Unlike the last book I read for the challenge, this one was great! Review will appear on my thread soon. But I cannot figure out how it got on The List since the first English translation is only from 2012.

Finished Hebdomeros and to behonest have no idea what I've been reading. Nice language, nice images, all a bit like a dream, no story. I really made an effort, reading it extra slowly, sometimes aloud, but... ?

I feel a bit the same about Devil to Pay in the Backlands - admittedly I'm not 10% in yet, but he keeps rambling off and then going 'oh I'm rambling' and wandering off in another direction! So far I rather like it though, I have to say. May take me some time though!

Obabakoak is done and I had no reason to be scared! It was really charming and I enjoyed it. And I learned a little history- I love it when a book compels me to do research!

Halftime is read. 5 stars for the writing, 5 for the intelligent observations, but what a despicable super-narcissistic misogynistic protagonist,Anselm Kristlein, what a group of horrible characters, and the worst is they are so realistic. For me this book was an extremely painful confrontation with the world I grew up in.
Like the Koeppen and Grass book I read lately this is also an honest look on the Germany of the 1950s and the repression mechanisms in full action. Great book but I often felt weak and almost poisoned and had to put it down often because I couldn't take Anselm's thoughts anymore.
I'll probably rate with 4.5 stars.

I've finished The Names...another chore of a read.

And I'll claim The Childermass and The Clay Machine-Gun from the list.

I've searched for all of the remaining titles through my library system and at the local rare/out of print bookstore and no one has them. I think I've made as much of a contribution as I can. I'm hoping one of my trading sites will come up with one!

As soon as I post...

I'll claim The Public Burning.

A copy of The Last World by Ransmayr fell in my hands, so I'll claim it then.

I checked out Land today - it is a big book and not my first priority. If someone else wants to read it, I don't care, but I just wanted to put it out there that I may finish first!

>109 CayenneEllis: I'm impressed you found a copy! Yay for you! I was looking around and the cheapest I could find was well over $100!

I finished Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel. It wasn't fun. It wasn't terrible, though. My brain is happy it's over.

>110amaryann21 - I happen to have the weirdest local library system in the world. I live in a town of approximately 2,250. Our library system doesn't have some classics like Notes from the Underground ...but we do have Land. Go figure.

I finished The House of Ulloa.

It was good. A young, naïve priest goes to live at a aristocratic estate in decline and steeped in sin. The Wikipedia page points out it is a Naturalist novel, or a novel that depects life using realism, and that Pardo Bazán brought this movement to Spain.

The end of the book has a brief autobiography of the author. It's sobering to realize the effort it once took even wealthy women to educate themselves. It was also sobering to read the author I just spent so much time with defend the Spanish Inquisition with the reasoning that "only witches, Jews and the Illuminati heretics" were burned.

Death and the Dervish done. It was either a great book I didn't understand completely or an interesting one I did. Somewhat heavy reading (I noticed trying to read it when tired was hopeless) and it's mostly about futility of life, but worth reading in any case (as much as anything is).

Only 50 books to go!!!

I just finished Astradeni. I hope I'm not throwing anyone off by not claiming them first, but I'm coming across these last few little by little. MUCH easier to read than Larva, thank goodness.

I'm about to get to work on the ones I've claimed (including alas London Orbital) and I'll claim Pavel's Letters too. Looks like my kind of book.

I've finished Watt, a strangely wonderful book.

Can you take me off London Orbital. I started reading it yesterday and honestly, I cannot handle it. It needs somebody who has lived their entire life in London and was between about age 30 and 45 in 2000. It would help to be pretty engaged with liberal politics in England and, frankly, to be attuned to the chit-chat of the literary scene there. Honestly, this is a book in which every other sentence contains an in joke or reference. And it's 500 pages long, including bibliography and index.
But don't let me dissuade anybody from taking it on!

I read The Last World by Ransmayr.

A historical novel about exiled Ovid and his book Metamorphoses (which I haven't read in full but know well enough to know the references). But it's not a real historical novel, the book is full of anachronisms, photographs, microphones, lightbulbs, canned corn...
I must say I didn't really get this, it possibly says something about the relationship of myths and reality or somesuch but...writing is good though so it wasn't a chore to read even if it didn't really give much.

I'm finally starting La Regenta or The Regent's Wife.

I'm new to the group and posted my "I've read this" list yesterday. hdcclassic looked it over and suggested I come here to contribute to the group effort. I'll look this over in more detail later today and add what I can. Apparently no one else has read London Orbital (and in my opinion, no one should have to, even for group solidarity).

So that's my first contribution, and I will try to add more.

I finished Small Remedies a few days ago. An interesting read, but many cultural reference are unexplained.

I've read A Disaffection by Kelman, so there's another down. Good book, by the way.

Oh, and I read The Engineer of the Human Soul many years ago. I'd forgotten, and had to check someone's review to be sure.

oh, I had planned to read that Engineer of the Human Soul. Well, I will give it a go anyway :)

I'd like to claim The Triple Mirror of the Self. Working on that and The Public Burning, hopefully will make some progress on vacation next week.

>126 hdcclassic: oops, sorry! I can barely remember the book, so your contribution would be the 'real' reading.

I am so relieved that ipsoivan has done London Orbital. That was a daunting, not to say annoying, book.

I totally agree. I hated it. I found Sinclair interesting back when he wrote White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, but he kept writing variations on his theme that got annoying really fast.

The Childermass is done. Whoever tackles the other Lewis' on the list will forever be my hero.

I'll tackle A World for Julius. I think that's the last book on the list that I can manage, although I'm enjoying Professor Martens' Departure more than I expected. And aliciamay, I looked at The Childermass and must congratulate you on managing it! I did another Wyndham Lewis from this list. It was a pretty painful experience.

>132 annamorphic: I was helped by not knowing what I was getting into! The four remaining on the list are going to be tough for me.

Finished Jaan Kross, Professor Martens' Departure. A good one. Review coming on my thread.

I finished The Triple Mirror of the Self. Weird but readable.

Just finished Insatiability. Review forthcoming.

I got my copy of A Ballad for Georg Henig in the mail a few days ago and haven't shelved it yet, so I guess I'll do it next.

I finished La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas. Despite being a book I thought I'd love, I just couldn't connect with it. Review will be coming on my thread by tomorrow.

I'm going to take on Broad and Alien is the World because I'm really liking A World for Julius and it would be good to read a novel from the previous generation of Peruvian writers.

Finished A Ballad for Georg Henig, review in progress.

How It Is looks irresistibly weird, so I'll do that one next.

Please could you ? Devil to pay in the Backlands for me? I've slowed to snail pace on it...

Finished How It Is. I liked it a lot, but it's certainly not for everyone. My review is on my thread and on the book page.

I couldn't decide which one to do next, so out of the 14 unclaimed books from the list that I have in my library, I'll do the one owned by the fewest LT members and therefore least likely that anyone else would do. That turns out to be Retreat Without Song (14 members).

As well as The Public Burning, I'm working on City Sister Silver.

#144, I am so impressed that you own Retreat Without Song. That's one of the ones I thought would be impossible to get although it's in my local (University) library.

>146 annamorphic: I bought Retreat Without Song used via Amazon about six months ago. It came from a seller in the U.K. and was a former library book.

Finished Alfredo Bryce Echenique, A World for Julius. I loved this book! Review coming soon on my thread.

As far as I can see, The Smell of Sadness has never been translated into English. We need one of our Dutch members to take this one on -- JustJoey, Simone? I can read Dutch but not easily enough to take on a novel for fun...

>149 annamorphic: Good point. I wonder if anyone knows what other books that we have left have issues like that. Are there others not translated into English - if so, what language is it in? Are there some out of print? I imagine there are quite a few "problem books" left on our list. Might be good to talk about the ones that will be hard to complete to see if we can come up with a plan.

In looking through the list of books left that haven't been claimed, I have almost no expertise to share. I would be willing to read Asphodel by Hilda Doolittle next year if no one has read it yet. I also might be willing to read The Making of Americans.

For those tired of sifting through the list, here are the 18 books that I saw as unclaimed by anyone as of yet. I'll try to go back and add touchstones later today or tomorrow.

Compassion - Benito Pérez Galdós – 1897
The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein – 1925
The New World - Heruy Wäldä-Sellassé – 1925
Under Satan's Sun - Geroges Bernanos – 1926
The Apes of God - Wyndham Lewis – 1930
The Bells of Basel- Louis Aragon – 1934
The Revenge for Love - Wyndham Lewis – 1937
Time of Silence - Luis Martín-Santos – 1962
The Port or Luka - Antun Soljan – 1974
Fool's Gold - Maro Douka – 1979
Smell of Sadness - Alfred Kossmann – 1980
Couples, Passerby - Botho Strauss – 1981
The Young Man - Botho Strauss – 1984
Extinction - Thomas Bernhard – 1986
The Taebek Mountains - Jo Jung-rae – 1987
Life is a Caravanserai - Emine Özdamar – 1992
Asphodel - H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) – 1992
Dining on Stones - Iain Sinclair - 2004

>150 japaul22: I've tried to identify all the issues with untranslated books on the finding aid wiki. The biggest problem is The New World. It appears to exist only in Amharic. Smell of Sadness is not available in English, but fortunately we have members who can read it in Dutch. The Taebaek Mountains is available only in the original Korean or in French translation.

Of those that have been translated, The Port by Antun Soljan would probably be the hardest to get. It looks like there are copies at a few university libraries, but I've never seen it for sale online. The Bells of Basel and Devil to Pay in the Backlands are expensive to buy in English translation, but can be found in major libraries. I have copies of the rest of the unread books on the list, so I know they're easy to get.

Out of curiosity, I just checked our extended library resources (outside the county + university libraries). You are right on - I could get The Bells of Basel or Devil to Pay in the Backlands, but not Luka (The Port).

The Thomas Bernhard and one of the Botho Strauss books are available in German in my library and the other Strauss should be easy to find. I didn't claim any of them because I am in no hurry to get to them. I am taking a break from the 1,001 list until October, but then I plan to return to the ones I claimed.

The Bernanos is avilable in French on Kindle if I remember well.

>153 ursula: Hmmm, I wonder if the Brooklyn or New York public libraries can ILL The Port? Worldcat only lists English copies at Yale University, Library of Congress, Ohio State University Libraries, Indiana University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Wisconsin - Madison, General Library System, University of Kansas, University of Southern California, University of Washington Libraries, UC Berkeley Libraries, University of California, NRLF, and The British Library, St. Pancras.

>155 ELiz_M: I'm not sure what "University of California" is supposed to mean; there are kind of a bunch of those. Berkeley doesn't seem to be one of the participating libraries for our system, since they don't come up in my search results. Only 1 library available to me has Devil to Pay in the Backlands, and that's Claremont, so the reach is obviously pretty decent (I'm in northern California). But the only Soljan available in the system in English is A Brief Excursion. Bummer!

I just checked the Berkeley library and NRLF (UC book storage facility) and I believe that they only have the Croatian version from 1974 and not the 1981 English translation. I ordered the NRLF copy which claims to be in English but has a 1974 date -- so something is wrong in the record.
I will let you know if it's a version I can read.

Also, Abe Books lists a copy for sale:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=9711248229&searchurl=an%3Da...
I don't know where it is coming from but the shipping cost is almost $20.

The Thomas Bernhard and both the Strauss books are, I'm pretty sure, available in English. I just didn't want to read those!

Which UC are you at Ursula? {waves from Berkeley}

>157 annamorphic: I don't know where it is coming from but the shipping cost is almost $20.

It says it's from Poland.

ETA
It also says
Description:
polski/Polish; Pages/stron: 192; and so forth.

So it does! So I guess none of us will be reading that...

>157 annamorphic: I am not at a UC. But the Contra Costa county library system has access to some university libraries and out-of-county libraries for ILL. It gives access to things like SF Public and a bunch of California universities (and UNLV and Reno came up in one search as well).

>157 annamorphic: The Thomas Bernhard and both the Strauss books are, I'm pretty sure, available in English. I just didn't want to read those!

Yep, there isn't anything left on the list that I really want to read!

Looking at the list on #151, my library seems to have copies of both Wyndham Lewises, Stein, Aragon, Martin-Santos, Young Man by Strauss and Özdamar, so seven books.

None of these are exactly "yay, I want to read that", but I might give a go to them, of course in some cases wanting to first see the physical copy of the book...
Young Man has been published in a series I have had good experiences with, so it has that going for it.
Or tell me if any of these are very hard to find for the rest of you.

The only book listed I actually want to read is still that Bernanos, but it is available in the library only in Swedish, and I can't really handle French original either...

I have easy access to The Making of Americans, Under Satan's Sun, The Apes of God, and Asphodel.

I have access to Compassion, The Bells of Basel, The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, Time of Silence, Couples, Passerby, and The Young Man, but only as non-circulating items at the NYPL main branch.

I am planning to read Under Satan's Sun in the next two months or so, but the rest are not in my immediate future.

>157 annamorphic: both the Strauss books are, I'm pretty sure, available in English. I just didn't want to read those!

I have both of them in English. They are short, and I'm planning to read them, but I was going to wait until later in the year when the Reading Globally group is doing a theme on post-war German literature.

I was able to get a copy of Asphodel, so I can claim that and get to it in the next month or two.

I'll read Smell of Sadness, in fact I own it so will move it up in my TBR pile.

I do have Life is a Caravanserai but haven't read it yet. However, I'm kind of particular about reading books I acquire in order so it will probably be months before I read it. (This is why I haven't really been participating in this goal.... it takes me too long to get to new books.)

If someone else wants to read it, no worries. But if no one is particularly interested, I'll tackle it at some point. It probably won't be until the end of the year though.

> 167, LOL Amerynth, this is the 'neurosis'-thing again? So recognizable. I am also not sure how to fit Smell of Sadness into my reading system :-)

I wonder if Peter Boxall and his buddies are off somewhere having a big laugh over the fact that people all over the world are chasing after these obscure and expensive books just because he put them on his silly list.

@Simone2: Yes, definitely part of my neurosis! :)

@StevenTX: I don't know if Boxall is laughing, but I think the person who suggested the Amharic book certainly is.

>170 amerynth: The person who contributed the article on The New World is identified as Reg Grant. He is a freelance writer who is credited with a number of short, illustrated books on such topics as 20th century history and aviation. I see nothing to suggest that he is a specialist in Ethiopian literature. It makes you wonder how many contributors recommended books that they had not read.

>171 StevenTX: That's interesting. And then why did his selection make the cut if it seems he couldn't have even read it? There are some curious things about this list. I'm glad to be reading off of it, but problems like that are why it's not my goal to read everything off the list.

I picked that Bells of Basel by Aragon from the library and will start on it once I get couple of other books done. Here's hoping for a positive surprise.

Steven, for someone who has read more than anyone we know off this list, that doesn't seem like your goal ;-)

>174 arukiyomi: I think you're reading japaul22's comments in #172 as mine. And don't forget that ELiz_M passed me like I was standing still a few months ago. But my "goal," irrational and gullible as it is, has always been to read from the combined list (not exclusively) until I've read every book I can get hold of or die. I'll pat myself on the back if and when I hit 1001, but I'll keep on going. Even though the list is by no means perfect, it has introduced me to some authors and works I was glad to have discovered and would never have found otherwise. In my other LT groups people are always asking "Where did you find this?," and I point them to the 1001 books list. If nothing else, though, I've invested too much time and money collecting these puppies to stop now.

If anyone is able to read the 1001 before he dies, it is you Steven (and Eliz indeed, who is racing through them). I envy you and hope I'll get there too!

ah yes... you're right Steven. I like you, am on the same quest... although a couple of hundred.. and a couple of decades... behind ;-)

Finished Broad and Alien is the World. Total meh book, really failed to grab my interest.

I got the copy of Luka by Antun Soljan from NRLF at Berkeley and it was in Croatian! The guy standing next to me at the circulation desk asked why I'd requested it and when I explained he said, "You could still read it!" and proceeded to give me a quick lesson in Croatian pronunciation. So now I could in theory read it aloud, but I would not understand what it said.
For what it's worth, it's quite a short book. I hope somebody else can find a copy in English.

#171, whoever put all those horrible Wyndham Lewis books on the list was definitely a sadist, and I really wonder if they (or anybody else) had read ALL of them.

Eventually I'll be able to do the last Thomas Bernhard on the list, Extinction. I really like his work and have read a few others for The Challenge, but this is the longest and supposedly the slowest and after Broad and Alien is the World I want to do shorter and lighter things for a while. Herzog on audio is also being very tedious. I am not feeling fulfilled!

Please can you de# me on Marius and Devil to pay? I'm still reading both, but the rate I'm going it'll be 2017 by the time I finish them...

Plus Marius is readily available on Gutenberg :) And more power to anyone who enjoys the philosophising of it!

Finished Retreat without Song. It had it's moments, but only so-so overall. Full review on my thread and on the book page.

City Sister Silver is finished. It was an interesting ride- dense, but I had to keep going. Like nothing I've read before.

I'm starting Extinction tomorrow - I see annamorphic might be working on it too but I will update when I finish in case it isn't crossed off the list yet!

#183, take it away -- I hadn't even gotten a copy of that one yet.

I have finished The Busconductor Hines, a really delightful book. What are the rest of James Kelman's works like? I'm thinking that since I'm so into the dialect now, it might be time to read another.
Anyway, review coming soon on my thread.

>185 annamorphic: I loved How Late It Was, How Late, probably the best book I read last year.

>185 annamorphic: I don't think I loved it as much as Eliz_M did, but I enjoyed How Late as well. If you're into the dialect, I'd stick with it. That was a bit of a challenge for me getting into the book.

Has anybody actually physically seen a copy of The Port or Luka by Antun Soljan in English translation? I have looked on World Cat. but I suspect that the label "English" is an error (like the copy in my library that said English but was in Croatian) and that the only translation is that one into Polish. I cannot find a trace of an English translation anywhere on the web. I would read this book if it were possible to really find it in English...

I finished A House in the Uplands back in June. I'm surprised this one is on the list. It's pulp fiction about a failing Southern family who is falling apart much like their plantation home. Interesting, but wasn't developed nor did it flow enough for my liking.

I wasn't able to get this through my inter-library consortium, I had to buy a used book instead. However, I helped the library that was supposed to have it learn that their copy was missing. Between this list and the list of 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up , I've helped several libraries learn that they are missing books.

I'll start The Making of Americans, it's been on so many best-of lists I'm curious.

I don't expect to have it finished within the next month or so, and I don't mind if anyone else wants to read it.

I am half ready to start another one of those unread books. I signed up for Jahrestage and my library claims to have it (I hope it's a collection of all 4 parts), but the thing has, depending on edition, between 1,700 and 2,200 pages, so this will take me quite long and I can't say I am looking forward to it. One reviewer said you need a very strong will to get through it. Maybe I should have the remaining Thomas Bernhard or one of the Strauss' first to get into the mood?

Edit: just ordered all 3 from the library and in a fit of madness ordered also Taebek Mountains part 1 of 10 in French from amazon Italy. Maybe the French translation is "easy" enough (I highly doubt it) that I can start on a 12 year project. Not that I am eager to spend > 300 EUR for just one work anytime soon, but one per year, why not? I am just very curious, and contrary to "The New World" and "Luka" there's at least a chance to read that one one day without having to learn another language for it.

I was hoping to find an online source for "The New World" somewhere (the author died in 1938, so theoretically it isn't impossible) and to send it through a translator paragraph by paragraph, but that clearly was a bit naive.

>191 Deern: Oh my - sounds daunting!! Thanks for attempting it - no matter what the outcome!

I will take on The Apes of God.

#193, those of us who have done the other Wyndham Lewis books salute you!

I notice Dining on Stones remains conspicuously unclaimed despite being readily available from various etailers. Having read Sinclair's Downriver earlier as part of this challenge, and the discouraging comments for London Orbital which ipsoivan tackled, I can think of 1000+ books I'd rather attempt to read before I die!

Is anybody reading The Devil to Pay in the Backlands? I see that it's at our library and I think it's one I could handle, although I hope it's not another Broad and Alien is the World.

>196 annamorphic: >102 BekkaJo: (post 102) was reading The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, but got bogged down (>142 BekkaJo: 142)

Go for it annamorphic! I think I like it but I'm only 120 pages out of 500ish into it and am focusing on other things at the mo.

Hi BekkaJo, 500 pages wot?
If you're 120 pages in, keep going! I haven't even been to the library to find that book yet....

Turns out that my local library only has a critique of The opposing shore instead of the Julien Gracq book. I mean, what? They have the critique but not the original work? Anyway, I've ordered it on ILL, but it might take a while to arrive.

>195 puckers: - I have a copy of Dining on Stones and might take that challenge if I can find time. I haven't even opened it yet because I'm afraid, very, very afraid :)

Hi Bucketyell. If it is like Downriver just approach it with an open mind and an expectation of incomprehensible plotless ranting and you might get there!

#191 - Deern - you are amazing. Sure, there are other multilingual*, highly-intelligent people walking around this planet too, but you are just so relaxed and unpretentious, and downright nice about it. Please keep posting here.

*my spellchecker wanted to change multilingual to mulch-lingual. Is that a thing? Seems like the oddest spell check thing I've seen since my spell checker wanted to change Salman Rushdie to Salmon Residue. I like his work and all, but he'll always be Salmon Residue to me!

>203 Nickelini: *blushing*
Thank you! I don't feel multilingual, my reading skills in all 3 languages are okay, but English is the only one of the 3 which I speak well enough to feel comfortable and in which I am able to think and dream.

I love spell checkers! Mine here insists on turning foreign words into German where possible and be it just by beginning all nouns with capital letters or turning "its" into "ist" (is). When I write on this computer I have to check every LT post twice. Salmon Residue is hilarious, as is mulch-lingual. How imaginative! :)

I picked up the uninviting doorstopper Jahrestage and the smaller Paare, Passanten (Couples, Passerby) and Auslöschung (Extinction) from the library yesterday. Don't know yet if I'll read all three. I can keep them for up to 60 days, so I'll at least try. If anyone had booked the Strauss or the Bernhard earlier (there were no names on the list in the entry post), I'd withdraw for now.

I was going to do Extinction but then RachelLeah took it on. Probably it's the most readable (and translated) book left on the TBR list.

>205 annamorphic: Okay, those 1800 thin pages in tiny print of the Johnson book will take a while anyway. :)

And I was planning to read the Strauss as "antipasto" (if noone else wants it that is), because I haven't read any of his works yet, but two Bernhards which I both didn't love.

I finished Botho Strauss' Couples, Passerby. It's just a series of short scenes taken from life by watching people. A quick read, and the first part, "Paare" (couples) is timeless and well observed to the point where you'll feel exposed and embarrassed, as if he'd secretly been watching you. The rest is much influenced by the political situation around 1980 in Western Germany and therefore really dated. Interesting if you've been there and can relate, otherwise... I don't know.
The writing overall feels forced, like he used a book of synonyms and always selected an expression as far away from spoken language as possible.
German is a language that's imo resistant to "beautiful writing". You have to go poetic to make it sound good, some modern authors have succeeded in that. Alternatively stay factual and sparse.
But Strauss wants to be intellectual and detached and different, he uses those expressions to be above mainstream, and I found the result almost unbearably forced.

The Life of Christ is done. It took me six months but it really shouldn't have. It reads like a very, very enthusiastic Bible commentary. More to come when I get round to reviewing it.

Life of Christ is done. It took me six months but really shouldn't have as it's an easy read. It reads like a Bible commentary and Papini writes with great passion. More when I get round to reviewing it.

I've reached Ancestral Voices on my journey through the As, but I see Eliz_M has tentatively(?) claimed it. Eliz_M, any objections if I tackle this one?

I'm starting The opposing shore.

>205 annamorphic: I'm dragging a lot on Extinction so if you're still going for it don't let me stop you :) My reading time has been steadily dwindling each day so it will take me quite a while to finish, I'm sure!

I see that Marius the Epicurean is unclaimed. Is that right? If so, I'll have it.

I thought Bekka was working on that one, but it seems she gave up on it for now in #180.

>210 QuartInSession: not at all. I meant to read it for Reading Globally's Sub-Sahara Africa quarter, but never got to it.

#214 / #213 I am still working on it - just don't mind if someone beats me. I'm finally on the home strait though - I think! I am hoping/trying to finish it this month but will be rather shocked if I do.

>216 BekkaJo: thanks for letting me know. I thought japaul was editing the list above to put down the names of people working on books so we don't double up. Guess the list hasn't been updated for a while...

So glad that somebody else has got Marius under control. I was not excited about that one.
I may read The Devil to Pay in the Backlands in October after the group read. I got a copy from the library and it looks like fun. But I don't mind if BekkaJo gets through it first! I've also got Time of Silence on order.

>217 arukiyomi: I have worked really hard to keep this list updated and generally update things within a few hours of a post. When BekkaJo requested in post 180 that she be deleted from Marius and Devil to Pay I did it! I'm sorry if you're annoyed that she kept reading it, but I think she just didn't want to prevent someone else from reading it since it wasn't her priority or going as quickly as she thought. I can only update based on what people request.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep this up to date with both what people intend to read and what they've actually read and I enjoy doing it, but please don't give me a hard time if someone changes their mind about what they are reading or the pace they want to read it at. This is supposed to be fun!

To everyone:
The reason for my slow response to yesterday's chain of posts was that I had a 24 hour work trip from DC to NYC and back to perform at the UN Gala. It was one of the rare days that I didn't have time to chime in.

I'm also sure I've made a mistake here or there, particularly because often people say something like "I think I'll start . . . " or "I've requested ____ from the library" and it's not always clear if they are "claiming" it. I really don't care and just ask that if you really want to claim something, double check to make sure your name is by it within a day of posting and if it isn't, let me know because I might have been confused by your wording. I'll do my best to make sure that I update in a timely fashion

As it stands, I have no idea how to decipher whose names to add to The Devil to Pay in the Backlands and Marius the Epicurean. Also, the act of letting someone know that you're intending to read a book or working on it are a courtesy but not a necessity. People should feel free to read whatever they want and if it isn't crossed off yet, I'll cross it of whenever the first person finishes it. This is a fun project to work on, but after all, we're all working on our own personal lists as well and can cross the book off there, even if someone beats us to it on this group list.

Japaul22, I think you do a fabulous job and I'm grateful for your efforts, no matter when it gets done.

>219 japaul22: Well put. This has been a wonderful project that has injected a lot of life into this group and made it one of the most active on LT. Your work in putting it together and maintaining it has been exemplary. I've never thought that expressing one's intention to read a book was in any sense a "claim" on that book, just a courtesy. We all have to read the whole list before we die anyway ;-)

My question is, now that we are approaching the end with only a few unread books left, what can we do for an encore? Any ideas for the next group challenge?

Let's get this done first :) (or as close as possible, The New World will probably continue to elude everyone)
But yeah, this is a fun project and thanks for japaul22 for updating the list.

The next logical step would probably be those "LibraryWhacks", books read by only one person...

>220 amaryann21: and 221 Thank you!

>221 StevenTX: That's an interesting question about what a next group challenge could be! I can think of a few possibilities, but none that will be as universally satisfying as this one has been. Initial thoughts would be focusing on books from a specific region or country, focusing on a few of the more prolific authors, focusing on a specific decade or two, etc. Or maybe we could do some sort of "chain read" where we go through the list alphabetically or chronologically. Was there something along those lines that used to happen in this group? I seem to remember that, but I think it was before my time here. It would be fun to come up with another way to narrow down what to read next off of this enormous list.

Just for everyone's awareness, I'm planning to set aside a little time tomorrow to continue this topic since it's getting kind of long again.

Monitoring these threads and updating is a huge job so thank you to all who put in the time and energy to do it.

>223 japaul22: Thanks so much for keeping this updated! I loved that you collected the unclaimed books in >151 japaul22: and I have been hoping for a continuation because I really want to see a current list that only includes the uncrossed-out books (claimed & unclaimed)!

ETA: I'm claiming Under Satan's Sun - I'm reading it in October for a mini-challenge.

>225 ELiz_M: I'll consider adding a post that I can update with only the remaining books when I continue this thread. I agree that it would be easier to see what is left, but I'm a little concerned that it's just another updating step for me and another place to potentially mess something up or confuse the issue. Thanks for the suggestion though, as I think a lot of people would like to have that.

I want to add my thanks to japaul22!

Yes, thank you japaul22! You've done great work and this is my favorite thread on Librarything.

I agree, I love this thread. When I finish the current book I will have read 23 books for the Group Challenge and I have a few more in my sights.
Today I got a copy of Fool's Gold at the library but it had already been recalled by the person who had it out before. It must be a good book! Anyway, I simply returned it since I still have a couple of other items to go before I tackle that one... but it was interesting that nobody from our group has read it yet it's so in demand at Berkeley.
At least it was really in English, unlike Luka.

I haven't joined in on this one as I'm new to the group and would like to get more of the more common ones out of the way first before starting on things I'll need to run through Google Translator? How exactly do you guys do it?

But, I'll look forward to the next big group project.

>230 M1nks:, Jonny has gathered some info about the most popular ones some time ago:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/159951#4368227
Possibly outdated now since it's almost a year and a bunch of new people have joined since, but those are all common ones.

And that's of course a possible personal project, cover the top 20 (I'm missing three).

(Oh, and most of these left are available in English even if not widely popular or easily available...several were even available in my native Finnish, so Google Translate doesn't need to come into it).

I saw that list and I have 4 missing from it. One I am very much trying to avoid as I think I'll probably dislike it but the other 3 should be fun.

Thanks, everyone! I'll continue this thread now and we can all check to make sure everything is current.