1001 Books - Let's just take it a book at a time...

This is something I've been interested in doing for years after realising that I stopped reading a lot of published fiction and was really only reading historical non fiction because I couldn't find any books which I thought guaranteed me a good read. Or at least promised to be worth my time investment even if I didn't like it in the end.

When I found the initial 1001 list I got quite enthusiastic although my ardour was cooled somewhat by the obvious slant towards English writers and the huge oversampling of certain authors. I wanted to read a variety and if I found I detested an author and then 'had' to read another 7 of his works... Argh!

And yes, I know you don't 'have' to actually read every book, but, well if you are going to start something like this...

I also moved away from any library which made getting books rather more problematic.

However, skip forward a few years and I now have access to a few libraries again, I have two electronic readers and have discovered the wonderful Open Library system which makes tracking down books so much easier. The list itself has also hugely improved and includes a lot more work from around the globe and a lot less oversampling. All of which have made me decide that it's time to revisit this list.

Also, I'm not sure if other people have this problem but I found that going through the list, that about half of what I had read already was so vaguely remembered that I am really going to have to reread them. Blast :-) So, I have started up a blog to log the books that I remember and as I move through the list; hopefully this will assist in my memory!

Anyway, I have a goal and an incentive to keep reading. I'm about 8% through the 2012 list (which is the one I'm using).

Edit: Current progress at around 22% of the 2012 list and 20% of the full Combined.

Pre 1700's
1 The Thousand and One Nights
2 Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
3 Aesop’s Fables
4 The Golden Ass
5 Don Quixote
6 The Pilgrim’s Progress
7 Oroonoko

1700s
8 Robinson Crusoe
9 Moll Flanders
10 Gulliver’s Travels
11 A Modest Proposal
12 Tom Jones
13 Fanny Hill
14 The Female Quixote
15 Candide
16 The Castle of Otranto
17 The Vicar of Wakefield
18 A Sentimental Journey
19 Dangerous Liaisons
20 The Monk
21 The Nun

1800s
22 Sense and Sensibility
23 Pride and Prejudice
24 Mansfield Park
25 Emma
26 Frankenstein
27 Last of the Mohicans
28 Oliver Twist
29 The Fall of the House of Usher
30 Dead Souls
31 The Pit and the Pendulum
32 The Three Musketeers
33 The Count of Monte-Cristo
34 Jane Eyre
35 Vanity Fair
36 Wuthering Heights
37 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
38 David Copperfield
39 The Scarlet Letter
40 Moby-Dick
41 Bleak House
42 North and South
43 Madame Bovary
44 The Woman in White
45 The Mill on the Floss
46 Great Expectations
47 Les Misérables
48 Uncle Silas
49 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
50 Journey to the Centre of the Earth
51 Crime and Punishment
52 The Moonstone
53 Little Women
54 War and Peace
55 Through the Looking Glass
56 Middlemarch
57 Around the World in Eighty Days
58 Far from the Madding Crowd
59 Drunkard
60 Anna Karenina
61 The Portrait of a Lady
62 Treasure Island
63 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
64 King Solomon’s Mines
65 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
66 Hunger
67 The Picture of Dorian Gray
68 Tess of the D’Urbervilles
69 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
70 Diary of a Nobody
71 The Time Machine
72 The Island of Dr. Moreau
73 Dracula
74 What Maisie Knew
75 The War of the Worlds
76 As a Man Grows Older
77 The Awakening
78 Persuasion
79 Northanger Abbey
80 The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
81 A Christmas Carol
82 Martin Chuzzlewit
83 The Purloined Letter
84 La Reine Margot
85 Hard Times
86 A Tale of Two Cities
87 Our Mutual Friend
88 Daniel Deronda
89 The Brothers Karamazov
90 Kidnapped
91 The Mayor of Casterbridge
92 The Yellow Wallpaper
93 The Turn of the Screw

.

1900s
94 Buddenbrooks
95 The Hound of the Baskervilles
96 Heart of Darkness
97 The Wings of the Dove
98 The Call of the Wild
99 The House of Mirth
100 A Room With a View
101 Howards End
102 Sons and Lovers
103 The Thirty-Nine Steps
104 Of Human Bondage
105 The Good Soldier
106 The Home and the World
107 Women in Love
108 The Age of Innocence
109 Ulysses
110 Life and Death of Harriett Frean
111 Siddhartha
112 A Passage to India
113 The Trial
114 The Great Gatsby
115 Mrs. Dalloway
116 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
117 To The Lighthouse
118 Steppenwolf
119 Lady Chatterley’s Lover
120 Orlando
121 Cold Comfort Farm
122 Brave New World
123 Testament of Youth
124 Miss Lonelyhearts
125 The Street of Crocodiles
126 Thank You, Jeeves
127 Tender is the Night
128 The Postman Always Rings Twice
129 Independent People
130 At the Mountains of Madness
131 Gone With the Wind
132 Out of Africa
133 The Hobbit
134 Of Mice and Men
135 The Big Sleep
136 The Grapes of Wrath
137 The Little Prince
138 The Razor’s Edge
139 Pippi Longstocking
140 Animal Farm
141 The Bridge on the Drina
142 Midaq Alley
143 Cry, the Beloved Country
144 Nineteen Eighty-Four
145 Love in a Cold Climate
146 The Garden Where the Brass Band Played
147 I, Robot
148 The Grass is Singing
149 A Town Like Alice
150 The 13 Clocks
151 The Catcher in the Rye
152 Day of the Triffids
153 The Old Man and the Sea
154 A Thousand Cranes
155 Casino Royale
156 Lucky Jim
157 Lord of the Flies
158 Lolita
159 The Lord of the Rings
160 On the Road
161 The Once and Future King
162 The Leopard
163 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
164 Billiards at Half-Past Nine
165 Naked Lunch
166 To Kill a Mockingbird
167 The Country Girls
168 God's Bits of Wood
169 Catch-22
170 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
171 Faces in the Water
172 Stranger in a Strange Land
173 Pale Fire
174 A Clockwork Orange
175 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
176 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
177 The Bell Jar
178 Silence
179 The Master and Margarita
180 One Hundred Years of Solitude
181 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
182 2001: A Space Odyssey
183 Portnoy’s Complaint
184 Slaughterhouse Five
185 Here's to You, Jesusa
186 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
187 The Summer Book
188 The Optimist's Daughter
189 A Dance to the Music of Time
190 Interview With the Vampire
191 Quartet in Autumn
192 The Shining
193 The Cement Garden
194 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
195 So Long a Letter
196 Midnight’s Children
197 The Color Purple
198 If Not Now, When?
199 Shame
200 The Wasp Factory
201 Democracy
202 The Lover
203 Dictionary of the Khazars
204 The Handmaid’s Tale
205 Contact
206 The Cider House Rules
207 Love in the Time of Cholera
208 Watchmen
209 The New York Trilogy
210 The Bonfire of the Vanities
211 Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
212 Paradise of the Blind
213 Like Water for Chocolate
214 Remains of the Day
215 London Fields
216 Moon Palace
217 Sexing the Cherry
218 Get Shorty
219 Wild Swans
220 Written on the Body
221 The English Patient
222 Possessing the Secret of Joy
223 Birdsong
224 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
225 Our Lady of the Assassins
226 Infinite Jest
227 Memoirs of a Geisha
228 The Hours
229 The Voyage Out
230 The Garden Party
231 The Sound and the Fury
232 Harriet Hume
233 Cakes and Ale
234 The Pursuit of Love
235 Cannery Row
236 The Drowned World
237 The Collector
238 Chocky
239 Troubles
240 Sula
241 Grimus
242 The World According to Garp
243 Queer
244 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
245 The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
246 Black Dogs
247 Jazz
248 The Robber Bride
249 American Pastoral
250 Tipping the Velvet
251 Amsterdam
252 Timbuktu



2000s
253 White Teeth
254 The Devil and Miss Prym
255 Atonement
256 Life of Pi
257 The Book about Blanche and Marie
258 The Sense of an Ending
259 The Art of Fielding
260 1Q84
261 The Blind Assassin
262 The Colour
263 Drop City
264 Never Let Me Go
265 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

It's a good start! Welcome :)

Thanks :-)

I just finished Atonement. I'm not sure if I'm meant to add it to my list or not, although I guess it's my thread so I can do what I like?

Anyway, here is what I posted on Goodreads as a pre review comment:

I ended up enjoying it but I found it rather difficult to really enjoy at first. I liked the start very much but then it started to get a bit samey. There was a lot of 'delicate literary allusions and descriptive passages' which I liked at first but then it started to grate on me as pretentious and I just wanted some action.

I think looking back on it, that this was deliberate as there were three different points of view and the two 'pretentious' ones came from the girls, while the guys was a lot more blunt and direct. I'd have to read more of Ian McEwan to be sure (first time reading him). It also wasn't helped that I do a lot of my reading on the train into and back from work and I think I might have been better served reading it in bigger chunks. The last 140 pages or so I really found griping and I stayed up past my bedtime finishing it.

I'll do a proper review on my blog but I've still got to publish The Shining first.

I rate this 3 1/2 stars. Well written and enjoyable but lacking that spark which would make it truly amazing.

Your thread, your rules! I think most of us have a general thread with an overall list of what we have read and then we continually add the newbies to it. If you join the Progress List thread, Jonny will check here once a month or so and update your totals from here.

Wow, I'm reading Les Miserables as my 'bath book' and I've just read an amazing section on the battle of Waterloo. I had no idea it was there - my only experience of Les Mis is the musical (which is great). Such fantastic things this list throws my way.

Also posted my review of The Shining and started on Atonement.

>7 M1nks: I stayed up very very late one night reading the Waterloo section of Les Mis because I NEEDED to find out who won (even though I knew who lost....)

Welcome! You've already read some great books!

>1 M1nks: yup, I have the same problem as you mention here. I read a lot of the books at some point, but really can't remember them. Without going back over to my own thread, I'm guessing I started out enthusiastically saying that I had covered about 270 books, then on looking them over realized I could remember the details of maybe 170. I sheepishly updated. I'm enjoying the revisits.

Thanks Paruline - I'm sure you'll notice that I'm heavily slanted towards the classics! Virtually nothing in my list which isn't. Which is the great thing about the 1001 challenge of course, it will make me read those authors which wouldn't normally come my way. I have discovered Attwood (although she's hardly modern modern I suppose), Burroughs (ditto) and McEwan.

It's maddening isn't it! Having a blog and writting a review is a good mind focuser though. I'm trying to write things which might be of interest to others if they want to read them, don't contain lots of spoilers but will still be a memory jog to me if I find details starting to fade.

Just taking the effort to do this means the books already cement in my head just that little bit more.

Although Ipsoivan looking back on my list I found that I was rather hard on myself. Due to my habit of rereading books I actually found that most of them I could remember. It was more those that I'd only read the once which failed the test. About 5 which isn't too bad.

Ok, so I had a very chilled out day reading the montly read The Mill on the Floss (which I greatly enjoyed) and then went 'that was great - NEXT!' and went to get out Dead Souls from the Open Library only to find that I'd lost broadband. All weekend and it's still down! Gagh! Very frustrating.

So, no Dead Souls for me yet. I do have The Monk still on my Nook and also The Woman in White which I started reading but Dead Souls might have to wait unless I can download it at work or something...

oh... do the Monk... it's fantastic!

Too late :-) I was already 15% into The Woman in White and quite hooked and then I picked up Dead Souls at work and transported it home on a USB stick and loaded it into my nook. Now I'm about halfway through that and loving it. It's the first bit of Russian Lit I've found which is funny. I was beginning to think the whole lot of them didn't understand the concept of humour...

As an aside I have just realised that the last books I've read/are reading are: The Mill on the Floss, Les Miserables, The Monk, The Woman in White and Dead Souls.

So much for trying to read something a bit more modern! My new Book Club read is Jack Kerouac 'On the Road' which is from the 1950's - at least a wee bit closer to the present day. I know nothing about Kerouac's work but according to the very little I've let myself look at on Wikipedia he is a 'Beats generation' writer so that might dovetail in nicely with the William Borroughs novel I just read.

I've been focused more on the classics too, they're just so readable. I need to pace myself or I'll wind up with only modern books full of stream of consciousness and magical realism left to read!

Finished Dead Souls or rather read as much as Gogol had written before destroying his work. I also started to read the bit which was tacked on the end to ‘finish it’ but very quickly agreed with the pre warning in that it was ‘third rate’. In truth, utter tripe and I didn’t want to ruin the great book I’d just read with someone’s pathetic attempt to tie up the loose ends.

John Kerouac next :-)

Started The Street of Crocodiles which came available through the Open Library. I'm absolutely blown away, I can't remember reading anything so beautiful. I'll be adding a physical copy to my shelves for sure.

Just finished The Woman in White which I greatly enjoyed. I do find Wilkie Collins a bit silly, I bought No Name several years ago and read it having no idea of who he was and I thought that was really ridiculous.

This book had a great story attached to it though so I forgave it.

I'm nearly finished The Street of Crocodiles I absolutely love it but it's a book that you need to be in the mood for. Even though I only have a short bit left I don't want to force it until I'm ready to really appreciate it.

I've also now started Sons and Lovers and will also re-read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd as well. I've picked those 3 as part of my seasonal book challenge as all 3 could do with a revisit although it's only really Sons and Lovers than I can barely remember any of.

I'm still nibbling away at one of my bath books Les Miserables as well, just read a fantastic bit about a convent - the detail! I'm really impressed by this work

EDIT - probably won't be reading Rodger Ackroyd and Sherlock Holmes now - change of reading plan.

Oh and I'm also reading Out of Africa from the Open Library but it's only available as an internet book so I can't download it to my readers which makes things a bit awkward.

Started The Home and The World which I downloaded to my kindle. I'm not enjoying it. The 3 characters are all frustrating; one is so 'good' he does bad, one is weak willed and stupid and the other is evil, greedy and venal.

Fortunately it's very short.

>24 M1nks:, Really? I loved that one; one of my best find on the list. I thought the themes were universal and timeless and the writing flowed beautifully.

That's literature for you; one persons art is another persons firestarter :-)

Reading Sons and Lovers in my efforts to avoid it; I am really enjoying S & L this time, I think I was just a bit too young at 16 or 17 for it

>26 M1nks:, too true. Life would be boring if we all liked the same books :)

Right, well I finished The Home and the World, it got slightly less annoying but I still found it pointless. This is one book which left me feeling blank.

It did have its good points; I liked the very start, I found the moving between 3 narrators interesting right up until I disliked all three of them and the slice of Indian history was a little interesting as well.

But, I'm just glad it was short and can only rate it 1 star. Not my sort of book at all.

Reread Sons and Lovers which, as I said in an earlier post I enjoyed a lot more than I remembered the first time around. However I once again found the parts which irritated; the constant conflict between men and women, the love/hate relationships that everybody seemed to have, the casual cruelty that people would use on those nearest to them without once! getting a ding around the ear and told to sod the hell off!

I also found his passionate scenes about as erotic as a cold flannel on a winters morning.

That being said that it was still a good book. I liked the details of the era, the day to day living, the quiet stoicism of the working class. When dealing with these topics D H Lawrence was at his best; when try to convey intricate human relationships through indecisiveness and arguments I just got horribly bored and thought 'Oh for pete's sake, not this again!'.

I intend to start on Around The World in 80 Days as my electronic book. That should make a pleasant change from Lawrence. It's a little shorter than I expected I must say, he must cram a lot in.

Finished Around the World in 80 Days. Very short and very dry. Much preferred the TV series (Brosnan) which is a shame. For such a fabulous story to be so colourless is just tragic - what a waste! What a great premise for a story and it was reduced to a bland race across the world without the least time for smelling the flowers along the way.

I found a few of the changes from the series to be interesting such as when travelling across America and being attacked by Indians, in the book Aouda (Princess Aouda in the tv version - another way they strip the romance out of everything! AND they straight away dress her in 'proper' European clothes instead of having her wear the beautiful indian saris) shoots a gun in defence. In the show however she declares that they are only defending their land against invaders, that she fully understands how they feel and forbids Passpartout to attack them.

It was still an entertaining read I just thought it sad because it could have been so much more. However that's what so great about the shows and films which it spawned. Other people obviously thought the same thing and fleshed out the skeleton of the book into a magnificent adventure. And for that I can say Thank You Mr Verne.

And I've ordered the DVDs so I can rewatch them, Pierce Brosnan is very dishy in the role (not that that influenced me!

For me the preferred version is the cartoon series with anthropomorphic animals that came out when I was a kid, likewise fleshed out.
After that the book was a bit boring. Verne had imagination but I think it can be agreed some of his books greatly benefit from having visuals in them too.

My steady nibbling away at Les Miserables is working, today I definitely have less to read than I have already covered! Page 795 and I'm right in the middle of a dramatic scene that I had to leave because my bath water was really cold...

I've started on one of my library books (The New York Trilogy) although my reading of 1001 dropped a bit over the last three days while as I read another Harry Potter and an Agatha Christie, watched the BBC's Tom Jones and played some computer games. Just needed a little break.

Finished Out of Africa which I found a very good read. I didn't find it condescending or racist at all (which I see some reviewers found it); I saw a slightly removed observer from a different culture talking about her impressions of different cultures, people and situations and I found it all quite fascinating.

Far more than any slight tinges of colonial superiority, I found the occasional casual brutal treatment of animals to be the most distressing but like with most things I just accepted it and moved on.

Started listening to life of pi as my first audiobook while walking the dog, walking to work, exercising, housework etc. It sounds great so far. The Library only has a 'very' limited collection of audio books and I only have them for a week so I'll have to keep getting them out (so long as no one else takes them out).

paradise of the blind err whoops... I was just meaning to have a little taste and then... It's really short! And easy to read! It was gone before I knew it:-(

I fell for the Greenwich Library thing again! Gah! I see a green tree and think that it's got to be the right one. Hopefully now I'll remember my local Greenwich is red not green, has a flower not a tree and had 'Royal Borough of' in front of it.

My current reading progress:

I'm about half an hour from the (hopefully) grand finale of Life of Pi and I'm itching to know if my feelings of 'hold on a gosh darned minute!' are going to be fully realised. I'm still at work and I have about another 4 hours before I can plug myself into my mp3 player for the trip home. I feel really quite grateful to the 1001 list for pushing it my way as it's possible I wouldn't have ever read it. The Goodreads Seasonal Challenge deserves a special mention as well for suggesting this book for one of their tasks (a book that is set at least 50% on the sea); otherwise I might have had to re-read Moby Dick and even though I know I should I can't say the thought is currently filling me with enthusiasm...

I already have another audio book loaded and ready to go, The Cement Garden. I discovered that audio books loaded onto my player don't expire like my e-books do. Which is great because I only get them for a week via my libraries and that is really not enough.

For the rest of my reading, after noming up Paradise of the Blind in a single session, I am polishing off Thousand Cranes which is very very short. My OpenLibrary has 6 books lined up, one of which, Get Shorty I see has just become available. I only have a day to grab it and 2 weeks to read it so I'd best get a motor on.

The other five will slowly work their way through to me. No real rush, especially for Testament of Youth which I don't want to get hold of too far before November. I've got 2 people in front of me so it could be a week or month. It seems to be difficult to predict.

At home I still have The New York Trilogy, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, IQ84 and Les Miserables to finish off/get started on.

Other than that I have a physical book The brothers Karamazov with the Feydor? translation which was recommended to me ready to pick up from my local library.

So, a nice lot of reading to be continuing on with, nicely interspersed with some Harry Potter and Agatha Christie's. Ah, it's so nice to be reading some decent books again and to have my complaints of 'I can't find anything decent to read!' be a thing of the past :-)

Annnnd Possessing the Secret of Joy also just came up on my OpenLibrary list so that's another one to add to the pile!

Are you reading all those books at the same time? And in such speed? Amazing!

That was awesome! (happy sigh)

Wait until I've done it first.. :-)

You mean Life of Pi? The end is great, isnt' it? Gave me something to think about!

Yes, Life of Pi, I saw parts of it coming, or rather, I was getting suspicious but it was better and more detailed. But I just loved the book. The humour, the interesting animal tales (I've always loved nature shows). The audio version I listened to was fantastic. It's going to be a hard act to follow.

Who read your audio? that's a book I haven't read and I'm always on the lookout for good audios.

Jeff Woodman and Alexander Marshall; I put in down in the audio thread which I'm going to go through especially carefully now that I've worked out how audio books can greatly expand my 'reading time'.

I started listening to The Cement Garden on the walk from the train station to work this morning and although I'm not quite half an hour in it does suffer, as I feared it would, from being listened to after Life of Pi. It's well read, the voice is clear and expressive even if it's rather flat in tone. He drops into a school boy hush of repressed excitment when talking about 'naughty things'. But, it's a dull drab setting, not India, a zoo or the Pacific Ocean.

I'm also thinking that it's only 4 and a half hours so it will be gone in a few days or less so I'll need get hold of something fast. It's a shame I haven't managed to get any more of list from my seasonal reading challenge on audio but maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough.

Thousand Cranes is down. A rather interesting read; it took me a little while to get into the flow and head of the Japanese characters. I remembered parts of my holiday in Japan oh so many years ago when I spent 3 weeks visiting a friend who had lived there for three years and was coming home. The Tea Ceremony, the dance, the politeness and careful social interactions. Once I got there it all became a lot easier.

Finished The Cement Garden.

Yes.

Well.

There you go then...

Not his best...

Oh I 'liked' it. It was just, the subject matter was a little disturbing. Most of it was fairly disturbing.

Maybe it wasn't so different from Life of Pi after all, if you look at some of the message of the two books through very filtered lenses.

Very, very, filtered lenses.

I finished reading A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which was a lovely little read. I'm not sure what I was expecting but that wasn't it regardless.

I've put Les Miserables to one side for now while I concentrate on reading all of my library books. IQ84 should be next but it's a bulky, heavy hardback which is very inconvenient both for lugging around on the train to read to and from work and for reading in the bath. It's a shame I didn't get that one as an ebook.

My audio book worries are over for a while. I just found Les Miserables - it wasn't filed under 'Literature' for some reason. God knows who does the classifying - One of the greatest novels of all time isn't literature but Magic Ballerina and Mr Stink is.

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through so I don't need the entire 57 hours :-)

Ugh, changed my mind. Just listened to some of it - the voice is unbearable. An english voice so 'posh' in tone it sounds like he's taking the mickey. Deep gasping breaths and running words hurridly into each other. Awful. I'll have to find something else, I'm not listening to that for 5 minutes, let alone 5 days.

Fahrenheit 451 I'll this instead.

Finally finished up The New York Trilogy. It’s been dragging around in my handbag for a while as it was a bit of a tedious read. A shame really. I loved the start and quite enjoyed the ending but the middle, especially the 2nd story Ghosts, rather ground me down. I just got sick of it. The main theme of the book/s (City of Glass/Ghost/The Locked Room) was identity or the lack of it. People changed, merged, substituted themselves; In Ghosts they mostly didn’t have real names at all but were Mr White, Mr Black, Mr Blue, Mr Green. The idea was interesting but I’m a girl that likes a point in what I read and these stories all went nowhere. I suppose you could say the lack of point was the point but I thought it was rather like opening an intricately wrapped present, spending ages on it because whoever had wrapped it had taken so much trouble with it you don’t want to rip the paper or tear any bow, and then, once you’ve gone to all that trouble, the box turns out to be empty. And the same thing for the next two. In retrospect the names of the stories were what gave the most information, otherwise the stories themselves were rather a torturous exercise in futilely chasing your own tail.

Eventually I just stopped really caring. I wasn’t going to get what I wanted so I wasn’t going to waste emotional investment. I just read it and put it away.

Interesting enough on a certain level I suppose but not really my cup of tea.

Heh... you hate New York Trilogy for all the reasons I adore it! It was the first book I read that showed me how playful literature can be. It's on my re-read pile, but I confess I'm worried that having built it up in my head for the last twenty years I can only be disappointed in it.

Well I didn't hate it. I gave it a 2 star which is a 'not really something I enjoyed but I didn't completely dislike it' rating. I can certainly see why people would like it. For the start I did, it then just got too much.

Finished Fahrenheit 451 which I've confirmed isn't on the list (but definitely should be) and started Far From the Madding Crowd as my next audio.

Back from some much appreciated Santorini Sunshine and I managed to do a little bit of reading while on my holiday. In fact I finished my two Open Library books and my audio book went flat. I remembered that I hadn’t finished reading The Monk on the way home so I got a few hours in and only have about a hundred pages to go.

Possessing the Secret of Joy I didn’t enjoy at all. After the wonderful The Color Purple this one was charmless. It jumped around a great deal, the main character was completely unsympathetic to me. She seemed to be a poster child for refusing to take responsibility for your actions, blaming everybody around her and treating them terribly, dwelling on how awful your life is and working yourself up into an hysterical state and driving yourself into mental illness.

The subject matter gave the book some interest but it was hardly pleasant and didn’t rescue me from lack of any real interest.

Get Shorty was very similar to the movie. It’s been years since I’ve seen it but it made an impression and I kept having scenes superimposed over what I was reading. The plot was rather twisty and you had to follow what was going on but it was an enjoyable if not life changing read.

I’m still working through Far From the Madding Crowd now that I’ve charged up my Sansa again. I remember that I was quite keen to ‘read’ this because I had been told that it was a cheerful Thomas Hardy and I thought it would at least have the charm of novelty to read a book by him that was happy. Well. I’m not sure what yardstick was used but I am pretty sure that Mr Hardy wouldn’t know happy if it was wearing a thong and a pink feather boa!

And on the upcoming reads front I have still to really start IQ84 and The Brothers Karamazov and I’ve just picked up Like Water for Chocolate and The Golden Ass from the Open Library so no letting up on the reading front now I’m back. I still have to finish Les Miserable too as that has been rather pushed to one side with all of the other reading I’ve got to do. At least I don’t have a time limit for that one!

Just finished Far From the Madding Crowd, after such a long time (well, it seemed quite long) it ended rather abruptly. Just, oh they are engaged, now they are married, now the book is over. It felt like about 5 mins. Considering the rest of the book was so typically verbose I expected another 30 minutes at least in a detail description of the country wedding. Denied!

A nice enjoyable book overall but I have to take issue with whoever it is that said it was a happy book. From now on I will just accept that Thomas Hardy does not ‘do’ happy. I guess it had a happy ending if you can forget about the corpses and the guy rotting in prison.

{And it's a good thing I quite like Hardy as I see I have another 4 on the extended list to get through!}

if you're disappointed by books ending abruptly after marriage don't bother with any Jane Austen.

In fact, don't bother anyway... ;-)

BLASPHEMER!

Get thou behind me Satan!

The Monk - I shall never call Wuthering Heights OTT again.

Finally got around to finishing The Monk. I have to say it wasn’t what I was expecting, I guess I’m not used to the religious/moral books of that time period so although I was prepared for superstition, ghosts and a bit of gypsy fortune-telling the appearance on the scene of Lucifer and his demonic servants rather took me by surprise!

It was a quite enjoyable read so long as I was wearing my ‘do not take this at all seriously and don’t get offended with the endemic sexism and whatnot’ hat and, like I said, it surprised me several times with the various plot twists mostly due to the fact that such outrageous behaviour was completely alien to my experience. Mostly I just found everything hilarious. One particular scene where the pervy monk was spying on Antonia getting ready for a bath and a pretty little song bird fly at her and nuzzled into her breast (cos that’s what bird do!) and she had to raise her arms (which were modestly covering her bosom even when in the supposed privacy of her bath chamber) to push it away giving Mr Perv a full frontal. That had me in stitches!

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror – This was a really neat little horror story and I wish I didn’t know the story but, alas, I can’t imagine anyone of my age (who isn’t a total ignoramus) being unaware of this iconic story even if you don’t know the exact particulars. It was well written and the narrator had a rather old fashioned, pompous English voice which suited the time period of the three tales (there were two other stories included with Dr Jekyll). Despite the fact that I basically knew the story I still found it a creepy tale and the skilful writing conjured up the atmospherically foggy streets of London. The action nearly always took place at night which added to the unsettling tone.

All in all a wonderful read. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Time Machine – Another classic that I’ve heard about most of my life but never read. It was short, rather exciting and full of philosophical pondering which seems a bit of a hallmark of fiction from around this era. I’ve seen the 2002 movie (which I actually liked) so I knew the premise of the Eloi vs the Morlocks, although they are of course very differently portrayed.

In the end I enjoyed it rather a lot and wished it was a little longer  3 ½ stars out of 5.

One other point, this really brought home to me how slow listening to audio books is compared with reading as it is a bit over five hours as a .WMA file and I finished the last of it by reading over the internet on a free html page. I think I must have been about 20 times faster as it only took a few short minutes to read the last part as opposed to the 3 hours or so for the first part.

I swear my reading has slowed down but perhaps it’s only my perception because I have a lot to get through and I’m not spending as much time as I’d like reading even though it’s about standard.

I’ve finished the two short tales of Dr Jekyll and The Time Machine and I’ve just finished The Golden Ass which was a rollicking read. I’ve begun working my way through Les Miserables again as I’m determined to finally knock this one the head – I’ve a bit over 200 pages to go I think so that should be done in another day or two.

1Q84 Bks 1 & 2 is a bit under halfway way through. This has been surprisingly easy to read, maybe I was a little intimidated by the size and some comments from other readers about how odd the author is – I’ve only really had a couple of reading sessions and it just got gobbled up, his style must suit me. I think I can renew Bk 3 so that can be read whenever. Although I’d prefer to do it soon after finishing the first two.

For my new audio I’ve picked up Moll Flanders. I actually think having now begun it that I have read it before but as it’s obviously one of those which hasn’t stuck too well and I only have the vaguest memories even as I progress it’s worth a re-read.

On my ereader I have Like Water for Chocolate waiting patiently for me and Testament of Youth came up yesterday so that’s been added on now as well.

And finally, looming like a reproachful spectre, I have The Brothers Karamazov which I reserved especially from the library and that I haven’t even started! Bad Nicky! Bad Nicky!!

Anyone else thinking that their pile of TBR is starting to topple over?

Wait your name is Nicky?? I had been reading you as Minks, perhaps a furrier, but now I see that you are NKS of the M1. A highway patrol officer, no doubt.

Does this mean you are female? I also thought of you as Minks, a man!

Hah, too funny!

Minka was the name of our family dog many years ago (a russian song that my father thought of when he was in the shower). I used to used that name a fair bit but it was often already taken, so I used M1nka, then that started to be occupied a lot as well and I switched to M1nks which I usually use. It was pointed out to me that M1nks can be read as 'Minx' as in 'you saucy minx you!' but it wasn't meant to be, just a loving tribute to a dearly loved pet...

Yes, I am female :-)

Funny how we choose our handles. My real name isn't Anna, either, although I do sometimes stretch into distorted shapes ; -).

>71 M1nks: Funny indeed, how I apparently made a whole image of you based on a name!
>72 annamorphic: You're name is not Anna?? Then what is it?

By the way, mine isn't Simone :-)

All is revealed on my profile page. I know your name too, Simone!

>74 annamorphic: O yes, now I remember having seen it before. You're a writer yourself! So impressive!

The Golden Ass – a jumble of tales pushed together to create a semi cohesive whole following the unfortunate Lucius a ‘man’ more sinned against than sinning. Led on by his overwhelming curiosity to explore the mysteries of magic he reaches to wisdom in the form of an owl and is brought back down to earth in a bump in the shape of an ass and his trials begin. I won’t speak much about his sufferings, suffice it to say that I am surprised that any ass in Greece has a life expectancy of above a few months…

The story telling style of this novel is rather different to modern day, there are a lot of ‘and let me tell you this tale’ and ‘well if you can spare me the time please tell me the story’ so the plot has so many stitched on parts it’s more a bawdy 1001 Nights than an individual (morality?) tale in its own right.

Enjoyable enough but I find that I prefer a story to have not quite so many others tacked on any which way. 2 ½ stars.

Like Water for Chocolate – Highly unusual, Like Water for Chocolate explores the connection between food and our emotions bringing them together in a magical symbiosis. Tita, the heroine of the story has a marvellous talent for cookery and her unexpressed passions can sometimes burst out through her dishes in the most surprising of ways. It wasn’t a ‘happy story’ as such but the portrayal of events is done in such an odd manner that I didn’t really connect on an emotional level with any of the ‘tragic’ moments of the book.

Like Water for Chocolate seduced in being a feast for the senses and the frequently bizarre recipes perfectly complemented the oddity that was the book itself. 3 stars.

Les Miserables - Finally I finished this magnificent epic. No poor words of mine could possibly do justice to this marvellous work but I will say that it was worth the wait. This is my first Victor Hugo and as I stated previously I have been just blown away by the detail and life he breathes into his work. His treatise on Waterloo which almost deserved to be a short book in its own right, his love of Paris, the thieves cant; everything was just wonderful.

A glowing 5 stars.

Testament of Youth - The novel is in three main parts; the first deals with her life up to the outbreak of war, the second with The Great War itself and the third with the after effects which ends a bit before European relations really break down and World War II comes along. Each of these 'parts' is excellent in their own way and they are all extremely interesting as to what they reveal about a time of life far removed from the now, but it is the section on the war which forms the central core of the book and is definitely its emotional heart.

Poignant and aching with loss this is a true war story. Don't expect to be able to read it all in one hit unless you are made of sterner stuff than I am; I needed 'time out' sessions at regular intervals to allow the latest griefs to be absorbed before I continued on.

A superb book to read during the 100 year remembrance 'celebrations'.

4 out of 5 stars.

You know, looking back through my posts I have actually read a fair number of books since I've started this. From the pile of books I have I now only have the final part of 1Q84 to finish off and, still, most of The Brothers Karamazov. I have at least started that little monster though, even if I'm only about 120 pages in.

Moll Flanders - This was a re-read, but it was a re-read of a book that I only remembered as I re read it :-) I'm sure everyone's got books like that from their past.

'Moll' is a woman who can't be kept down and I liked her very much. I did however find Mr Defoes habit of misplacing her children to be rather amusing. A lot of people couldn't stand her because of this, but I'm pretty sure that it says more about the men of that time than it does about this gutsy heroine.

Putting her amazing maternal skills aside all she ever really wanted was a secure home and I can certainly sympathise with that! In that quest she moves from situation to situation but usually steadily progresses downwards on the morality scale. Most reprehensibly I didn't care which I'm sure Mr Defoe knew I shouldn't despite all of his pious protests about how this is meant to be a 'warning'. Any believability in that statement was finally irrevocably lost when Moll finally became financially secure through the proceeds and crime and incest.

Ah Moll, what a woman you were!

Very enjoyable but wouldn't be for everyone. 3 1/2 stars.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Not quite sure what to make of this one yet. It was enjoyable, if that's the right word. It was..., something. Maybe it will come to me after a bit more thought.

3 stars.

I seem to be having a bit of a Russian literature fest – it wasn’t planned as I find Russian Lit to be exceedingly depressing; but I just finished 5 of Chekov’s plays as a bit of side reading, and I’m working through The Brothers Karamazov (which I will say isn’t too soul destroying… yet) and I’m listening to Crime and Punishment on audio. This is by far the worst – the protagonist is even more annoying than I vaguely remember him being and it’s not exactly a cheerful work.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings fortunately wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (talk about all the hysteria about one part in the book!) but considering I’ve just finished Testament of Youth I’m really in need of a literary pick me up!

I’m pinning my hopes on The Once and Future King which came up as my final OpenLibrary book. I wasn’t going to check it out in the end as I still have Mrs Dalloway and The Hours to get through before the middle of the month along with everything else but in the end I thought ‘I’ll just see what it’s like’ and thank goodness I did! I’m aware that the story gets a little darker towards the end, or so the reviews say anyway, but at the moment it’s a riot and a wonderful tonic to the doom and gloom of Crime and Punishment. Once I’m through that there is going to be to No More Russian Lit! for a few months…

The Nose by Gogol is hilarious (and short) if you fancy some lighter Russian fare.

Nikolai Leskov is mostly fun too. See also Turgenev, Puskin and Lermontov, none of which exactly wallow on depression even if they are not always that cheerful either...

Eugene Onegin in the Charles Johnston translation was a completely delightful and short Russian book.

Thanks for the rec's :-) When I feel the urge to once more read some Russian Literature I shall try some of the lighter fare.

The Once and Future King - A fantastic retelling of Mallory, I can see why this is such a classic. Although I knew it was going to head into tragedy I lapped up the humour while I could and then settled down for a good cry once the dream was dead. Poor Wart and his lost happy childhood with his wonderful lessons from Merlyn. Poor Lancelot who I grew to love. Poor Round Table, broken irrevocably.

R.I.P.

4 stars

Heartbreaking isn't it?

I've started Mrs. Dalloway, it's a bit heavy going, not because the prose is so dense but because it's precisely the opposite. It's like scattered light and my brain began to hurt trying to follow the various thoughts and jumps.

I think there would be a certain type of mindset I could get into whereby the prose would flow perfectly but reading it on the train into work is probably not conducive to this. Unfortunately that is really the only time I've got just at the moment.

Mrs. Dalloway - Rather a slog. I had to keep forcing my mind to concentrate on the words I was reading as I would sometime be aware that I'd read several pages of words and they'd all been completely meaningless.

Otherwise I found pieces of the book entertaining but mostly I was just bored. 1 1/2 stars.

1Q84 - I was rather disappointed by this book and I'm not often. Usually I like a book or I don't and that's that. In this case though I felt it could have been so much more and wasn't.

* Some of the idea's were great but they weren't carried through enough; so much so indeed that I had to wonder if the author himself had thought it through or was just throwing in mysterious crap to spice the book up.

* There were some interesting characters but lots of rather dull ones including one major character whose perspective took up about half the book in #1 and #2.

* The romance was possibly believable on one side but not on the the other.

* The authors interest in breasts and pubic hair was puerile and embarrassing.

* Constant repetitions grew monotonous.

The final book introduced another interesting character which increased my enjoyment as now only 33% of the time was spent with Mr Boring and the pace of the novel increased a little. It was enough to raise my rating to a rather grudging 2 1/2 stars.

heh... good review. I have this on a shelf... but a shelf thousands of miles away. I think it might stay there for a while. I still haven't recovered from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle!

Crime and Punishment - A re-read as I remembered so little about. A bit did come back to me but it wasn't like my re-read of Moll Flanders where I thought I hadn't read it before and it was only when I went back to it that the entire story, fairly much, came flooding back. Crime and Punishment truly was so vaguely remembered that whole chunks of it were entirely new.

I found this on audio and, as with all audio 'reads', this drew out the process a great deal as I listen soooo much more slowly than I read. However this can sometimes be a good thing as I have a tendency to quickly skip over some sections rather than slow down and appreciate every word.

Whatever the difference (perhaps age?) this time around I enjoyed Crime and Punishment enormously. Well, mostly - I still found the protagonist incredibly irritating at times and would have been willing to brain him with an axe myself. The narrator was superb, truly superb and this doubtless contributed greatly to my listening pleasure as well. The diverse range of characters were convincingly portrayed (although I was occasionally straining to hear the soft voiced ladies over the noise of London’s traffic) and panting desperation and pathos of madness and grief done so well I had tears in my eyes at some points and horror in my heart at others.

Very very well done. 4 stars.

I'm working through The Hours which is my companion monthly read for the Goodreads 1001 books group. I am rather ashamed to say that this book is much much more enjoyable to me than Mrs. Dalloway...

Oh dear! There go all my literary pretensions :-)

The Hours - I'm glad I read this so soon after Mrs. Dalloway, I'm sure it added quite a bit to my enjoyment.

I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would which was a pleasant surprise. It hasn't quite inspired me to give Mrs. Dalloway another go but I am at least thinking about it.

3 stars

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit - It’s safe to say that Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is not at all what I was expecting. The Goodreads blurb whilst not lying as such does paint a picture of the lonely and deprived childhood and a culmination of events that lead to a desperate resolution carried out in a heroic manner. The reviews I grazed to pick up a feel for other peoples opinions of the books seemed to agree for the most part.

Well, there were elements of that certainly but what I found came through most of all was the humour. Certainly her home life was a little peculiar judged on my standards but here is no oppressed dumb victim tormented in unspeakable ways by a callous and bigoted mother. Here is a bright young lady, obviously she has some personal charisma and very definite ideas about what she like and doesn’t like. I took note of her view from a very young age that she didn’t like men and had no wish to marry ‘a beast’. Another time when her mother was covering her ears(to prevent her hearing the loud fornication (on a Sunday!) from next door she bit her mothers hand. Good grief, I can’t imagine what my mother would have done to me if I’d ever bitten her hand…

This warm current of amusement at the ridiculous kept a permanent smile on my lips the same way the peculiarities of the protagonists life, engaged and kept my interest throughout.
The only part I felt somewhat let the book down was the ending. It was rather confused (not helped by the increase in magical stories which appeared in the text to provide, so I presume, some parallels between her life and theirs) and ended abruptly without satisfactory closure. In my eyes anyway.

Regardless, this was a lovely little book. I was planning on giving this a 4 star all the way through but the ending has lowered my rating half a star. It may go back to a 4 star after some reflection however.

Madame Bovary - Madame Bovary was a right little madame! At first she irritated me immensely with her selfish narcissism but later her overweening conceit became so hilariously predictable that my sense of humour was greatly tickled and she began to amuse me so much I couldn't help liking her. That is liking her in a 'point finger and laugh' sort of a way.

For instance during one of the many times she drove herself into ill health she turned to religion for solace. I was actually impressed for all of about the three sentences it took for her to move from consolation, to pious overreaction to her dreaming about becoming a saint. Oh Lord!

Her husband I felt extremely sorry for; he was pretty stupid and all my motherly instincts were aroused. I wanted to pat the poor lambs head, then again I wasn't impressed by him not getting his daughter properly educated, infatuated with his wife or not.

Oh well, to tragedy it went and I can't say I was exactly sorry on Emma's account, little idiot that she was, but her husband and the poor little girl were another matter. It was an interesting tale considering how utterly banal their lives were. The poetry of the language, the peek at small town/village life and the rather devastating way Mr Flaubert drew the characters in his little drama kept me fairly engrossed. The final remarks themselves were a work of art.

3 1/2 stars.

The Hours - A more detailed 'review' of this book:

There are constant parallels and distorted mirroring of Mrs Dalloway of course, I think perhaps a little too many, that the book tried too hard in certain situations and didn’t quite live up to the delicate touch of the ‘original’. This I found most obvious in the suicide. Overall though I greatly enjoyed the interweaving threads especially as I’d just read Mrs. Dalloway.

Although The Hours used the Stream of Consciousness style I found so difficult to follow previously it wasn’t so flittery here. Or I didn’t think so at least. I found it easy to follow the plot, didn’t lose myself between different characters thoughts and, generally, found it much less of a brain strain.

As far as plain old readability goes, The Hours wins out. I liked the book. But, still, even though I liked The Hours and didn’t much like Mrs. Dalloway, I still feel like Mrs. Dalloway was a work of literary art and The Hours a bit of a pale copy. Almost a cheat in a way, riding on the coattails of a very famous book.

I realise this is quite hard to explain so I'm not going to try. I'll just say 'it gave me that feeling' and leave it at that :-)

Buddenbrooks - Quite an unusual read. Not only is it a wonderful insight into a world I know nothing about the book spans several generations and that means there isn't really a single character on which the novel can focus. It's a bit disconcerting until you adjust your head.

The Buddenbrooks are a merchant family, wealthy and well respected, however that seems to be not only their defining characteristic but also their ONLY characteristic. All Buddenbrooks must be this way - it doesn't make for a dynamic family life and it doesn't allow for mavericks. Conform or be scorned.

For the grandfather at the start of the book this is his choice but through successive generations you can see the toll that this overriding dynamic takes on those less inclined. Occasionally there are flickers of desire for 'something' beyond the confines of dutiful marriage and merchantile work but these are usually quickly extinguished.

The family degenerates slowly; not through any one particular catastrophe but more through little single events which gradually all add up. For a while I had some hopes that one or two of the family members would find a new path and a different way of life, but if this happens it is outside the scope of this book. Thomas Mann purely concerns himself with the downfall of the Buddenbrook family as it is.

An excellent read but I found parts of it a little dry and tedious. Overall though very good; I am giving it 3 stars.

I am utterly baffled at how you read this much! Even in those halcyon days when I was ostensibly researching my dissertation but generally spent the hours before noon each day absorbed in fiction, I did not read as much as you do.

If you saw the state of my flat you might find it easier to understand ;-)

The Diary of a Nobody - An absolutely charming little tale with some slightly more heavy comments on the passing of the old, traditional, Victorian ways and the rise of the young, brash, morally less upright younger generation.

Personally I loved it and I'll probably get a copy for my own bookshelf.

4 stars

Here's to you, Jesusa! - What a slog this one was! Jesusa was a paean for a cantakerous, cynical, 'mean' witch of a woman who the biographer, for reasons unknown, seemed to believe was a woman without peer.

My only joy in reading this book was finishing it.

1 star.

On the Road - The definitive book demonstrating that no matter how far you go and how many times, you will carry the corruption in your soul with you and everything you come into contact with will be contaminated by your filth.

1 1/2 stars

The Optimist's Daughter - A rather unusual book, very heavy on the human interaction side of things and very light on any direct action. A daughter returns home to attend her sick father, he has remarried and has a much younger, and very unpleasant, wife (Fay). After her father takes an unexpected turn for the worse Laura and Fay return to the family home and make the necessary arrangements.

This is a complete study on what is said, what is unsaid, conversations being continued which have their roots many years in the past. I don’t think this style of book would be everyone’s cup of tea but it suited me quite well

3 stars

I am currently listening to The House of Mirth on audio. It is such a contrast to On the Road!

Orlando - Finished this this morning and I found it a very pleasant little re-read - I have evidently changed my tastes a tab since I was 9yrs old :-)

I loved the sense of moving through history, at the start of a paragraph you could be at one point in time and by the next I'd realise we were somewhere else. Orlando was also extremely amusing, I hadn't realised before how truly funny Virginia Woolf can be.

Everything was handled with a poetical grace; Ms Woolf has such a gift with language, something I saw in Mrs. Dalloway a work I didn't particulary like; it elevates her writting into literary art.
3 1/2 stars

Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass - Childhood favourites which haven't lost their savour even as a cynical adult.

5 star and 4 stars respectively

I am listening to The House of Mirth on audio and although it's a truly superb book having to listen to it in short sections is like dying the death of a thousand cuts. As things grow steadily more tragic for our heroine I am alternately sorry to leave her when I do and scared to re-join her when I can.

The House of Mirth - My second Edith Wharton work and I believe her first true novel, The House of Mirth is a true feast for the senses but a more erroneously named novel I have yet to read, it was certainly ironically meant.

The lovely heroine of the piece, Lilly, is a little like Madame Bovary, but with intelligence, charm, style and morals along with her beauty. In my time with her I grew to love her as a friend, seeing all her faults and being driven to the precipice of frustration at her contradictory behaviour but caring passionately for her well being and praying that someway, somehow, everything would turn out alright and she’d finally come to rest in a safe harbour.

For the story itself, I lived and breathed a totally different world while I resided between its pages; a place both appealing and abhorrent by turns. The House of Mirth put me through the emotional wringer and I know the after effects will remain with me for a long time. This is one I’ll never forget.

5 stars

A Clockwork Orange - A rather grim and ultra-violent view of the world. As far as dystopian literature goes this ranks pretty low. It wasn't a bad story but I have definitely read better. Perhaps it suffers a little from the fact that I had quite high expectations due to its fame.

3 1/2 stars

Queen Margot - A crazy explosion of a novel with a very very strained narrative; crazy co-incidences and highly improbably incidents abound. I can see why this is not the novel that Dumas is best known for as it is certainly no Conte of Monte Cristo or even The Three Musketeers, but it is enjoyable enough.

3 stars

After womanfully struggling through Here's to You, Jesusa! and On the Road, I feel as though the book gods are rewarding me with The House of Mirth and The Sense of an Ending and Infinite Jest in tree book form.

The Summer Book - A quiet and nostalgic book which, as I’m sure everyone who reads this will know, chronicles the relationship between a young girl (Sophia) and her grandmother as they spend their summers on a little island. The pair of them have independent personalities and they frequently rub up against each other. Sophia is treated like an adult in that her grandmother demands no respect from her and speaks her as an equal.

Sophia herself is highly imaginative and loves having interesting rambling conversations about god and other such immutable subjects. These often form the core of the spiritual ponderings but the island itself plays its part and the occasional outsider dropping into their family circle adds a hint of spice.

The grandmothers personality I found the more interesting of the two as I’ve observed many a precocious child in life as well as in literature, but the perspective of the old has been a much rarer encounter.

“Wise as she was, she realised that people can postpone their rebellious phases until they’re eighty-five years old, and she decided to keep an eye on herself”

There is no specific point to this work that I could discover, there is no plot as such, the novel simply describes a time and place and a way of thinking that does precisely that.

3 stars

The Sense of an Ending - This is a difficult book to review without giving away more of the plot than I am comfortable doing. The major premise of the book is memory and how events from our past can continue to impact us in our future even if we aren't aware of it at the time.

The protagonist of the story begins by giving us an account of his school and university days, his friends, girlfriends and certain dramatic events which occurred during those years. Then the scene moves forward many years into 'present day' and the past returns in the form of a solicitors letter.

Anthony (Tony) is led down a twisting path, trying to make sense and amends for things which he barely remembers and still less understands. And we, the readers, are as much in the dark as he is. In the end is anything resolved, or do we merely get 'a sense of an ending'?

4 stars

I've finished my 2nd Steinbeck and it's another 5 star. As I don't give those out very often I think I might be reading a lot more of his work whether on the list or not.

OMG I was just working out my reading for the next little while and I thought I'd check the local libraries in NZ as I'm heading there in a few weeks and I can't fill my suitcase completely full of books! So I noticed on the site a link for ebooks and audio books and I thought I'd take a quick look and see if they had a semi decent range.

Holy shit! It's huge! The fiction ebook section is 18,000 books! The fiction Audio book section is 5,000. That's all of the ones available on Overdrive anyway. Once again NZ shows me that it tends to embrace useful technology with open arms. Well, I better make sure I pick up a new library card while I'm there and get my internet pin!

I'm soooo happpyyyyy!!!!

(I'm really really sad...)

Why are you sad while there are so many beautiful books waiting for you on the other side of the world? Don't be! Have a happy new year!

The Pursuit of Love - This wasn't actually my first Nancy Mitford book as I realised a couple of days ago that I have two of her history books.

The cover made me raise my eyebrows, it looked so exactly like a trashy chic lit book but it didn't take long for the quality of this to shine through. I listened to this on audio and it was masterly. Very funny although I can see why some reviewers got annoyed at the main character. I just liked her for who she was and enjoyed my time in the mad world of Alconleigh.

Long Live the Hons!

4 stars

Glad you liked The Pursuit of Love... Love in a Cold Climate is great too. If you don't know a lot about the Mitford sisters, it's worthwhile to read a bit about them. Nancy's books are basically all about her family and they were an interesting lot.

The Lover - According to the blurb I was supposed to read 'an unforgettable tale of an incandescent relationship'. Instead I got a story about an almost pre-pubescent girl who likes to have sex.

And has a very f**ked up family.

I think so anyway, the way the story was related was choppy and vague.

2 1/2 stars

Of Mice and Men - How can something so short be so good? I'm in awe of how much Steinbeck packed in to this tiny powerhouse of a novel. I'm sure I have more to say but right now that is going to have to be it.

5 stars

>124 M1nks: Nicely formulated, 'a tiny powerhouse'. I felt the same way about Of Mice and Men.

Funny enough I'm one of the few who doesn't see the "power" behind Of Mice and Men. I read it and it was fine but the book merely exists for me. The Lover on the other hand is a beautiful introspection on Indochina, sibling relationships, interracial relationships, etc. if the book didn't make sense I suggest watching the movie of the same title.

The Nun - Rather an unbelievable tale in both the character of the protagonist and the trials that beset her. Although I am sure that convents aren't holy places occupied only by the pure, the run of bad luck she experienced was a little too much. As such, although I would have been interested to learn more about the conditions of convents I can only take everything with an extremely large pinch of salt...

2 1/2 stars

Tender is the Night - I don't quite want to say 'thank goodness that's over' but I came pretty close to wishing it was true at several points in the book.

I enjoyed the way it was written. Apparently it was rewritten many years afterwards by someone who put it together chronologically. That would have destroyed one of the charms of the piece, the sense of mystery and the gradual unfolding of the characters. Even if I didn't like them very much.

It was meant to be 'deep' I think but it didn't help that I didn't really believe in the credentials of one of the main players. I know doctors are human and medical science has progressed, but, still, there was some serious violations of codes of ethics going on!

So, in the end it gets a 2 1/2 stars. I'm not unhappy to have spent the time reading (well, listening) to it but I don't think this will be one I'll revisit. But you never know.

Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light - I felt my interest cycle as I read through. It started off very interesting, I lost the plot a bit and then it came back with a resurgence toward the end. My main problem with it was it focused an a middle aged man who drank too much couldn't commit to any relationship and had lots of insecurity problems. So, pretty standard boring fare really...

Another one I'm giving 2 1/2 stars

The Brothers Karamazov - Finally! I just got this finished in time to return to the library. Now I can go pack, I'll review later.

Whew! (wipes sweat from brow)

Hey M1nks!

That's a furious reading pace you're maintaining! Very impressive.

What is your current total? I'm struggling to figure out your total to update the progress index so have just been using your ticker, but it doesn't seem to have moved in a while.

Hah, yes I've been too busy reading rather than updating my totals. I don't have time right now but I'll make sure I do soon. I've been a bit slower recently and I'm 'stuck' on some bigger books but I do need to keep on top of my totals.

It's great seeing that bar move on up...

The 39 Steps - this was absolutely ridiculous! I can see why so many people think it's rubbish; the plot was thinner than an anorexic stick insect and the book was riddled with people who apparently believed any sort of tall tale they were fed. In fact one guy even basically said that it was only outrageous stories that he believed.

I still liked it though but I am in no way defending its status as 'proper' literature.

2 1/2 stars

Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan!!

Infinite Jest - how to describe a book that has probably engaged me more than any book for about two decades? It's not for everybody, it's not easy, it moves effortlessly between the grotesque and the sublime, occasionally with only a few spare words separating them. And the ending will make you want to throw the book against the wall. For a few heartbeats at least, and then, if you having been paying attention throughout you'll re-read the first section and spend a few days turning it all over in your mind. Your conclusions may be very different to mine, but one thing is for sure, like the rest of the book nothing is handed to you; you need to search for the answers yourself. And perhaps with the help of a really great book group ;-)

I can't really explain this book and its impact on me. It was an experience to be lived through and I'm so very glad I did.

5 stars (of course)

Wow, I haven't read such an enthusiastic review about this book before. Now I suddenly want to buy it instantly!

I was thinking about tackling that one this year. Is it similar at all to Catch-22? I am reading that one now and loving it. I figured Infinite Jest would have the same tone?

It's very similar in several way. In fact Catch-22 was the last book that did this to me and that was about 20 years ago :-). Its humour is different but it is a very funny novel.

Infinite Jest is hard work and several people in our group found sections of it traumatising but those that stuck with it have nearly all rated it 5 stars.

Cool thanks! I am s-l-o-w-l-y reading Catch-22 because there is just so much in there. Love the dry humour but it's exhausting to read too much at a time. I am thinking Infinite Jest may take a long time to finish but I will be in the 'love-it' category.

Well, yes, I can certainly identify with parts of this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/amandag4a39fb3ca/what-happens-when-you-read-infinite-jes...

Well now that didn't make me want to drop everything and read the damn thing! Curse you!!

American Pastoral - This book contained a few firsts and high water marks for me; it was my first Philip Roth read, it is the longest allegory I can remember reading and it is the first book which contains such obsessive details on the making of gloves.

The peculiar thing about this whole novel is that it is a great big lie and you know it. The narrator, who at the start is a distinct voice which then fades away as his fantasy really picks up steam, begins the book by demonstrating just how vivid and out of control his imagination is and then we see that he got everything wrong. Which doesn't deter him in the least from going right on and inventing a most detailed history for a range of characters based on nothing more than their names and knowing where they lived. It's quite a remarkable performance and reinforces that this story isn't about them at all.

The plot itself can really be explained in a few sparse sentences but explaining things in sparse sentences is clearly not something Mr Roth subscribes to. Why use 15 words in a sentence when you could make it sixty? Why say something in one paragraph when you could talk about it with slight variations for the next 5 pages?

Fortunately the man can write but while listening to this (audiobook by Ron Silver who did a marvellous job) I would occasionally wish that maybe once (just once) Philip Roth would skate over some little insignificant detail and not delve into it as exhaustively as he did. It never happened, well, not that I noticed anyway.

3 1/2 stars

Wow definitely time for me to update my list!

The Colour - A very beautiful read, almost dreamlike in tone which is rather strange as the setting is early NZ/Goldrush and the environment is often harsh and ugly. But somehow this story retains its purity amidst the filth.

4 stars

The Old Man and the Sea - My first Hemingway and I can't say it moved me. I've read all of the impassioned reviews on Goodreads raving about the intenseness of the story and what it stands for and I can't help think about Mr Hemingway's own comment that it was just a story about a man and a fish and nothing else.

I think he might have received his literature prize for a mirage...

Well, it was short but I stand by my initial reaction of 'meh'.

2 stars

Sula - Listening to Toni Morrison read this book was a little like experiencing eating a rich treacle pudding. So luxurious, extremely decadent and it gave me a sense of slight guilt; that just by being a party to this experience I was somehow being sinful and of low moral standing.

When I could make out her voice that was, it was a little hard at times.

Sula was lush and dirty at the same time. Toni Morrison is an excellent writer and it won't be long before I 'read' another of her works.

3 1/2 stars (even with the poor audio)

A Question of Upbringing
&
A Buyer's Market

I have set myself the task of reading one book a month of this 12 volume epic; it's a shame I didn't do this last year when I would have had some company of course but there you go!

Powel's writing seems so effortless and his sense of humour so unexpected that these books were a joy to read. I'm not sure what I was expecting but his light hearted style was definitely not it. Actually I probably do know what I was expecting; serious prose rather more turgid in style than this free flowing delight.

I'm marking them as both 3/3 1/2 stars for now as they are part of a greater whole and as such I don't feel that warm glow of completion on finishing them. I'm pretty positive that I'm going to love this series. Yah :-)

Love in the Time of Cholera - Yet another 'first' for an author, my first Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and it was a good one :-) I didn't 'get' the romance; like the female protagonist I take a practical view to life and the actions of the impassioned lover seemed pointless and silly to me as well. But the book itself was a literary masterpiece. I walked alongside the excessively romantic (and perhaps a trifle oversexed) Florentino Ariza and enjoyed every step.

This was a story about life itself and the relationships between people, all sorts of people. Things change, lives change but live for today while you plan for tomorrow.

4 stars

Ulysses - OMG the Beast is dead. Or at least badly wounded. Stabbed with a tooth pick? Maybe?

Look, the truth be told, even though I've read and listened to this monster about 4 times and I'm still going through it with my book group, I still haven't actually absorbed most of what is in there. That will take another couple of years. Of constant study.

Parts were great but many (especially one section near the end) were very tedious. It suffered in my eyes from 'clever dick author' syndrome; James Joyce is obviously incredibly clever and very well read but although much gold is buried in this tome it takes a certain type to want to dedicate years of your life to extracting a great deal of it. I will and am devoting some more time to going over it yet again but for now I just want to mark that I have FINALLY gotten through this colossus!

2 1/2 stars

>149 M1nks: your thoughts are similar to mine, though I think it will take me more than two years to finish it. The "rejoyce" weekly podcasts keep me moving slowly through it but they are scheduled to last another 20 years!

I think that Joyce is like Rubens in that he takes on the entire literary/ artistic canon of the past and transforms it, setting a new path for the future so that modern literature would be utterly different without him. And yet both Rubens and Joyce can be hard to take on their own. I am a big Rubens fan and I loved Ulysses but you have to be willing to put in a good bit of your own intellectual energy, because so much went into making them. if that makes sense.

Yes, that's what I think about it. His own statement of 'I expect nothing more from my reader than that they devote the rest of their lives reading my works' rather gives the point away. The question is, will the time invested be worth it to me considering I've now read it three times (including audio) and I'm reading it again. If a book takes that much work is it really only suited to a very particular type of reader?

I can't answer that now and perhaps I'll never be able to.

The Acceptance World - My March reach of the 12 Volume Dance to the Music of Time. A little more business and politics focused than the previous two so I enjoyed it a bit less. Still, it was mostly entertaining and had a great ending sequence. It was enough to rate it another 3 star.

The Remains of the Day - One of the best known 'English' novels (and it's written by a man called Kazuo Ishiguro), The Remains of the Day suits its name perfectly. Written as a retrospective after WW II by a butler who has seen the passing of the 'glory days' and now has only 'the remains of the day' to look forward to this book is gently melancholic in tone.

It isn't so much the passing of time which impacts on the heart but the story of Stevens himself, an 'unreliable' narrator who spends his time lying to himself and trying to logically adapt to a world which he no longer fits into. For some 'the remains of the day' can be the best time of life, looking back with satisfaction and pride on what they have accomplished, but for many there is a sense of failure, of not living up to our full potential, of allowing the days to slip past us while we think we will always be able to fix things tomorrow, until finally we realise we have too few tomorrows left.

4 stars

The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Maiden - Not much to really say about this one. It's short and an early example of the classic mythological tale, neither bad nor particularly good. No doubt more enjoyable for children.

The Good Soldier - I really have to hand it to the 1001 list (and Combined List), it points me in the direction of books that I would almost certainly have never read in the course of my life. Considering I started this challenge because I was sick of reading the same books and the same authors but didn't want to waste my time on pap literature that was as vapid as it was formulaic, it has delivered beautifully.

This little gem of a book highlights the polite façade that existed between two couples in the Edwardian era who had been friends for around 10 years but whose 'goings on' were about as poisonousness and unfaithful as they could be. It's a book to be understood more in the light of some life experience, I don't think this is one to be read when you are either very young or very sheltered as it requires a walking in the shoes of some diverse (and somewhat perverse) characters and if you have no connection to any of them then this book would fall flat even with its delightful prose.

Personally I loved it.

4 stars

The Moonstone - What a ripping good yarn! From start to finish I was enraptured by this Victorian mystery and as for Mr Dickens (who apparently didn't like it), with all due respect sir, you can go soak your head!

5 stars

Queer - I've only read two of Burroughs' books (Naked Lunch and this one) but I seem to be a fan of his style. Naked Lunch was a bit of work, this one was an easy cruise. It follows the story of a 'William Lee' living in Mexico City and falling in love with a young, mostly heterosexual guy. This really isn't going to end well, you can just tell. And so can Lee, but with the helpless longing of lovers everywhere logic is abandoned and heartbreak is invited inside.

Burroughs strips himself bare in this novel, exposing a pathetic soul that had me often wanting to avert my eyes. It was a quick read, I wish it was longer. I haven't read Junkie but I guess that will be next on the list.

4 stars

#158, You saw a lot in that book that I did not see. It just annoyed me. On the other hand, I'm with you on The Moonstone!

Yes Burroughs is an author whose writing style many dislike. That being said, Queer was a much easier read than Naked Lunch. I certainly understand people who don't like his work for other reasons as well, it just seems to appeal to me. I thought this book so sad, this was written after he had shot his wife during a drunken game and was living in exile . His needy searching for love and acceptance was seared onto the pages. I realised all of this once I'd finished reading it and the pain I felt there suddenly made perfect sense.

Tipping the Velvet - I was rather looking forward to this book - Victorian setting, London night life, cross dressing ladies, lesbian sex scenes and all manner of weird and wonderful exotics, what's not to like? Well, I was mightily disappointed. I'm not sure how any writer can take all of that and turn it into a book so dull I struggled to maintain my interest but somehow Sarah Waters managed it.

The setting she created was so unlikely that I wouldn't have known it was meant to be the 1890's unless I was specifically told. The main character was extremely unlikable, the situations she got herself into laughably formulaic (which considering she was a cross dressing lesbian took some doing) and all in all this just left me cold.

1 1/2 stars

#161, wow, that is sad. I was kind of impressed by her The Night Watch (because the 1940s is my favorite period) and looked forward to reading one that was on The List. But I'm not even into the 1890s!

Well if you enjoyed one of her books maybe you'd like this one. It's got a high rating on Goodreads, personally I thought it was a joke (which went on far too long) but tastes do vary.

And as for not being into the 1890s, don't worry. As I said you wouldn't have had any idea of this being the time period, it feels about as authentic as a plastic Buddha.

I liked Fingersmith much better. Tipping the Velvet was a lot more work and far less enjoyable.

Good to know. I've had my fill of Sarah Waters right now though and am no longer in no hurry to read Fingersmith. Hopefully though when I do come around to reading it I will like it much more than Tipping the Velvet. Having such a low bar of expectation might help.

Heart of Darkness - A classic of literature whichever side of the fence you sit on with regards to its impact as a novel set in colonial times. As with most of my reading I'm happy to put all judgements of that sort to one side and just look at it as a creature of its time and enjoy it without agonised heart burnings. And this was a most enjoyable little piece of prose.

For someone who can't even claim English as a first language Joseph Conrad writes with a sparse prose style which doesn't leave anything wanting as far as descriptive impact goes (and isn't really that sparse and is often long winded. Confused? I can't explain it any better :-)). Perhaps this is a product of his learning the language at a later age, once I get to read more of his work I'll be in a better position to judge.

Heart of Darkness has our protagonist taking a job as a steam boat captain working for a Belgian company looking for ivory and prepared to go to fairly much any length to obtain it. Or at least that is what this novel implies. The allegory 'heart of darkness' is referred back to many times and I'm sure I have no need to belabour the point in this short review. Suffice to say that I liked this short read but I didn't 'get it'. That is, I appreciated its prose, liked its compactness and enjoyed the story, but it didn't strike me with hurricane like force and I thought it trailed off a bit at the end.

3 1/2 stars

Jazz - This was my second Toni Morrison book and it was very similar in writing style; so much so that I am going to have to have a long gap between these and book #3 so I don't get bored with how she writes.

Jazz was not an easy book to follow as it time skips and jumps around narrators constantly. There is a lot of symbolism as well which makes it even more tricky. The story 'mostly' follows the lives of three people; Violet and Joe a married couple who finally come to New York and Dorcas the young girl the older Joe has an affair with and who, at the start of the book, has been murdered by him. Toni Morrison doesn't seem to like having too many mysteries in her books, the facts are laid out for you, now it's just a case of following and making sense of the 'why'.

A good book but it does take a bit of work to get the most out of.

3 1/2 stars

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan is a versatile writer; this is the third book of his I've read (The Cement Garden, Attonement) and I only know that because his name is on the cover. Compare that with Toni Morrison and after finishing Jazz I know I need a break because otherwise I'll overdose on her style of writing.

This little winner of the Man Booker prize follows the relationship of two men after the death of their one time lover. Both very successful in their field, they would consider themselves part of the moral elite. One is a composer the other an editor fighting 'the establishment' and their hypocrisy; both consider themselves beyond the crass and greedy motivations which afflict so many others. Events however may prove them wrong.

Amsterdam isn't a 'real' story, it's far too contrived for that, it's there to make a point and in my mind does so in rather a heavy handed manner. I prefer a story to lead me down the path not steamroll me. It's interesting & entertaining but to my mind not truly worthy of its prize unless the offering were pretty poor that year.

3 stars.

One of our book group members has just finished this (Infinite Jest). He was so mad at the ending that he downgraded it from 5 to 4 stars. Then after a few days of calming down put it back up to 5 saying that it was so brilliant he'd forgive even that. We've been talking about it for the last couple of days now, as each person gets through it it stimulates another burst of 'well what about this?' and 'OMG did you pick this bit up?'. As one of my friends says 'just when I thought I'd escaped it sucks me back in...'

Lolita - Well I can truthfully say that reading Lolita is something I have been meaning to do for many years, so in that sense I'm delighted to have done so. For the rest... I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be. The writing is beautiful and the memories and desires inside Humberts head suitably skin crawling, the narrator, Jeremy Irons certainly did a fine job bringing him to life.

With all that though, hmm, I'm still a trifle disappointed.

I had read many reviews commenting about feeling sympathy for the monster, some which even suggest it was a little romantic and I can honestly say that these comments shocked me more than anything in the book. Due to these sorts of phrases I expected Humbert to cover his tracks more than he did, to present himself in a better light, but, no. His every disgusting thought, his hypocrisy concerning his nightly rapes, everything was laid bare. There was no verbal seduction, the vile Humbert stood bare, condemned from his own mouth. So, I was disappointed; I wanted a moral conflict within myself and there was none.

For the rest I thought it dragged, the last half of the book that is. It was no longer engrossing, everything became a bit stale.

I rate this 2 1/2 stars

Our Lady of the Assassins - This was just, just, well just 'ugh'! Dark, violent and repetitive (oh look he just shot someone, now he shoots someone else and there he is shooting yet another person, now I'll comment for the 20th time how violent Columbia is and how corrupt the society is before the next person gets shot). There is some very dark and black humour running through but still, not my sort of book.

I will say though that if this book is truly 'autobiographical' then the author is a murderous psycho whether he actually directly shot people or not!

1 star

I think I need to read some more cheerful 1001 books. I'm reading a fair bit of other works to keep my reading balanced but I need to be reminded that not all great literature requires misery and death.

Just most of it.

Good luck in finding them! There are some cheerful, even laugh-out-loud, books on the list but the vast majority of them are fairly morose existential pieces heading downhill to inevitable doom. Like you I am mixing up my reading a bit more this year with non-list books. Few of these books are great literature so your last comment is probably correct but it is nice to read something that lets you exercise a few more muscles on your face from time to time.

Interested in your comments on Lolita. I rated this a lot higher (4.5/5) not because I had any sort of sympathy Humbert but I just thought Nabokov's writing was superb. I only took off half a mark because I couldn't bring myself round to give 5/5 for a book covering this subject matter.

I certainly agree the writing was a work of art, but in the end it didn't grab me personally. I don't have any beef with the subject matter because I see nothing which suggested that Nabokov was trying to say it was 'ok'. It's just that it didn't personally ring my bell. In the end, even with all it had going with it, I felt a bit bored.

My 2 1/2 rating is given to books that I can see are actually very good (as if there can being any doubt in this case) but I can't honestly say that I enjoyed enough that I really want to read it again sometime (my 3 stars and up).

As a Man Grows Older - Self centred, middle aged man blames women for everything which goes wrong in his life.

Well obviously it's a bit more involved than that but that's a good place to start :-)

Emilio Brentani is a man coming up on forty and just beginning to realise that he's really done nothing worthwhile in his life. He had enough talent to write a book when he was younger which got him enough of an 'artistic' reputation that he hasn't had to do anything since and happily does (or doesn't do) just that. He lives with his sister, the virtuous but rather plain and boring Amalia, and earns just enough in his boring job as an insurance agent (oh the humanity) to keep the both of them in a simple style of living.

Wow, that's pretty depressing all right.

Time for the villainess of the piece to step into the picture. Enter the lovely Angiolina, a young woman who he meet after performing the heroic act of picking up her sunshade. He weaves a fantasy of a pure Madonna around this woman and he shows the virtue and sweetness of his nature by stating that he can't marry her while trying to work things around to making her his mistress.

Time passes, Emilio blames Angiolina for having known other men before, during and after their affair as it would be perfectly reasonable to expect that any woman accepting his dishonourable proposals would be as pure as the driven snow. However he can't really make up his mind to finish it. Well not for longer than five minutes.

As the injured and betrayed man, he lashes against his friends and his boring sister and generally behaves in a wonderful fashion. Oh, the trials of the innocent.

Given all of that you might be surprised to find that I still found it an enjoyable read :-)

3 stars

Drop City - Peace, Love, Sex and Lots of Drugs and Rock'n'Roll Hippie commune meets wild frontier Alaska homesteaders with some rather predictable results. And others not quite so predictable.

It's the rockin' 60's and for some young things in America that means rebelling against the 'square' world and all those stupid rules and living off food stamps and joining your fellow brothers and sisters in a mutual gathering place dedicated to peace, love and lots of mind altering drugs. But along with the peace and love comes the arguements about who does the things like the cleaning and the building of life's little luxuries like a flushing toilet so people don't have to shit in the woods.

After a series of run ins with 'the man' the Californian commune decides to up sticks to Alaska, the last frontier and far away from all of the petty rules and really live off the land (and food stamps). Ohhh boy....

T.C.Boyle has a lot of fun with this book and I had a lot of fun reading it. The humours not for everyone, it consists mostly of laughing at people rather than with them, such as an ardent hippie expounding on the karmic necessity of never harming a living creature and then squashing a mosquito straight afterwards. Even without the jokes though this book is worth the admission price. Boyle has a pretty cynical eye but he doesn't come down too hard on either one side or the other; the good and the bad are both portrayed.

4 stars

The Drunkard - My first Zola and more of an exposition on the life of the poor of Paris than I was expecting; he seemed like the French Dickens although without any even bleak humour. The 'heroine' of this work, Gervaise, has small dreams - work hard, sleep and live clean, don't be beaten, die in her bed - and without spoiling the story at all I can tell you that she has a hard job fulfilling even these lowly ambitions.

Gervaise tries so very hard and recovers from blow after blow but each time the dirt is a little harder to wash off until she is ground down into the dust along with those around her. It's no surprise and I was bracing myself for it from the word go so I managed to maintain my equilibrium and not dissolve into a puddle of misery right along with her. In fact I didn't get an emotional gut punch until the very last paragraph.

What a life people, I'd be praying for the undertaker too!

Apart from all of this individual suffering, The Drunkard is a wonderful window into the working class poor of Paris during this time. I would imagine the whole series would be. I guess I'll have to continue reading at some point but I'll take a breather for now.

3 1/2 stars

Steppenwolf - This was a surprise, I didn't expect to enjoy this at all as it's a famous 'philosophical' book and I find philosophy generally rather irritating. However I liked this, I didn't understand it all but it was presented in such a way that the views and theories it was expounding became part of the 'plot' and so more relevant to me. A bit like Sophie's World I guess but rather different in style.

The last third is generally when Hermann Hesse loses his audience according to the reviews I've since read but I was still getting enough out of it to, if not be sure that I 100% 'got it', was enough in tune to keep thinking about the various meanings which was probably more what the author wanted anyway. This book is meant to make you think and if you are sure you have all the answers then you've probably missed the point.

Aside from everything else I now know how to pronounce Geothe so I got something solid out of the read :-)

3 stars

Democracy - This was a pleasant surprise, I went into it not expecting very much and found myself hooked by the very first words.

The light at dawn during those Pacific tests was something to see.

Something to behold.

Something that could almost make you think you saw God, he said.

He said to her.

Jack Lovett said to Inez Victor.

Joan Didion uses her short sentences rather like short machine gun bursts, and it works well. It gives a sense of intimacy and longing, which echoes throughout the rest of the book even if Joan is writing the part you are currently reading in a more conventional format.

For the rest, the book doesn't exactly move at a breakneck pace, even though a lot of happening in the world; this is set around the events of 1975 when the States had to pull out of Vietnam. I would have enjoyed it even more if I'd had even the slightest background knowledge of this part of history but I am profoundly ignorant. If I ever re-read this I'll make sure to do a bit of prep work in this area first.

3 stars

2001: A Space Odyssey - Not a gripping read. I haven't seen the movie because I've never been able to sit through the opening docking sequence and that put me off ever wanting to go out of my way to watch it. Actually it might be better than the book.

The book, the movie and the screenplay were all written at the same time and if this is what the result is I'm not a fan. A lot happens, so how come nothing happens? I think it's because I kept falling asleep listening to the technical minutiae of the nuts and bolts of the space mission; very interesting for some no doubt but not my cup of tea. Well, not for half the book anyway.

This had potential but in the end it had no fizz, no go, no pizzaz! Honestly, it's about space travel and man learning that they aren't alone in the the universe this shouldn't be made dull! I was expecting better.

2 stars

Man I really need to update this more often so I don't have to add 5 books in one hit! Two at a time until I've caught up.

>180 M1nks: I'm afraid I fast-forwarded through much of the movie as I was waiting for something to happen. And now the book is largely the same? Yuck! :)

The Female Quixote - It is a bit of a one line joke as was Don Quixote but it's delivered well and explored in all its different possible permutations.

Our lovely young heroine has raised herself on a diet of fantastical romances and has disregarded all other works which might have been supposed to provide a leavening of commonsense. The result is a hysterical fool whose arrant stupidity endangers and humiliates everyone around her. Charlotte Lennox tries hard to convince me of this young ladies worth but she fails. The woman was quite mad and her lover was a total sap for having feelings for her.

Putting my contempt for the main character to one side the book was really quite enjoyable, although I had no respect for anyone contained within it's covers (they were all either crazy, stupid, spiteful or deceitful) I enjoyed having a good laugh at their expense. I guess my favourite characters were Arabella's long suffering maid and the worldly wise countess who had a good shot at curing the lady of her fancies until she was hurried out of the way due to a family illness or some such event so Arabella would be left to her own devices once more.

My only real issue with the work was the final resolution and how it was only a priest who could bring the reason of his faith to bear on her and show her the faults in her world view. Considering the myriad of intelligent people she had around it was rather ridiculous that none of them were capable of the basic reasoning it took.

Otherwise it was handled well.

3 stars.

If Not Now, When? - Rather an unusual book I think as it deals with the events of the Holocaust by focusing on a group of Jewish partisans fighting back with limited weapons but plenty of spirit. It's not a happy book, the life is hard and death is common both from violence and from more prosaic things like the weather and poor food, but these people steadfastly refuse the label of 'victim'. They know their very existence is a miracle, they know they are standing mounds of fellow Jewish corpses, but they live in the now and take each day as it comes.

They aren't hero's, although there are many acts of heroism throughout the book. Everybody they encounter isn't a textbook villain, although the hatred towards their race which has led to genocide is all around them. There is no safety, although the group moves around to various 'safe havens'. This book is 'real' and while not being a delight to read it was interesting and less upsetting than it could have been.

3 1/2 stars

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch - Following on from If Not Now, When? this cheery little story depicts another tale of survival against the odds from the other side of the fence.

Ivan is a political prisoner of war arrested for breathing too loudly at the wrong time, or rather for being a spy and traitor to his country. His sentence isn't too long, he was arrested before it became the practice to impose 25 years as the standard length, but he probably won't be released at the end of his time anyway so that doesn't really matter. His life consists of work, poor food and both obeying and avoiding rules depending on what he can get away with. It's not exactly a great life but everyone learns to take pleasure and comfort in the small things even if those have been obtained at the expense of someone else. It's a dog eat dog world in Stalin's work camps and you need to chose your comrades carefully.

For one day we follow Ivan around as he shuffles to and fro in the daily dance. It's a good day, he comes out ahead in the food column and manages to secrete a little something away to perhaps make his life easier in the days to come. He doesn't end up in prison.

This is the sort of book that makes me appreciate my warm bath and ham and cheese toastie.

3 1/2 stars

Well, there is a double whammy of books, wonder if there's some nice book about Khmer Rouge to round that off...

London Fields by Martin Amis - A bit of a change of pace from the previous two reads! (although this was an audio so I'd been listening to it concurrently). London Fields was an unexpectedly glorious romp through a grimy, fraudulent little London that I almost, but not quite, recognised.

Following my usual practice of knowing as little as possible about a book before I start I was braced for a gruesome murder story based around a psychotic mass killer. This was because the blurb mentioned a Nicola Six and I drew the conclusion that there was a nutjob running around London killing women who had been blessed with the name 'Nicola' (disturbing considering that's my name!) and Nicola Six was next for the chopping block. But no, it's all right, she's just a lady with an unusual name. And an unusual personality. And London itself is a little bit off. Strike that, the entire world seems to be not quite right.

And it wasn't. It took a while but I finally cottoned on to the fact that this world wasn't quite my own. It was close but there were a few subtle differences. Some not so subtle. It did make me feel a bit better because Amis was really depicting London as a sink of inequity. Seriously, it's not that bad.

The action in this book revolves around three main characters and one narrator a little bit off to the side who tries to keep himself aloof. There is Nicola Six, one of the most peculiar creations to ever grace the insides of a novel, a 'working' class man who made me feel like bathing after too long in his company and an upper class toff with a horrible wife and an absolutely indescribable child. The narrator I shall leave to himself because he would prefer it that way. Together this bunch of misfits horrified me, shocked me; made me laugh and made me go 'oh no you didn't!' 'Oh, yes, they did!'

Highly recommended for those who like their humour served with a hearty side of black.

Yet no one seemed to have thought through the implications of a world in which everyone cheated. The other morning Keith had bought five hundred vanity sachets of Outrage, his staple perfume. At lunchtime he discovered that they all contained water, a substance not much less expensive than Outrage, but harder to sell. Keith was relieved that he had already unloaded half the consignment on Damian Noble in the Portobello Road. Then he held Damian's tenners up to the light: they were crude forgeries. He passed on the notes without much trouble, in return for twenty-four bottles of vodka which, it turned out, contained a misty, faintly scented liquid. Outrage!

4 1/2 stars

The Garden Where the Brass Band Played by Simon Vestdijk - I really don't have too much to say about this one, it started out well but by about halfway through it just lost my interest. I normally don't mind stories about small town drama's but this one felt too formulaic as it went on.

There is a lot of music in it, that might be of interest to some people. I can't say it did anything for me.

2 stars

:-) It wasn't actually that depressing to read them both together. For what they were they were about as upbeat as they could be.

I will get around to that some day. Due to the seasonal reading challenge on Goodreads I read books that I wouldn't normally read first simply because they fit into one of the posted tasks. Even while I was reading 'If Not Now, When?' though I noticed the book was covered in reviews about how fantastic 'The Periodic Table' was rather than praising the book I was actually reading.

Moon Palace by Paul Auster - Hmmm. My first Paul Auster work was The New York Trilogy which I read a few months ago. I was impressed by the beauty of the writing and the intricacy of the stories but felt an emotional disconnection due to them not really going any where. In the end I just found them frustrating.

So, Moon Palace which is not a collection of short stories but a full length novel in its own right was an oppurtunity to see what Paul Auster could do in this format. As it turned out though, it was mainly a case of different name, same story.

Moon Palace opens in the same way as all of his New York Trilogy stories; a seemingly 'normal' man, Mr Fogg, who begins to disassociate himself from society and starts both an internal and external disintegration. In the short stories that wouldn't change but in this longer novel there is an intervention and the protagonist gets his life back on track in a different environment and the past becomes a closed book as he starts again. He comes into contact with Effing Thomas (oh the wit) who was quirky, unusual, bizarre, and, yes, very very similar to the quirky, unusual and bizarre characters in The New York Trilogy. Things continue along in this second phase of the novel for a while before everything breaks down and once again Mr Fogg leaves it all behind and embarks on his next adventure. In fact you could almost call it the third short story in the novel. Which then follows a very similar trajectory. Again.

Paul Auster can you write any other type of books?

2 stars

At Lady Molly's & Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Due to slackness on my part in getting these books out of the library on time, I missed my April reading of At Lady Molly's and had a back to back reading with this and Casanova's Chinese Restaurant. It may have been a bit of a blessing as I think I might be finally getting a grip on the main players in this work, at least I definitely felt less lost than I was with March's update. Being able to read two at once and with the prospect of #6 only a couple of weeks away I might have a good opportunity to really solidify my hold on 'who's who'.

Note to other readers; it would probably be a good idea to take notes on people as you meet them, unless your memory is much better than mine. Some people Jenkins meets in the dance go flying past, perhaps never to be seen again, but many others have a nasty habit of popping up a few books down the line and I'm left wondering 'now, where have I seen you before?'. It's just like real life.

For the books themselves the tone seems to be a little sadder. Marriages and relationships are falling by the wayside as time goes on. Several people have swapped partners at a dizzying rate. Powell certainly does not see any stability in the dance so far.

Cricky, I've nearly caught up on my '1001' reviews. Best get reading furiously again so I can fall way behind once more!

Story of my life!

>192 M1nks: I wonder if you'd like The Music of Chance better than the Austers you've read already. It definitely still feels like his work, but not the same as The New York Trilogy. I really enjoyed Music, very readable, though still absurd in its storyline.

Well I've enjoyed reading Timbuktu which I'll post a review for shortly, but I am concerned with the reviews which have comments like 'this is nothing like Paul Austers usual work'. I thought Timbuktu had similar themes but they were presented in a different way. If The Music of Chance is on the list I guess I'll get around to it at some point?

It is on the list, the only reason I knew it existed :) Timbuktu was a little different, but not completely out of his range. Mr Vertigo was also fun.

Timbuktu - My 3rd Auster in relatively quick succession (I'll definitely be taking a break from his work now) and a change of perspective in narrator. Instead of a variety of mentally lacking men (always with the men) we have a relatively sane canine; a scruffy fellow going by the name of Mr. Bones.

Things don't veer too far off course though, Mr. Bones is still an outsider and his master certainly fits the mentally cuckoo protagonist type typical for Paul Auster, only this story is told by the dog. And I guess it's probably a sad thing to realise that the most intelligent and rational character I've yet encountered between the pages of his books walks on four legs.

Still, credit where it's due, I found this an enjoyable read.

3 stars

I liked it too, but wonder why it's on the list ...

I can see why; it gives a different perspective on the role of one outside of standard society when the story is driven by a dog. There are ponderings about what 'humanity' actually means, the power structure family and institutions and lots of insights into why we might do things as a species. It's a variant of the 'child narrator' type and seeing as it's a dog with the strong bonds towards man it works.

Yeah, but I've seen it done before Timbuktu, so I wasn't blown away by the originality of it.

Chocky by John Wyndham - A wonderfully engrossing little story which I read in one sitting after intending to only read the first few pages just 'to get a feel' of the text.

A perfectly normal young boy suddenly disturbs his family when he forms a relationship with an invisible friend inside his head called 'Chocky'. His parents are sure that Chocky doesn't exist but are puzzled by all of the unusual questions that their son begins to ask and the development of his strange abilities.

I kept waiting for everything to turn dark and depressing and was pleasantly surprised when it never did. Or, at least, not from the area I was bracing myself for.

Well worth a read.

4 stars

Grimus by Salman Rushdie - What an incredible book for a first work! It may be a trifle immature and a little puerile in parts but the vivid imagination behind it causes it to blaze out of the pages in glorious Technicolor.

I've always loved mythology and Grimus has its roots in this grand old tradition. Add in some mystery, a dash of scientific magic and human interest and shake it all together for a book that caught my interest from the start and never let it go. If this is what Salman Rushdie manages to write straight out of the authorship gate I'm not sure if I'm more excited to think of the literary treats in store for me, or apprehensive to think that the rest of the books won't live up to the promise of Grimus.

I'm going to go with Door #2 for now.

4 stars

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing -

My thoughts were a little confused after reading this. For one I still wasn't quite clear on what had happened. Oh the woman was dead, there was no question of that not being the case; we are told on page one so it's not exactly suspenseful. But I still wasn't clear exactly 'what had happened'.

Leaving that to one side I was also unclear as to how I was supposed to feel about it all. The deceased lady was rather unpleasant but she was lonely. Her life was poor and stifled but she was horribly racist and nasty to everyone who came near her. Nothing went right for either her or her husband but they had married for the wrong reasons and didn't take any real steps towards sorting their own lives out.

I think I was supposed to feel sorry for her but she made it very hard to do so. Truly she was a horrible woman and her husband a complete drip and just as racist as she was but in a slightly less offensive way.

In the end I couldn't really care about anyone. The book was beautifully written and interesting in it's depiction of farming life and social structure but as for the two main characters. Weell. I guess I felt a little sorry for him.

3 stars

>205 M1nks: I love your review of The Grass is Singing and yes, Rushdie will live up to your expectations. Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses are among my all time favourites.

Have you read The Grass is Singing Simone? The blurb talks about the beauty of the land and her lonliness and desperate connection to the black servant she employs. It rather neglects to mention how contemptuous she is of everyone of colour. More than contemptuous, she views them as sub human, more disgusting and smelly than farm animals.

It's hard to read that and then know that I'm somehow meant to empathise with her plight and feel our shared humanity.

>207 M1nks: Yes I have read it and the way Doris Lessing describes this awful situation really grapped me.

What does grapped mean Simone? I've just tried to google it but I can't find any reference to it. I presume it's slang?

I loved The Grass is Singing. It was the heroine's very limitations as a human being, her complete inability to move beyond them, that made her tragedy so... gripping, I think. Her tragedy did not just come from within herself, though -- it was a reflection of the warped world in which she had grown up, the society that existed around her. I found this a pretty amazing book, especially for a first book.

>209 M1nks: No it's my bad English :-). I meant grabbed... Or is that not an expression you can use in this context either?

I thought you meant gripped! Perhaps you invented a new word between the two.

Oronooko - Was this supposed to be factual, entirely fictitious, or a mixture of both? Well, in truth I know it's fiction but it has that disconcerting habit of mingling real people in with the story and it's always then that I start losing my grip on what is meant to be real and what's not. I do however know that if Ms Behn had written this in the modern age she'd have had lawyers knocking on her door before the pages had cooled from the printing press handing her writs for slander, or libel I guess seeing as it's written.

For the rest of the work I found it a little dull, racist and Eurocentric which was hardly a surprise seeing who wrote it and the time it was written in, but short enough for it not to be a pain to read. It certainly had its moments of interest and if it was written in a different way I would probably have in enjoyed it more, the premise of the tale being exciting enough.

2 stars

The Sound and the Fury - My first foray into this work was like being caught in a crossfire of words. A veritable hail whizzed and crashed about my ears and I hadn't the slightest clue as to what was going on.

Disorientation I decided must be precisely what Faulker wants; Press Onwards Brave Soldier!.

So I did and it become clearer. A little anyway. It still remained a puzzle to be worked on.

The Sound and the Fury focuses on the fortunes of one house of gentrified southern folk, the Compsons, and also includes the family of the Gibsons, the black family who are the servants of the Compsons and are headed by the family matriarch Dilsey. The Compson family are disintegrating as we watch and Dilsey, who has looked after all of the Compson children as well as her own, comments that she has seen 'The First and the Last'.

The events which take place are seen through the eyes of 4 different narrators (none of which is the girl/woman on whose actions everything circles around), 1 of which is mentally deficient and another in the throes of a complete mental breakdown. Oh it's a joyous ride!

It was a fascinating read but it does take a bit of work.

4 stars

Pilgrim's Progress - I have no original comments to make about this work; I didn't like it (clearly) but I was hardly the intended audience. Where some found it inspiring I found it deadly dull. While others commented on the love within the pages I saw only violence and tyranny. Instead of feeling that the warning speeches in the text were doing me good I was repulsed by what I saw as their smug pomposity. I found the whole thing bland and tedious in the extreme and had to force myself to finish it.

Originally, after putting this into my 'thank goodness that's over!' book pile I considered it the worst book I had ever read but shortly after that I really got stuck into the short stories of Chesterton's Father Brown and I found those even more detestable. At least Bunyan had the excuse of being a fairly uneducated man who wrote in the 1600's.

1/2 star

Your review really makes me look forward to Pilgrim's Progress! Seriously, I am just hoping that it's better on audiobooks.

I listened to it on audio book. That's why it dragged so much I think.

So Long a Letter - Short and bittersweet, this book deals with the impact on women of the Islamic sanctioned practice of multiple wives. Two women have their husbands take a second wife. One, who has her pressed on him by his mother, is not very happy with the idea but goes along with it; the other deserts his first wife for the young girl he fancies, a school friend of his own daughter.

Aissatou refuses to accept her husbands new wife and leaves him, her best friend Ramatoulaye considers her options and decides to submit however she is not given the chance to as her husband never comes near her again and Ramatoulaye is left to mourn the loss of her love and respect for the man she had built a life with.

So Long a Letter is a sad indictment of the treatment of African society towards its women. I can feel the authors hope through this work, hope that things are changing and that women themselves are the driving force behind this change.

3 stars

God's Bits of Wood - I saw this on my library's 1001 bookshelf and was captivated by the colourful cover. As I haven't read nearly enough African literature but have enjoyed everything I have read, I decided to take a proverbial punt.

I found out that God's Bits of Wood was written about the 1947-8 Dakar-Niger railway strike, something which I knew nothing about and still know virtually nothing as there isn't very much information available on the Internet. This book was well written and engaged me right from the first page. I had other books which should have had priority in my reading schedule but this fairly much kicked its way to the front.

It's about personalities rather than being overly heavy on the facts and I detected a bit of wistful thinking? about the prominent role of women. I also raised my womanly 'western' eyebrows rather sceptically with Mr Ousmane Sembène's insistence on the right of men to have four wives and to have support for all of them and their huge brood. This was especially so because I'd just read So Long a Letter and that particular African lady didn't seem so very enamoured with that custom.

Leaving that to one side I really enjoyed reading this.

3 1/2 stars

Moby-Dick - This is a re-read that I have been promising myself for several years. My first attempt at Moby-Dick was not a success. Whether it was time constraints, age or it just 'wasn't the right time' I didn't enjoy it at all. Like so many I got tangled up in rope and smothered in whale blubber and finishing it became a chore.

I'm always a bit sad when I read a true classic and decide that I really don't like it, especially when I read so many reviews which acknowledge the books difficulties but insist that the sheer brilliance of the writing make even the boring bits bearable. So, I decided that I would have another attempt at this leviathan, but if it didn't work out a second time I'd give up for good. I'm no Ahab.

This around I was more prepared and I was in no hurry. I listened to Anthony Heald's audio recording and re-read sections as I slowly moved through it as well as doing some extra research on Schmoop for any deeper meanings which I may have missed.

Mr Heald greatly impressed me with his audio of Crime and Punishment but it took a little longer to appreciate Moby-Dick, his voice sounded very different and the whole reading seemed flatter. Later I realised that it suited the work perfectly, the voices sounded sea-doggish, Herman Melville's lyrical prose came alive and the steady cadence helped me drift away in a semi somnolent doze during the more uninteresting passages. And there still were many of those. I found that I was more interested in the whaling life this time around but I will admit to tuning out on the odd occasion.

Once I was through the middle section I realised I was rather hooked. Rather than listening to the audio with a sort of penitential air I was actually letting other books take a back seat so keen was I to get another update in this great whale adventure. The last few days of listening were especially exciting; I finally came to appreciate Ahab and experience something other than frustration and annoyance. His monomaniacal drive and connection to his crew gave me an emotional gut punch at the very end as I grieved for the fate of the doomed Pequod.

I'm very glad I gave this another go. And I'm also very glad that I tried it as an audiobook with such an excellent reader as Anthony Heald.

4 stars

I have just read my 200th list book and as I'm quite far behind I'm going to post my quick updates here and I'll expand the reviews as and when.

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth - That... was quite a book...

Basically one long whine from an oversexed, perverted jewish man who blames his mother and American society for everything. It's certainly very funny in parts but it's still a bit of a one trick pony and did get tiresome.

The protagonist is meant to be pouring his heart, guts and various other bodily organs out to us, the reader, as we take the role of the poor shmucks shrink. Portnoy needs one. Probably he needs several.

There's a lot of moaning and self deprecating humour all served up with a big plate of 'middle aged, American Jewish manhood angst' much of which I found it hard to relate to but still found funny. It's a good read so long as your not the sort to take anything too seriously and if you happen to have more in common with Portnoy than I did then it would no doubt resonate even more strongly with you.

3 stars

The Story of Blanche and Marie - I have worked out that there is a specific type of literature that I don't care for; books which are very well written but contain little else.

The Story of Blanche and Marie had no real story or plot and was written in a dreamy cyclic sort of a way, dipping in and out at various points in Blanche and Maries life. After hearing the same thing repeated over and over I got sick of it. I was concurrently reading The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and that solidified my thoughts as to my reading preferences. It too was beautifully written and meandered along dropping its little nuggets of excellent prose that I was too asleep to appreciate.

The Story of Blanche and Marie did have its interesting aspects, for one I learned a little more about the personal life of Marie Curie, an absolutely extraordinary woman, but I wish that I didn't have to wade through this turgid collection of words to do so.

1 1/2 stars

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - This was beautifully written and bored me senseless. I was a third of the way through the book and realised that the protagonist had arrived in Portugal, checked into his hotel and wandered around the city for a bit. Action packed it was not.

I'll probably re-read it again at some point but it's a one star for now.

Independent People - Magnificent. One of those 'sweeping epics' that aren't written very often. It's a bit grim in places I suppose and the main character isn't very likable. But, on the positive side it's got mythology and poetry woven into the prose and it works wonderfully well.

The books 'hero' is a big tough man with a chip on his shoulder even bigger and tougher than he is. He has worked for others and has now just managed to buy his own land which he is fiercely proud of. He moved there with his new wife and thinks only of getting free of the mortgage debt and being able to say that he is truly 'independent' and he will let nothing stand in his way. There is much to admire in this attitude but it becomes clear that when taken to excess the desire for complete independence can become a dangerous thing for you and those around you.

Added to this simple tale of farming under extreme conditions is more than a dash of Icelandic mythology and an obviously old and rich tradition of poetry and word play. Then, as the story progresses, Iceland is affected by world events outside of its rather isolated borders as the world war and economic ideas begin to change the very makeup of the country.

It's a fascinating book, full of character and unexpected charm.

4 stars

The Awakening - Exquisite writing; it reminded me a great deal of works by Katherine Mansfield and Emily Wharton with its delicate and refined touch. The same focus on society manners and doing the socially acceptable thing. The same uneasy undercurrents subtly tugging at your feet just below the surface.

Mrs Edna Pontillier comes to realise that she is extremely unsatisfied with her life; she has a successful husband and healthy and happy children but her soul is stifled. Her slowly kindling passion fixates on a new acquaintance meet on holiday, who, being a gentleman, removes himself from temptation but the newly awakened Mrs Pontillier doesn't wish to return to her old way of life and starts to strike out rebelliously against anything she thinks is holding her back.

This is a slow burning book as suits the time it was written and the subject matter. At the time it was considered very shocking and I'm sure many would still think it so but the conflict between personal freedom and dutiful responsibility are just as relevant now which makes this slender novel even more of a worthwhile read.

3 1/2 stars

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber - 2 stars

I liked the language and the imagination, sections such as this one mentioned in another review nearly carried the entire work for me:

"The brambles and thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets."

Unfortunately along with the clever work play I found it rather disturbing due to the whole 'sex slave' thing; the dastardly duke has a niece who he uses for her warmth (his hands are ice cold) but it comes out later that she actually isn't his niece but a girl who he stole her from her parents. He was also going to take her forcibly as his bride and was only restraining himself up til this point due to a witches curse, which was due to expire the day after the grand climax of the book. She of course doesn't get any say in the matter, in point of fact she doesn't get any say in anything because he's taken her voice and she can only speak a single phrase over and over again like a talking parrot.

Never fear though, this being a fairy story she is kindly rescued by the prince in disguise, whereupon it is just taken for granted that she'll marry him and she once again doesn't get a chance to express herself. She's just the 'female to be rescued/married/used'. Bah.

It certainly didn't lack for imagination but I found it too distasteful to really enjoy it.

2 stars

#200

Silence by Shusaku Endo - 3 1/2 stars

Silence is set (mostly) in Japan in the 1600's after the rulers of Japan had decided that the foreign faith of Christianity/Catholicism was a danger to their country and had outlawed its practice and delivered death and torture to any caught practising it or sheltering any priests.

Although a fictional tale, Shusaku Endo weaves a lot of fact into this work and the main character, a young Portuguese Jesuit called Sebastião Rodrigues is based on a real person by the name of Giuseppe Chiara, who was sent to Japan and captured. Alone and afraid, Sebastiao suffers a crises of faith as his appeals to his god are left unanswered and he hears only a resounding silence.

Silence was a very quick read, both because it was quite short and because it was easily digestible. However considering it dealt with the torture of catholics by the Japanese it might be considered quite disturbing by some readers.

Congratulations on reaching 200!

Yes, congratulations on 200!

Thanks :-). I'm having a bit of a reading burst; I've been chewing through a load of books recently, a bit under half of which are 1001'ers

#227 --wait, The Thirteen Clocks involved a sex slave?? I read this when I was about 12 and I definitely didn't notice. James Thurber does sex slaves?

Review updated

Thanks paruline and puckers :-) I do feel happy to have reached it seeing as I didn't really notice my 100th as I wasn't seriously working on the list at that stage. I'm really aiming for my 250 now which will be a really big achievement. I don't think I'll make it by the end of the year though. Maybe in January.

More short comments on books as I'm reading rather than reviewing right now.

Sexing The Cherry by Jeanette Winterson - An entertaining read. Just weird enough to be quirky rather than utterly incomprehensible. Even so it is definitely one of the more peculiar books from the 1001 list. It's a little hard to say exactly what this was about, you really need to read it for yourself and see if you get any message out of it.

I found it enjoyable but I can see how it wouldn't be another persons cup of tea.

3 stars

The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell - This is Number Six in my year long project read of A Dance to the Music of Time so I am now halfway through! Two months behind schedule but never mind... In #6 the spectre of the next world war hangs oppressively over the entire book and it affects it in a myriad of subtle ways. Fantastic writing by Powell.

4 stars

The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell- And here is #7 which I managed to knock off a week or so before the end of July so hooray for me! This section of Powell's grand opus is almost entirely filled with Manly Men doing Manly Things! Or rather, it's a quite farcical book filled with the absurdities of bureaucrats and war. I found that I quite missed the snarky little socialite conversations :-)

Nick isn't exactly in the thick of the war just at the moment, he's bumbling around training areas and is mostly concerned with regulations rather than enemy bullets. I'm not sure if that will change - as everyone seems to be keen to point out to him, he's getting rather 'long in the tooth'.

3 stars

White Teeth by Zadie Smith -What happens when immigrants come to a country which has a culture vastly different to their original one? What happens to their children? Do they assimilate seamlessly? Well perhaps some do, but that wouldn't make for a particularly entertaining novel now would it?

Zadie Smith follows the fortunes of one particular immigrant family and their interactions with a couple of others.

Samad Iqbal is decent family man and wanna be decent Muslim role model (he slips up a fair amount here). He marries late in life to a demure (hah!) young bride chosen for him long before her birth. He is also a little bit of a fish out of water in his adopted country of Great Britain where he lives after the war. You know, THE War! (II).

His best (and only) friend is Archibald Jones, a born and bred Britisher with a horrible aversion to making any meaningful decisions without relying on fates assistance by means of a coin toss. These two men reside near each other and their wives and their children mingle together in this extremely funny, 'story of their lives'.

A startlingly impressive book especially for a first novel. Zadie Smith deserves all of the praise she got for writing this as far as I'm concerned.

4 stars

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - Short, weird, ultimately unsatisfying.

I wasn't greatly pleased by this ending (or by much of the rest of it). I found it too vague and I don't agree with the assumption that 'that is its genius'. A book which leaves you with a puzzle to work out can be incredibly satisfying (I loved Infinite Jest) but this doesn't provide enough clues to do that.

I wasn't happy with the entire books premise of the great evil of the two spirits and how the governess just managed to 'know' everything. I was especially annoyed at the presumption that the previous governess was apparently irredeemably wicked because she'd been seduced into a liaison with a lower class man and possibly got pregnant and maybe killed herself. If there was anything else she was guilty of hinted at in the text I missed it.

Other assumptions also got up my nose and I don't know if Henry James thought this way or was playing it up for the book. How incredibly sexist the whole thing was, how Flora was disregarded in favour of Miles.

I can see why this is in the list as it was apparently 'the first' but later works did it much better in my opinion.

2 1/2 stars

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham -

4 stars

How can a book which talks about the end of world being nigh, hurried along by 7 foot high, walking, carnivorous plants be this good? And more importantly, why did it take the 1001 list to clue me in to the wonderful works of John Wyndham?

I wasn't as trepidatious as I could have been prior to embarking on this read because I'd recently finished the wonderful Chocky and I didn't think any author who wrote that could make a total hash of any science fiction piece they put their hand to. Several of my Goodreads friends with similar taste to mine had also already read The Day of the Triffids and they gave it high marks across the board.

They were quite right of course; this is a fantastic little read. Some people may take issue with this bit of it or that bit of it (sexism being the major sticking point) and they have a point, but I didn't let it worry me. From the very creepy start (I avoided reading any spoilers so I had no idea what was going on), to the sensible and believable history of the Triffids and the unfolding horror of the apocalypse and humanities various conflicting views of the future I was on the edge of my reading seat.

As far as enjoyable science fiction reads go, this is one of the best.

The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien - Interesting but incomplete; to be honest I spent most of the book wishing I was Kate just so I could give 'Baba' a well deserved kick in the pants rather than concentrating too hard on what I was reading. By small degrees though I was drawn into the story and I began to find Kate both interesting and engaging. I'll be reading the other books in the series which is a compliment to the skill of Edna O'Briens writing ability.

Deceptively simple, this short little work was a very easy read. It depicts the life of two young Irish Catholic girls in the 1950's. Caithleen is rather poorer (but a lot brighter) than her best 'frenemy' Bridget and also a lot nicer and more introspective. For those who are looking for a 1001 work which strains neither their mental acuity or their emotional state overly much, this would probably hit the spot nicely.

3 stars

I agree totally, I did moby dick via audible too and it allowed me not to get bogged down by some of the long winded descriptions. What a fantastically researched book though, I felt Melville made sure he got down on pen and paper every damn fact he knew about whales though. Plus when you research melvilles own life story, it was just as interesting and eventful as his book. I really liked it.

The tv mini series of the early 80s was as scary as hell! I know when I read this I will be reliving that!

I didn't really get it and told myself I should re read to try and figure it all at. Didn't enjoy enough to do that though!

Finally caught up on my 'quick reviews' with proper ones! Of course I've now got six new books to add!

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

4 1/2 stars

Reading a work like Of Human Bondage always gives me a dose of satisfaction over and above what is due for just reading it. I'm fairly sure it's a combination of size, literary value and basic gravitas. I felt the same when I polished off similar books like Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, War and Peace, Les Misérables, Bleak House and so on. Even without the self satisfaction of reading a 'long and worthy' book though, Of Human Bondage would still make me pleased to have invested the time in it.

The protagonist, Philip, begins as a young boy afflicted with a clubfoot who has just had the misfortune of losing his mother, six months after the death of his father. He is sent to live with his uncle and aunt, an older couple who have no children of their own. The structure is unusual and doesn't lend itself to long term memory retention, Philip moves around a lot and you are just starting to get familiar with one part when the entire scene changes and he's relocated yet again. I see many readers commenting on the fact that they knew they enjoyed it but they can't seem to remember much about it which I set down a lot to the ever shifting scenery.

As is common with Maughams short stories, the characters (and there are many) who fill the pages of this rather weighty tome, are as diverse and perverse as people in real life including Philip himself who has a personality which lead many people in my reading group to want to thump him on the head at various times during his not so illustrious career. In other words, they are human, and like them or loathe them, they are who they are.

Of Human Bondage was billed as 'an emotional powerhouse of a novel' and it was certainly that. I don't think I was as powerfully affected as some, possibly due to my cynicism or ready acceptance of human foibles, but at time it gripped even me. I did grow to care about Philip as he grew up and I found the ending satisfying.

Quartet in Autumn - By Barbara Pym

4 stars

This hit a little close to home at times and it didn't make for comfortable reading because of it. I thought I was being overly sensitive but once I'd finished (which didn't take long as it's a quick and enjoyable read) I noticed that many other reviewers experienced similar thoughts to mine.

Barbara Pym takes four variously messed up individuals and plays out the tragedy of their everyday life, and in so doing, speaks to the lonely introvert which dwells inside many of us. The portraits aren't mirrors (at least I hope not) but there is so much simple human sorrow contained in all of these four lives that some aspect is going to resonate with you.

This work isn't dramatic or life changing, at least not in a common way, but it's worth the paper it's printed on. Take a read and then maybe take a look at your own life. I certainly wasn't able to stop myself from doing so.

Quartet in Autumn sound intriguing. I haven't read anything by Barbara Pym. I think I always thought she was a romance novelist but it sounds like she has more depth than that. Thanks for your review.

This was the first one of hers I've ever read and it certainly wasn't a romance. Other than that the only thing I know about her is that Excellent Women is another famous book and that she had a great deal of trouble getting published until Philip Larkin and some other guy who I don't remember both nominated her as the most underrated writer of the 20th century.

Haven't read Quartet in Autumn yet but several other Pym books...and she does employ some elements of romance novel (including lightness and airiness of style) but they do go outside the genre trappings and are often more concerned with certain existential dread...
(see also Elizabeth Bowen and Elizabeth Taylor for something similar, and supposedly also e.g. Iris Murdoch and Anne Tyler)

The comments did say that if you were familiar with Pyms other work you would likely find Quartet in Autumn much darker in tone. It was apparently written during the 15 years she found it impossible to get published and people think that her later works contain more bitterness than her earlier works. It still has a light touch so far as writing style goes though, and a certain dry unexpected humour.

I've read one post-break book by hers (An Academic Question) which was also a bit down-key and darker than others, so there's probably changes in her writing.
(Also read the two books which faced the publishing problems and can understand that An Unsuitable Attachment was not so well-liked, it was a bit formless and more-of-the-same, The Sweet Dove Died on the other hand was wonderful)

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

5 stars

Some authors have intimidated me in the past, I'm not sure why. Mr Rushdie was one such. The first book of his that I was aware of, was, unsurprisingly, The Satanic Verses and along with all of the hysteria I also picked up that it was a weighty tome of a book and that many people either didn't like it and/or didn't understand it. It put me off. I filed him under 'highly serious writer' and somehow got it into my head that I wouldn't enjoy his work.

Grimus was my first introduction thanks to the 1001 list and the fact that I read it for a book challenge. I wasn't expecting to but I absolutely loved it. Then, by chance, Midnight's Children came up in a group read that I mostly wasn't able to participate in but jumped in just at the very end. This time I had higher expectations, which it meet and exceeded and it really deserves a much better review than I am going to give it here.

Grimus was beauty and colour but it was a little raw; Midnight's Children has all of those attributes but showcased in a different way. Grimus was an immature work, Midnight's Children is the full blown prose of a master storyteller.

The main protagonist is born with his dark 'twin', on the very stroke of midnight when India is officially proclaimed an independent nation; his destiny becomes entwined with that of the fortunes of his new country. Other children, born at the same hour, are also connected to him but nothing is as simple as a single sentence. As with India itself, the fates are capricious and often cruel and people have a way of tearing things apart.

I continue to be very much impressed by Salman Rushdie's work and am looking forward to Shame which is next on the list.

At the Mountains of Madness - By H. P. Lovecraft

1/2 star

I remember reading a bit of Lovecraft when I was younger, I even played some roleplaying games with those of my friends who enjoyed such things and had a blast doing it. One memorable evening we hired out a hall and had a live action roleplay which involved us hapless victims visiting a mental asylum, where, unknown to us, the inmates had taken over. Sound silly but it was an enormous amount of fun.

I loved the basis of the Lovecraftian universe but I didn't remember much enjoying the stories themselves. From the little I remember they were 'ok'. So, I thought that I would have a similar reaction to At The Mountains Of Madness. Perhaps I would enjoy it a little more seeing at this was the one singled out for inclusion in the 1001 list.

No such luck; it was terrible. Beyond terrible. To borrow some of the stupidly over the top language that infested this work 'it was infinitely terrible and I suffered unfathomable pain and unspeakable torments of unbearable suffering in having to read it'.

In other words it was utter, utter shite.

Whether looking at the groanworthy prose (of which, I assure you, the above sample would not be greatly out of place), the tedious details which, one presumes, are meant to offer verisimilitude to the work but which only served to bore the pants off of me, or the godlike comprehension of the narrator who, by looking a few scribbles and pictures on the walls can tell you in five minutes the history, names and age of an entire civilisation, this story by Lovecraft was so ridiculous I found myself thinking at one point that perhaps it was so bleeding awful it was good. But no. It was just terrible.

Still, no accounting for taste. :-)

The Soldier's Art - By Anthony Powell

3 stars

Number 8, the second book of the war 'trilogy' and STILL no actual action. I guess Mr Powell decided that he had to play to his strengths and writing about actual military conflict wasn't it. I am still a little disappointed though as for much of it I wouldn't have any idea that Great Britain and her colonies are fighting for the future of their beliefs and values, London is in the middle of the Blitz and men are dying like flies all over the world and the only hint I get of it comes from the odd complaint about food.

Oh well, it was still a good book.

The Leopard by Guiseppe Di Lampedusa

3 1/2 stars

One of the more unusual books I have read from the list (although I'm not a quarter of the way through the combined one yet). It has a rather 'Gone With the Wind' feel to it even though the setting is Sciliy, the main character is still a person of great privilege and does not lose this position and he is a man rather than a woman :-)

The Leopard opens around 1860 and centres on the family and fortunes of the Prince of Salina, Don Fabrizio.

Don Fabrizio is an aristocrat of the old school; imperious and proud of his lineage. However he is also a man of intelligence and, to a certain extent, adaptability. Scilly is shortly to become part of Greater Italy and things are about to change; if he is to survive he knows he must bow to the inevitable. The person he loves most, his nephew Tancredi, who fought for the unification, ostensibly against his uncles interests, sets his heart on the lovely and wealthy, yet much less well born, Angelica. Don Fabrizio, although deploring her birth, greatly admires her beauty and sees the advantages of the match.

It took a while for me to truly enjoy The Leopard, it seemed at first to just be a rather depressing account of class privilege. Then, at one particular point, I felt a stab of melancholic sympathy which grew into a true connection. The last part of the book was intensely moving and I came close to rating this 4 stars. However, it does have its slow sections and because of these I will stick to my 3 1/2 stars.

>253 M1nks: I agree on Rushdie. I also read The Satanic Verses and enjoyed it very much. It is certainly readable, although a bit of knowledge of the Islam comes in handy.
But as you loved Midnight's Children as much as I did, I am sure you'll feel the same about The Satanic Verses.

I also thought that Midnight's Children was brilliant. I probably would have enjoyed it even more without the self-congratulatory preface by Rushdie ("Here is my work of genius! the world has recognized that I am a genius!") and had I not read his truly dreadful Fury previously. I think I gave MC four stars out of spite...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

4 stars

Miss Jean Brodie, is an unusual sort of teacher. She has less of a focus on education and more of a focus on 'breeding a lady', or as she herself would say, making them the 'crème de la crème'.

Rather comical at first glance this book soon shows a more disturbing side to Miss Brodie's relationship with her favoured pupils as well as some of her beliefs and sympathies towards certain social systems.

I found this short novella intriguing; it certainly wasn't the life affirming tale of mentor inspiration I thought it was going to be.

For now I'll rate it 3 1/2 stars but I do want to re-read this at some point as I haven't been able to get it out of my head and it may rise to a 4 star. (note: it did)

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

3 stars

Who are we to play 'God'? Can we? Should we? Does pain matter if the outcome increases knowledge? What does it mean to be 'human'? Is being 'human' superior to be an 'animal'?

This story raises all these questions and more. Dr Moreau is an extreme vivisectionist but is he a 'bad man'? Especially given the prevailing opinion of might makes right. Didn't God give man dominion over animals? If that is so is it not the highest compliment we can pay to try to emulate the creator? Or is that blasphemous hubris?

I found this an entertaining read and I'm not going to get too hung up on any deep thoughts. People can read it and make up their own minds.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

2 1/2 stars

'Lucky' Jim is a prat. And he's rather lazy, shallow and mean. But otherwise he's quite an amusing guy.

He has a girl he's sort of seeing. But she's not that attractive. She's got connections though and is otherwise useful to him.

There's this other girl and she's really hot. Plus she's a girlfriend of someone he doesn't like. So that's a bonus.

In the end it's proved that attractive girls are great and not so attractive girls aren't. That's convenient.

In conclusion, this book had it's moments but other parts I found uncomfortable reading.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

5 stars

I thought this was the last completed Dickens novel which remained unread (happily though actually one more remains) and it was a reminder that the man is an absolute master of his craft. I may frequently not like his pathetic 'heroines', his mawkish sentimentality often revolts my cynical heart and the coincidences which abound in his works might strain my sense of credulity to the uppermost, but Mr Dickens has it where it really counts - nobody writes a cracking good yarn better than he does.

Being rather a weighty tome I thought this would last me a fair few days but I had forgotten the magnetic pull a really good novel can exert. I carried this everywhere with me; waiting for the toast to pop, running my bath, pulling clothes out of the washing machine, all household chores were done one handed while I devoured this delicious book. In the end it last about 24 hours.

Mysterious corpses, vast fortunes, miserly misers, delightfully villainous villains and even women who didn't make me want to slap some spirit into them! This book had it all. And in true Dickens style when the curtain came down virtue was rewarded and the dastardly were punished.

Happy sigh :-)

>263 M1nks: I haven't read a Dickens novel in a while - maybe it's time again!

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

1/2 star

Pathetic. I'd say that Walpole must have written this as a joke but apparently he thought it was the best thing he had ever written. Thank goodness this is the only thing of his on the 1001 list!

I still think it's better than At the Mountains of Madness but they are fighting for second place.

(Pilgrim's Progress is in 'pride of place' at the bottom of the heap)

There's just something about a good Dicken's novel. I know the man had his faults, but, oh, his books can be truly magical. The sort of novels that bring joy to my soul as sappy as that sounds.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2 1/2 stars

This just managed to squeeze out a 2 1/2 star rating. Parts of it were really good, both clever and humorous, but, after a time I found that all of the bizarre details just became predictable. Every single event and every single character was shown to have some crazy weirdness and I frankly just got bored of it. As time passed I realised I was mentally bracing myself every time something or someone new hove into view. At that point it really lost much of its appeal.

There were though a lot of interesting moments, and, although the individual people were hard to track due to the naming convention (fairly much every male in the book had one of two different names) there were some real characters amongst them.

The tying in to history was quite cleverly done as well; this insignificant village was a microcosm of what was happening in the greater country of Columbia. I'm not very up with the play on Columbian history but it wasn't too hard to draw inferences.

So, for those who really love magical realism, this is likely going to be the book for you. For those who hate it, stay far far away. And for those of you, like myself, who like it in moderate doses, well, you might very well have an opinion similar to mine. The place had its charms but when the wind blew me out of town it was with a sigh of relief that I went.

The Drowned World by J G Ballard

1 star

My quick summation of this book was as follows: Bleugh! Sexist, Racist and Pointless. All of which would have been forgivable if it was an interesting read.

And that about sums it up. I had high hopes on starting, just the basic premise of the book, a world submerged, stifling heat, humans driven to the poles leaving the majority of the world to be taken over by the wild jungle, all very exciting stuff. And then I met some of the most uninteresting characters ever to 'grace' a novel. They spend most of the book lounging around in the heat. Occasionally some scientist blithers on in pointless psychoanalytical babble about what it all means. And what does it mean? Well, that apparently they are descending into their primitive roots, which also apparently involves lazing around doing nothing.

Honestly!

Then this weird white guy and his black flunkies and a bunch of alligators turns up and things really get out of control.

Please tell me the rest of Ballard's list novels are more interesting than this. Some of them are much longer than this was.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

3 stars

Forgive me for my bluntness but Robinson Crusoe was a total douchebag. I am as yet undecided as to whether Daniel Defoe knew that he was a total douchebag and wrote him deliberately as such because he is one sly soab who like punking his audience even if they never got the joke. Having read Moll Flanders where she may mouth repentance and remorse but still, in the end, retires quite happily on the proceeds of her immorality and life of crime, I am leaning towards the opinion that Daniel Defoe was having a laugh.

Here we have a white European man who, eventually, comes to supposedly represent a devout Christian man embodying all their virtues when said devout Christian man has all the morals and integrity of a grade A louse.

Without wanting to give away too much of the plot (but I will tell you that he gets stranded on an island for years) our virtuous hero starts out an illustrious career by going to sea against his parents wishes despite pooping his underpants and nearly losing his life on his first voyage. He gets captured as a slave which he bemoans, gets his freedom with the help of a young arab boy to whom he promises great things then sells him into slavery as soon as he is rescued, settles down to be a farmer then goes off on another expedition to get slaves from the areas he past on his last voyage (people who were very kind to him). He gets shipwrecked and finally gets to spend some serious time with his bible as nothing better is around. Then he gets another slave, runs into some Europeans who he doesn't strictly speaking enslave but makes them promise to obey him in all things (all hail the king), then while they are off getting ready to escape the place, he has another adventure which results in him leaving them all behind without a second thought.

I could go on, but really, isn't that enough? Robinson Crusoe is a prime arse and I think we've all been had!

Other than that though, it's an entertaining story, archaic language and all.

>263 M1nks: This is one that I haven't read either but it sounds great. I have this one and Martin Chuzzlewit yet to read.

>268 M1nks: Empire of the Sun is the most mainstream of the Ballards I've read, and the one I enjoyed most. However I thought the next most enjoyable was The Drowned World so good luck with the rest of his books!

Martin Chuzzlewit is possibly my favourite Dickens. It's a toss-up between that one and The Pickwick Papers.

>272 M1nks: Thanks for that recommendation.

Troubles by J. G. Farrell

3 1/2 stars

This was an unexpectedly delightful read. Major Archer returns from the war and heads over to Ireland to meet up with the woman he became engaged to a little while previously. They hadn't known each other very well prior to their engagement and he finds her a rather different person than he remembered.

The Majestic Hotel which her family owns and where Major Archer finds himself staying on in a kind of limbo, is decaying gracefully around his ears often leading to rather hilarious incidents as the book passes. The relations between 'Great Britain' and Ireland are also crumbling, though not so gracefully, and this leads to some not quite so amusing incidents as well.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman

3 stars

I've only read The Yellow Wallpaper so I won't rate the rest of the book until I it arrives from the library. The first story was thrilling and chilling as well as being very interesting because it was something she wrote to try to convince the medical profession of the error of their ways of treatment. This brought back shade of Janet Frame when she wrote The Lagoon which certainly saved her from being lobotomized.

Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

3 1/2 stars

This is a single coherent novel but it reads almost like a series of shorts. The spotlight shines intensely on one area of Midaq Alley illuminating what is taking place in the lives of those under its beam, then it blinks offs and flicks on somewhere else. It seems to roam restlessly but the threads slowly weave together into an explosive climax.

The ending is almost bye the bye however; Midaq Alley's true charm lies in the excellence of those brief snippets of peoples everyday lives. Rarely have I read a translated work which could interest me so much in the minutia of the commonplace.

An extremely entertaining read.

I set myself a goal of reading 200 books this year of which I wanted half to be 1001 books (individual counting from series however, so The Dance to the Music of Time = 12 books not 1). I've just tallied up my 1001 books and I'm 11 off my goal. I think I'll actually make it!

>277 M1nks: Excellent!

Congratulations! That's a tremendous amount of reading.

Shame by Salman Rushdie

4 1/2 stars

The 3rd instalment in my unintentional chronological reading of Mr Rushdies works and it was as fantastic as I had hopes of it being. Shame felt a little like the Pakistan counterpart to the Indian Midnight's Children but it can certainly stand on its own.

As with Midnight's Children there are threads of magical realism woven skilfully in with the everyday but they were more sparse here. Long sections would pass where the only magic was in the writing, not in the plot. Bizarre events were more likely to be the creation of different customs and rituals rather than magical influences and there was no shortage of oddities dreamed up by the strange individuals jammed between these pages.

The plot followed the politics of Pakistan and would have been even more interesting if I'd had more than a passing knowledge of the events surrounding the various coups but even with only such rudimentary gleanings the book didn't suffer. Shame and the trouble it brings to peoples lives was really forefront and centre and that needed no historical knowledge to be understood.

I'm so far behind with my reviews I'm going to post the short thoughts I make at the end of the books. Hopefully I'll fill these in later with slightly longer comments!

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

3 stars

I think I'm gaining an appreciation for Ms Woolf's style. Either that or this was just a good book.

Either way I found this really very enjoyable. A bit slow in places to be sure, but still very enjoyable overall.

#225 (I found a few more books which I'd missed noting down as read so this came up rather sooner than I was anticipating)

The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho

3 stars

My first Paulo Coelho read so I wasn't sure what to expect. Also, having to rely on translations makes me a bit nervous, I'm sure many subtleties are lost.

Still, I found it a very interesting book. It was simple and short and it felt rather more like an old style morality tale. I'm not sure if I quite agree with the premise of the book being a struggle against good and evil though, because it seemed rather like it was a struggle between prudence and greed. People didn't choose to do the right thing because it was the right thing, they did so out of fear of being caught and realising that what they were going to win wasn't worth the cost . That may very well have been what Paulo Coelho meant to demonstrate (which shows a rather low opinion of humanity) but it wasn't truly an epic 'angels vs devils' scrap.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

3 stars

This has been on my 'should go on my tbr pile' since I was a teenager and read Dracula. So, I'm glad it's finally been read.

I can see why this is rated such a classic; it's a very thought provoking novel. And once I have time I'll record some of them ;-)

Review

One of the world's best known classics, even if a lot of people haven't actually ever read it most people in the western world know the basic story.

I was one of those sort. Even though I'd never read the book or watched a single movie (which may or may not differ wildly from the book in any case) I knew enough to know who Frankenstein was and was even switched on enough to know that he wasn't the monster. Or perhaps he was...

Mary Shelley does a great job of questioning 'what makes up a man'? Or rather 'what is humane behaviour'? To make a monster do you really have to go to the great lengths that Frankenstein went to?

This was both an entertaining and a thought provoking read.

The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell (# 9)

2 stars

My least enjoyed section of the series so far. It was the last book of the war trilogy and he still hasn't seen any action which was rather disappointing, also a whole slew of new characters were introduced and just as I thought I'd started to get a handle on each of them, he shifted again and I basically just gave up.

It was 'ok' but I hope the next offering is more entertaining and less jumpy aroundish.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

5 stars

A re-read but it's been a few years. An absolute classic for those whose humour is orientated that way. Mine absolutely is.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

4 stars
I was flying between the UK/NZ on my yearly pilgrimage, looking for a movie to occupy my time and watched this. I had no idea what it was about which is always the best way to approach a book or a movie I find, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn't know it was originally a book and I certainly didn't know it was on the 1001 list. That did mean I didn't have much of a sense of mystery while reading this, but seeing as the movie was so faithful to the novel that was ok.

Never Let Me Go follows the life of Kathy and her two school friends, Ruth and Tommy. The three are part of a select and special group of children who live slightly apart from the rest of England and spend their childhood living and learning at the boarding school of Halisham. The three children have very different personalities and a rather complex pattern of personal relations develop between them as they age and leave school.

After a little more time together Kathy decides that it is time to begin to live her life on her own and breaks away from her childhood ties, then, ten years later, the three come together again and try to resolve some of the hurts of the past while there is still time.

Never Let Me Go is an emotional book but the calm voice of the narrator (Kathy) keeps a distance between you even when she is speaking about some pretty unpleasant and upsetting things. It really wasn't until the end, when she herself breaks down a little, that I felt it. A very skilful performance by Mr Kazuo Ishiguro (and I still feel some amazement at such an 'english' novel coming from the pen of someone with a name like that!).

Hmmm, not as bad as I thought. I guess I have posted 6 reviews to catch up a bit.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

4 stars

Douglas Adam's humour and quirky style is on full display in this delightfully convoluted and complex novel that really has to be re-read to be fully appreciated. A realistic approach is probably to waive all thoughts of a clear understanding on your first go through and just enjoy it for laughs. I certainly did.

The gem of a book brings together aliens, electric monks, ghosts, dead poets, crazy Cambridge professors, possibly insane detectives, a long suffering girlfriend who I thought was fantastic and a plot which doesn't proceed in a strictly linear fashion just to add to the confusion.

Like I said though, don't worry about it making sense on the first go through.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

2 stars



"I am not a prejudiced man, nor one who vaunts himself on his natural privileges, though the worst enemy I have on earth, and he is an Iroquois, daren't deny that I am genuine white,"

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any person who starts a sentence with 'I am not a racist/sexist/prejudiced person' is about to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that they absolutely are and it's no different here.

Hawkeye, a man who, though raised amongst Indians, was, as he constantly reminds us, a white man. And when I say constantly, I do mean constantly! At one point it felt like every time Hawkeye opened his mouth it was just to point out, in case we had somehow missed it, that he was of pure white blood and let no one deny it. As time progressed however he did diversify a bit into patronising his Indian companions, patronising his white companions and offering his views on how his way of life was the epitome of manly endeavour and all others were worthless. Yes, the man was a complete douche.

More gratingly, Hawkeye, seems to reveal the bigotry of James Fenimore Cooper himself with his obsession on the innate superiority of the whites and his own magnificence for being a 'man without a cross' (born with no suggestion of pollution of blood in his ancestry). It's not the only time race and blood purity comes up in the book it's just the most annoying.

The Last of the Mohicans is apparently held by some to be enlightened for its time which is probably why I detested this aspect of it so much. If a book is flat out offensive and universally acknowledged to be so it is much less of a trial to endure reading it than if I am in a constant state of agitation over thinking that others consider this somewhat progressive or even laudable (I had similar problems with Lady Chatterley's Lover a recent read).

I found it excruciating in its views on race and the odd statement of approval towards the heroic Mohicans similar to a joke like 'I'm not prejudiced towards blacks, I think everyone should own one!'

By the middle of the book I was sure that this novel, which I had had such high hopes for, was going to land directly in my disliked bucket; the only question was, was it going to be a half a star or a one star rating. Then it redeemed itself greatly with a climatic and genuinely moving ending. The strengths of the novel which had always been there managed to shine through all of the endemic racism and awful characterization. It didn't quite make up for all of the previous rubbish but it did do much. Ah for a decent editor who could have cut out the rotten wood and truly saved the tree - still, I'll take what I can get. It wasn't a complete wash and that was more than I was expecting at one point.

>290 M1nks: That's one that I intend on skipping, or at least waiting many many years before I bother with. Because yeah, I don't need to read "classics" utterly full of racist tripe that'll just piss me off. :|

>290 M1nks:

And yet it turned into one of my favorite movies with a beautiful soundtrack. At least the book helped give enough inspiration for that. (Even if because of many reviews like yours I have been turned away from the idea of reading the book.)

>290 M1nks: That was actually a very intriguing review! Thank you. I will not utterly despair when, some day, this one makes it out of my TBR pile...

The Last of the Mohicans definitely had its good points. Coopers writing, though terrible in many ways, was decent in conjuring up visual pictures of the vast and sweeping beauty of the American wilderness. Many commented on how dull they found it; I thought it was suited to the tone of the book. The story itself is rather exciting and also handled quite well. My main gripe was Hawkeye and his constant pontificating. He is obviously the voice of the author and I always consider it poor writing when a novelist hits the reader so bluntly and continuously over the head with his own opinions and prejudices. And the way he constantly had Hawkeye repeating his 'I am a man without a cross' is just appallingly bad writing; there's no excuse or defence for such shoddy work.

But, it really did have a grand beauty and certain grace. I can certainly see how it would make an excellent movie sans all of the racist and sexist crap which sticks in the gullet of the modern reader.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

3 stars

This was not a particularly enjoyable read. It was very well written and I liked the protagonist who seemed to be a rather interesting blend of Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov and Razumikhin, in that he was very touchy and had an unusual way of looking at the world (ie borderline insane) but was also a man with a heart of gold and a great sense of optimism. All of this was very well and it kept the book from becoming too gruesome I suppose by providing a leavening dab of humour. None the less, the main focus of the story was the physical and mental breakdown of the unnamed young writer. He had moments of ups with his many downs but there was a steady downward trajectory into starvation and utter despair. However skilfully handled by Knut Hamsum it doesn't make for a cheerful read.

As an aside, I found out later that Knut Hamsun was an unrepentant Nazi sympathiser. A shame considering the mans great talents, somehow I don't like to think of Nobel prize winners being so morally deficient. A real pity.

Candide by Voltaire

3 stars

Short and very much not to the point! This novelette meanders more than a drunken donkey, starting with our young hero living happily in the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, imbibing the wisdom of the philosopher Pangloss, who maintains that everything that happens is always 'for the best'.

Bad things then happen, starting off with an amorous adventure with the lovely Cunégonde which leads to his expulsion from this bucolic paradise and continues with a frankly hilarious trip all around the globe exposing the idealistic young man to some of the realities of life and human nature. Can Candide maintain his faith in Pangloss's teachings in the face of such horrors? And will he ever manage to win his 'happy ever after' with the exquisite Cunégonde?

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

3 stars

Bro's before Ho's might well be a tagline of this book. Or maybe 'Bro's don't need no Ho's' because this was a very male book. Manly men doing manly things. Or playing lots of baseball anyway. Women don't really get a look in here and the one woman who does makes me wish there was even less of them, especially after listening to her expound on female psychology. Yeah, Chad Harbach, as a male writer it's best if you just don't go there - nothing screams 'I'm an idiot' louder than a man explaining how women think, and doing it via a female mouthpiece of your own invention just makes it worse.

Leaving that to one side though there is a lot to like in this. Manly men doing manly things isn't necessarily bad especially when accompanied by the redeeming touch of a sense of humour.

"Remember when it was easy to be a man? Now we're all supposed to look like Captain Abercrombie here. Six-pack abs, three percent body fat. All that crap. Me, I hearken back to a simpler time." Schwartz patted his thick, sturdy midriff. "A time when a hairy back meant something."

"Profound loneliness?" Starblind offered.

I'm not remotely interested in softball, er, sorry, baseball! but I am interested in social interactions in a semi formalised structure, and a college campus and sports team is just that. You have your coaches, your have your leaders, you have your grinders , your standout stars, your jokers and your doubters. It's all very clichéd but if done well it's still interesting enough to hold the readers interest. Harbach doesn't do a bad job but unfortunately for me my favourite characters weren't the two leads, I had to be difficult and fall in literary love with one of the more minor stars and for most of the book I just wanted to shove everyone else out of the way so I could concentrate on him. It made for awkward reading :-).

The War of the Worlds by H. G Wells

3 stars

My introduction to The War of the Worlds came when I was about 8 and for some reason my school teacher had us listen to the musical, either whole or part, I can't remember now. I loved it and took a copy of it then much later bought it on CD.

When I was a little older I saw an old movie with the same name, not in a movie theatre, but in some sort of wooden hall as I recall, with it being projected onto a pull down screen. I don't remember much about the movie but I do recall being rather disappointed that it didn't follow the musical at all; it seemed almost a completely different story.

Finally, at the advanced age of... but a lady never tells her age ;-), I read/listened to the original War of the Worlds. The pods coming from Mars, the crashing on the common, the building of the machines and the massacre of mankind. Here was the creeping horror of the red weed and a little more information about the black smoke and a few extra characters that didn't make it into the musical. Here was the original prose of H. G. Wells, snippets of which I recognised; the audiobook reader did an excellent job but he couldn't compare to Richard Burton.

It was all quite wonderful. And once I'd finished I listened to The War of the Worlds musical right through (who needs sleep) which I hadn't heard for years. The book got 3 stars, the musical, just as fabulous as I'd remembered, gets 5.

Thank you Mr Wells for this wonderful trip down memory lane. I know I did things arse about face, but if you'd never written your story, I'd never have had the very great pleasure of Jeff Wayne's magnum opus, and for that, I truly thank you.

P.S. The musical can currently be listened to on YouTube, but if you like it I urge you to buy it, for the marvellous artwork that it comes with if nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mlpl-RzsCck

Black Dogs by Ian McEwan

3 stars

Short, quite interesting. Doesn't really stand out in any major way.

Perhaps the same thing can be said about this review?

Oh alright! The books Black Dogs are hinted at being physical manifestations of humanities capability for evil. One of the characters in this book confronts these two horrible beasts during an idyllic walk through the French countryside. Although through the use of cunning and violence she manages to drive them away, the experience affects her deeply and changes her life outlook and her relationship to her partner in ways not quite understood at the time.

Ian McEwan is a good writer and this is a good book. But it doesn't stand out in any major way :-).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick

4 stars

“My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.”

That is a great quote! For those among us who might occasionally be guilty of the destructive and non productive form of behaviour known as 'wallowing' this is the ultimate. Just don't go too far and top yourself while under the influence.

Phillip K. Dick's book was, as surely every man and his dog knows, the blueprint on which Bladerunner was made. And Ridley Scott does a good job; at least I've never heard the bloody screams which abound anywhere The Shining fans congregate (the book is great, the movie was a travesty! Gasp! How dare you! The movie was a work of genius and King is just a spoilt little brat who can't accept that Kubrick actually improved his work! Walking hedgery?! Are you kidding me?! )

Oh well :-) Personally I think they were both pretty good.

Anyway, back to Mr Dick.

The movie, while excellent, does miss out a lot (in fact, nearly everything if you want to be completely honest) and one of the best are these 'mood' injectors. Pick a mood, any mood, and program it in and 'voila'! Instant personality adjuster. With all of this on hand why isn't society just one great happy ball of fun? Well, probably because we are human and no matter what neat toys we get to play with we will eventually find a way to mess it up. Especially seeing as society is mostly in the toilet due to intense environmental degradation (yep, our fault too) and constant pressure to pack up the kiddies and shuffle off to a great life on Mars!

MARS! A Fun Place For the Whole Family!

Every one who goes get's their own android supplied to them by the state to make sure their stay on the paradise that is Mars is as enjoyable as all of the propaganda, I mean information!, makes it out to be :-) But make sure those androids stay on Mars now. You too actually. No coming back to Earth. Not that you'll want to seeing as it's so great out there and all.

It's this background information on the society of the novel which makes the novel better than the movie. The movie is an action film with a bit of an intellectual workout (Is he? Isn't he?). The book is almost philosophical in places.

All in all a very refreshing and stimulating read. Even without the chemical mood injection.

Right that was a nice load of reviews. Only another 10 or so and then I can let myself fall way behind again :-)

> 301 Great review of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I haven't read any of his works yet, but I'll be moving this one up on my TRB pile.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

1/2 star (this book made me angry)

Warning this review contains foul language. It's taken directly from the book though, so...

A long raving diatribe against women written by a man whose reaction to the growing independence of half of the human race is one of hatred and fear. That this misogynistic piece of crap has somehow come to stand for 'woman's sexual liberation' is bewildering to me.

If only I could have shot her, and ended the whole misery! It ought to be allowed. When a woman gets absolutely possessed by her own will, her own will set against everything, then it's fearful, and she should be shot at last

And that about sums up D H Lawrence's frustration. How dare women have a will of their own. She should spread her legs and let his John Thomas fuck her Lady Jane and let's have no lip out of her!

'The rest? There is no rest. Only to my experience the mass of women are like this: most of them want a man, but don't want the sex, but they put up with it, as part of the bargain. The more old-fashioned sort just lie there like nothing and let you go ahead. They don't mind afterwards: then they like you. But the actual thing itself is nothing to them, a bit distasteful. Add most men like it that way. I hate it. But the sly sort of women who are like that pretend they're not. They pretend they're passionate and have thrills. But it's all cockaloopy. They make it up. Then there's the ones that love everything, every kind of feeling and cuddling and going off, every kind except the natural one. They always make you go off when you're NOTin the only place you should be, when you go off. - Then there's the hard sort, that are the devil to bring off at all, and bring themselves off, like my wife. They want to be the active party. - Then there's the sort that's just dead inside: but dead: and they know it. Then there's the sort that puts you out before you really ''come'', and go on writhing their loins till they bring themselves off against your thighs. But they're mostly the Lesbian sort. It's astonishing how Lesbian women are, consciously or unconsciously. Seems to me they're nearly all Lesbian.'

The only worthwhile women according to Mr Lawrence is one that a man can fuck without any sort of foreplay or intimacy, who climaxes at the same instant as him and who worships his penis. The rest are all worthless, probably lesbian and deserve to be killed.

Fantastic!

Oh and there's the rest of the usual stuff about class struggle (Mellors has a chip on his shoulder as big as a continent and hates the entire world) and Connie just lies there and doesn't say anything, the same way as she hasn't said anything for the entire book despite being a supposedly well educated and intelligent woman. The perfect woman so far as D H Lawrence is concerned. She just meekly listens to the constant crap that spews out of the mouths of all of the men around her. On the very few occasions she actually volunteers something Mellors promptly throws a tanty even if he's just been incredibly rude to her. He can dish it, and does, but his tender male ego can't handle the slightest check, he runs off and sulks like a spoiled two year old.

'It's a fact!' he said. 'Anything for a bit of warm-heartedness. But the women don't like it. Even you don't really like it. You like good, sharp, piercing cold-hearted fucking, and then pretending it's all sugar. Where's your tenderness for me? You're as suspicious of me as a cat is of a dog. I tell you it takes two even to be tender and warm-hearted. You love fucking all right: but you want it to be called something grand and mysterious, just to flatter your own self-importance. Your own self-importance is more to you, fifty times more, than any man, or being together with a man.'

'But that's what I'd say of you. Your own self-importance is everything to you.'

'Ay! Very well then!' he said, moving as if he wanted to rise. 'Let's keep apart then. I'd rather die than do any more cold-hearted fucking.'

This whole book was just one long wail from a bad tempered, impotent man who probably has as much sexual fire as a 10 day old stinking dead fish, taking out his frustrations with the changing world and spitefully attacking the emerging class of women who had the temerity to start living their lives for themselves and were no longer contented to just be holes in which men could shove their cocks.

Oh, and I'd bet a lot of money that he was a lousy lover judging from what he thinks makes for great sex.

The Fall of the House of Usher
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Purloined Letter

3 stars

I read a collection of short stories by Poe, nearly all I'd read before apart from perhaps The Cask of Amontillado. They weren't quite as good as I remember them being as a teenager but I guess that was only to be expected. I'm glad I read them first at the time of life where I could probably expect to get the most out of them.

What Maisie Knew by Henry James

3 1/2 stars

The most enjoyable Henry James I've read (well, I think so but as I can't actually remember anything about The Portrait of a Lady I might have liked that one even more). There is the same going around and around the issue without ever straight out saying what is going on but seeing as I'm looking through the eyes of a young child, incredibly confused with everything changing, it's far more understandable to write in this way.

I was touched by the personality of Maisie and quite intrigued by the adults around her; slowly learning their personalities through the snippets that Maisie picked up. I would often come to a different conclusion from my adult perspective but due to the limited amount of information I was given there was still an element of building a coherent picture of the world using one information brick at a time.

As the years pass and poor Maisie is treated more and more like a parcel, often disregarded completely when her parents find her inconvenient, Maisie learns far more about the world than is good for a young child. Her formal education is woefully neglected but her understanding of the faults and foibles of those around her is impressed with indelible force into her young mind.

great review of Lady Chatterlys Lover :)

Now I am REALLY looking forward to reading that one... not.... :)

Only 7 more to catch up...

Many people whose views on books I respect loved it. I find it hard to comprehend but LCL is a seriously divisive book. I'm not trying to convince anyone that my view is the only valid one. I detested it, loathed it, despised it! But, who knows, you might love it :-)

I think I downloaded the audio from youtube Tanglewood. If you like audiobooks I recommend it, the guy who read it did a very good job.

Oh, no. Actually I got that one from one of my libraries. Scott Brick was the narrator.

>304 M1nks: Now I am dying to read Lady Chatterly. Perhaps it should be a group read in 2016, so that we can all vent our anger and frustration together.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

4 stars

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young widow ..., her reclusive behavior ... begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of her past.

Now I thought that was going to be a perfect set up for another book like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre! Not giving away any spoilers but I was ready for whatever horrors Widfell Hall was going to throw at me!

But then nothing came. Well, nothing of the macabre or wildly improbable anyway. It appears that Anne Bronte is a sensible young lady who wrote a Victorian novel which could prove relevant and instructive to many in her society. Which may account for the fact that it was apparently highly controversial; it's one thing to write an incredibly wild and outlandish tale which has no bearing on common life, quite another to bring to light some of societies dirty laundry and discuss rationally how best to clean them.

So this wasn't at all what I expected but I still greatly enjoyed it. Some readers may find it too slow, some may find the characters annoying (I particularly disliked the 'hero' - an ill tempered, violent, arrogant, self satisfied, unsteady and disloyal friend.), some might find it a trifle 'preachy'; all I can say is that the story maintained my interest and the young lady heroine I found admirable rather than priggish. She was a strong character with believable and relatable flaws - I wish only that she had better taste in men...

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

3 1/2 stars

This was a charming little read; it briefly follows the lives of various individuals who live on Cannery Row and their relationships and interactions with each other. The main story mostly centres around 'Doc' and a rather engaging man called Mack and his group of friends who doss down, rent free, in a 'house' owned by Mr Lee, another prominent resident of Cannery Row.

Doc, who seems to be the only functioning adult in the place, is a well liked, rather enigmatic figure to the residents in Cannery Row. He does scientific research and Mack and his boys sometimes do some paid work collecting specimens such as frogs to assist him in his work.

The plot, in as much as there is one, centres around the desire of Mack and his friends to throw a great party for Doc to show him how much they appreciate him. Really though there is no plot. This is a slice of American life, a 'time and a place' novel. Read it for its characters and its humour, not because you're looking for an exciting ride.

The Collector by John Fowles

2 1/2 stars

This one didn't grab me as much as I wanted it to. The start was great and the insight into the mind of 'the collector' was as disturbing as I'm sure Fowles wanted it to be. But then the perspective changed. Initially it worked but unfortunately as it kept attention on her it began to drag. She was extremely opinionated and intellectually snobby, but, like nearly all human beings of that age she was extremely boring! All she did was regurgitate the opinions of those around her whilst pluming herself on her intellectual integrity and thinking that her love trials were the most important things in the world. I disliked her so much I almost lost sympathy for her plight. Perhaps John Fowles wanted me to do so? Well if so he dragged it out too much, because not only did I find her boring I started to find the book boring at well, as her views and monologues dominated a large chunk of its pages and they sent me to my bookshelves to find something more entertaining to read.

The final part did work well and it certainly deserves its reputation as a 'spine chilling moment'. I wasn't surprised by it though. Judging by some review comments other readers seemed to be swayed into feeling that they 'began to almost understand...'. I never did. At no point was I seduced by any point of view enough to let my opinion be clouded by doubt, so the actions taken at the end of the novel didn't surprise me in the slightest; they were the logical conclusion to the rationale the whole book was based upon.

Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

5 stars

This was a wonderfully engaging read which I have to say was a bit of a surprise. Considering the time period it was written in and the fact that it is a famous 'gothic' horror novel I was braced for fainting and hysterical heroines, supernatural mysteries and a plot improbable enough to make Walpole proud (the author of The Castle of Otranto). I was also listening to an audio reading from librivox and I wasn't expecting to be able to stomach it as I don't have a particularly high opinion of the quality of those recordings.

In all things I was pleasantly surprised. The audio wasn't great but the reader didn't change and I got used to his rather flat delivery. It certainly didn't take away from my enjoyment anyway.

The plot was suitably eerie but relied on atmosphere and psychological means to create the horror rather than supernatural effects or straight out violence and gore. I think this might have been one of the earliest gothic novels to do this and it was extremely effective. Along with the heroine I continually wondered 'who am I able to trust?'. Every persons actions and motives were scrutinised, as, like her, I had nothing other than my own perceptions to guide me.

But the heroine herself was the biggest shock; she wasn't exactly kick arse but she had a definite will of her own and when her back was really against the wall she fought like a tigress to save herself rather than wilting up like a flower in traditional gothic horror style. I'm not saying that there weren't times I didn't want to reach into the pages of the novel and give her a good shake (at one point in particular I thought 'look it would be so easy, all you'd have to do is....) but if she had done so then the book would have been over and it wouldn't have had its dramatically climatic ending. Which was great! I was on the metaphorical edge of my seat over the last few pages, almost holding my breath it was so exciting. I think listening to it on audio made it even more explosive as I couldn't increase the speed at which I read, I could only proceed along at the same torturous pace, heart palpitations be damned.

Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell

Book #10, supposed to be read in October but, surprise surprise, I missed and ended up reading it at the end of November.

It was a relief to be through the war novels which I found increasingly tedious. Whether it was my perception due to the contrast with the previous few books or a deliberate attempt by Powell, I found this a much more light hearted read as well.

3 stars

Billiards at Half-Past Nine by Heinrich Boll

2 1/2 stars

This was a very confusing novel due to the changing narrator. It may possibly have been made worse by the copy that I had. It was an epub and not of very high quality. There was no notification between narrator transitions and I found it rather confusing. Especially as the narrators all mostly sounded the same and I had to work things out based on verbal clues as to who they were.

Other than that I'm not sure what the whole point of the book was. It was obviously anti-war and anti-facism but other than that rather vague group affiliation I'm at a bit of a loss.

What I do know is that it mostly focused on three generations of the Faehmel family with the main character, Robert, representing the 'middle' generation. Robert seems an incredibly repressed man. He adheres to an exact schedule without deviating an inch and greatly dislikes any intrusion into his private time. Why? War stuff and reasons. Clear? Good :-)

Nobody much really seems to live in the present in this book; everyone is too busy wallowing in past depressions which is probably why they all seem a trifle cuckoo. I would recommend they all think seriously about employing the services of a good shrink who might help put the past where it should be and help them get on with the tricky business of actually living their lives.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

2 1/2 stars

I was rather surprised to find once I'd started reading this that I'd seen the movie (also on a 1001 list). For once I think the movie probably improves on the book. This was an interesting enough read but the characters aren't particularly well developed. I read The Big Sleep at fairly much the same time and wasn't overly enthusiastic about that either, I may possibly just not be a fan of the genre. This is a classic read though and I don't feel like I wasted my time, it's just that it didn't leave what I think will be a lasting impression. Too be honest I think that I'll mostly just remember the movie.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

2 1/2 stars

A classic hardboiled read but I can't say that I actually enjoyed it. I think I read this many years ago as an introduction to the noir type genre and as I recall my experiment started and ended with this. I found the writing too jerky and abrupt, the plot overly complex (so much so that I believe the myth about Chandler forgetting to tie up who killed one of the people in the novel and not remembering himself) but the gumshoe shows near miraculous powers of deduction and follows every twist and turn.

For the rest although the sexism, homophobia and odd bit of racism made me roll my eyes, it fitted the story and the time period. The authors obvious loathing of women wasn't so palatable though.

I definitely prefer the film.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

3 stars

The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This collection of short stories nearly all revolve around the manipulation of the above laws. Often to the point of silliness as Asimov tries to convince his readers that this would be the logical thought process of a machine. No, really!

The stories are all more or less entertaining and they move along in time showing the steady increase of humanities dependence on the machines which come to rule every aspect of their lives. I found it an entertaining mix so I'll probably read some more of his works in the future.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

3 stars

A group read for the 1001 group and it was a little difficult to feel engaged with it for a good wee while. There were four main characters in this book; three female friends, named Tony, Charis and Roz, all very different from each other (in a manner that I found rather forced) and a particularly demonic woman called 'Zenia'. Probably. Zenia was such a mystery I found myself wondering if she was even real let alone if Zenia was her real name.

The structure of the novel dealt with each of the three women in turn and followed her life through to the point where it intersected with Zenia's and the major disaster which followed that meeting. Tony (the 'academic') was the first protagonist dealt with and as I found her the most boring of the three I think that accounted for my sense of having to force myself through the first 100 pages or so.

Then came Charis/Karen (the 'new age hippie') who I thought was a total dipstick but as her story progressed I found it the most interesting of the three. Roz was 'the businesswoman' and provided a bit of welcome brashness after the rather cloying 'peace and love' of Charis and the 'slow and careful' thought processes of Tony.

For the novel itself I'm not quite sure how to take it. Is it meant to be 'real' or some sort of allegory for the poor choices women can make when it comes to men? Zenia was unpleasant and unscrupulous but baring Tony/West she really did them all a favour. West was a weak willed drip but he finally seemed to have learned his lesson.

Which brings me to another point; I have now read three Atwood books - The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale and this one and I've realised that they all contain an array of either cheating, spineless, violent and aggressive or otherwise unimpressive group of specimens of the male sex. Does she hate men that much? Next time I read an Atwood I know I'll be keeping an eye out.

>320 M1nks: Agreed. I thought the book was too complicated and lacked tension. The movie had more wit (I was waiting for movie lines that never appeared in the book) and of course enjoyed the magical chemistry of Boggie and Baccal. On the other hand I did enjoy The Postman Always Rings Twice as a novel, and I see I rated it higher than the Lana Turner movie (albeit I did enjoy the latter also).

I just don't think I'm going to be a big fan of those type of books. The thought The Big Sleep was probably more of a literary book as The Postman seemed very simple. But I probably enjoyed it a little more.

One of the goodreads reviews for The Big Sleep disliked it intensely because of it being really quite horrible to homosexuals and said that she doesn't buy the 'it's a product of its time' excuse due to Sam Spode? (another famous detective) being much less offensive. And also not such a total ***** towards women - generally just much less of a douche. I might give those books a go just to compare.

Funny how people have such different experiences of the same books. I thought The Big Sleep was a masterpiece of literary style and as the evocation of a place and a time, whereas the Postman, which I read right after Sleep, I found depressing as heck.

I thought The Big Sleep was a masterpiece of literary style and as the evocation of a place and a time

Yes, I think that was its strength.

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

3 stars

Quite an interesting story, although hardly action packed. As it's mostly meant to be a tale about 'man's' hypocrisy when it comes to religious condemnation of lax morality and sin and it was set in an American Puritan community in the 1600s it wasn't too heavy on laughs or fun moments. It also didn't worry overly much about well developed people, but the child of sin, little Pearl, was a bit of a character.

I enjoyed it overall.

Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell

3 stars

Almost there....

Widmerpool seemed to be starting to lose it a little by the end of this.

Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell

3 1/2 stars (for the whole series)

The grand finale to the rather epic 12 book series and it's suitably peculiar. I'm not particularly up with the subtle changes between the years but even I can pick out the bohemianish feel of the times now, mostly personified in the character of Scorpio Murtlock, a sexually charismatic individual who sets up his own cult and dominates his followers in very creepy ways. Almost inevitably his path crosses with Widmerpool and, drama. Of the Anthony Powell variety of course which means that the decidedly non charismatic Jenkins hears a bit about it through various connections and eventually gets invited to some social function which happens to provide him with the opportunity to witness it first hand.

Oh Jenkins, what a disappointment you were; as bland and colourless as the waxed paper my mother used to use to wrap my school sandwiches up in. Very practical I'm sure and a lot less annoying than glad wrap but still, just plain old unexciting luncheon paper. If I had to name my major grievance with this whole series of books it would be Jenkins. Due to the vast sprawling nature of the saga, the constant stream of characters which would cross and perhaps re-cross our paths it was vitally important that the central lynchpin of the whole undertaking be someone we could all relate to. Feel interest in and be the sort of chap that it's a pleasure to spend time in company with, whether or not anything happens.

Well he wasn't. In fact Mr Nicholas Jenkins was the sort of guy who said things like 'can I take your coat ma'am?' and you handed him your coat without even looking at him and would then wander off and never think of him again. In other words, luncheon paper.

Leaving Jenkins to one side, which is obviously very easy to do as I've practically forgotten about him already, the conclusion to the series is pretty good. I was wondering how Powell would finish it off and he takes what I think is the correct line by . having the life of the true main character of these books (Widmerpool) come round in a perfect circle back to where he was at the start. An object of pitiable ridicule; a curious mixture of the pompous and the servile, the dominating and the slavish. Putting up with any indignity heaped on his head by those he wishes to ingratiate himself with. And that's life - is it a comedy or a tragedy? Can we even identify which is which until looking back with a great deal of hindsight?

I did enjoy this series although not as much as I hoped I would. Perhaps next time I read it will be via the audio medium. I could see myself enjoying whiling away some time in summer listening to a great narrator take me back to the events of these books. Who knows, if he's really good he might even manage to make Nicholas Jenkins entertaining.

>329 M1nks: Great review! I rated it higher than you did but was also very disappointed in Jenkins, who I thought would be my friend. He misses character though. And emotions.
I agree on what you say about Widmerpool. He's the one that sticks with you in time.

Whatever the final score of the series the reaction to Jenkins does seem to be a universal constant! I wonder if Powell knew how bland and uninteresting he was. I get the whole 'I don't want the narrator to detract from the story' idea but I just don't think it works in this case because Jenkin's life is supposed to be driving this story. We are supposed to be following him along and if he bores the socks off of us then we readers aren't going to be as engaged as we could be with the whole process.

I think it was a huge mistake on Powells part.

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding

2 1/2 stars

These really aren't my sort of books; I find the plumbing of the depths of 'mans' inhumanity deeply distasteful. I'm sure that this classic is well deserving of its place on the 1001 list and I give credit to the effective way that Golding used such simple language to convey the ominous atmosphere of the island. However this just aint my bag baby!

The Wings of the Dove by Henry James

2 1/2 stars

I've heard it said that Henry James is one of those writers that you might really like or really dislike and this is probably true. But unlike a binary number I think there is more than just the options of 0 or 1. I, for instance, quite like Henry James and would no doubt like him more if he would just stop talking so much and get to the damn point already!

The Wings of the Dove is the most circumlocatious read I have ever readed! It was so circumlocatious that I invented the blasted word circumlocatious just to describe how very circumlocatious it was! Around and around a point Henry James would go, slowly, ever soooo sloooowly getting closer like water to a plug hole and then whoosh! You'd finally get there and that would be that. You might have the whole point of the previous 12 pages of oh so delicate conversation revealed, but you're just as likely to vanish down the dark hole none the wiser.

The Wings of the Dove is a wonderful story, the characters are interesting and so, so far as that goes, the book is worth a read. The problem is, no matter how entertaining a basic premise, it cannot be sustained on that alone. I like delicate speech as much as the next girl. I like hidden motivations, obscure reasoning and veiled allusion but this entire work is nothing but! No one in Henry James's world ever says something like 'Oh for Pete's sake! Would you just stop beating about the bush and tell me what you're talking about! I'm getting wrinkles listening to you wittering on!'

In spite of these issues I came very close to straight out liking this novel; it was clever and moving in the parts where the plot really got some steam behind it. The trouble was it so rarely did and the writing, however clever and beautiful, cannot make up for the lack of emotional connection due to the distance the words put between the reader and the page.

Right, as that was the last of my December 1001 reads I can now review my progress on the list for the past year. Only two months late - Stella!

Stated Intentions
Well I am aiming for 89 books including the 12 volume Dance to the Music of Time. I am also clearing out some serious chunksters in the first part of the year. I'll finally finish The Brothers Karamazov and Ulysses, Infinite Jest and House of Leaves.

Actual Progress

120 books in total
109 including Dance to Music of Time as 1 rather than 12
8 were re-reads although Moby Dick, Bonfire of the Vanities, and The Big Sleep were so vague in my memory that they really were first time reads.

So total number taken from the list was 101. 12 books more than my target. I'm obviously pretty pleased with that.

For the specific books I mentioned I have now read Dance to the Music of Time, The Brothers Karamazov, Ulysses and Infinite Jest. I didn't get around to reading House of Leaves

Conclusion

Great Year! (pats self on back :-))

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

3 stars

Fascinating in the first third, interesting in the second third, rather tedious in the last part.

Brave New World was short but it covered a lot of ground. The early 'info dump' was dextrously woven into the text and I found it enthralling. Just a well thought out social system; close enough to our own to be rather frightening in its plausibility. Had the rest of the book intrigued me as much as this part it my rating would likely have been my rarely given 5 stars.

The focus then moved to a 'primitive' reservation where the two 'civilised' humans got to peer at these rather disgusting objects living out their depraved and superstitious lives. And everything would have been fine except they went and brought two specimens back with them. One of which, to wit John Savage, had always dreamed of such a life as to that which he was now exposed. Oh John, be careful what you wish for...

It was this last part where I really began to lose interest - long speeches on philosophical beliefs have never had much interest to me; I believe in seeing and doing, not learning through long wordy monologues. I also didn't feel much sympathy for any of the players in this little drama (baring perhaps the young woman) because they were all so very stubborn in their refusal to see outside of their own personal belief in how the world should work. Civilised or Savage, each retained their own blinkered perspective and refused to consider that trying to understand each other might be the way to bridge gaps caused by cultural misunderstandings.

Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos

3 1/2 stars

One of the original tales of rich young things with too much time on their hands and no social responsibility amusing themselves in the most perverse of ways. Seducing and discarding an array of lovers just to relieve the empty tedium of their soulless existences.

It took a while to build up a head of steam but when it did the venom started to flow thick and fast from the letters of this epistolary novel. The seduction was far more believable in this than in the (excellent) movie and the depravity of its two main villains much more intense and insidious. I genuinely thought them two human representations of snakes who should be crushed for the sake of all humanity. Delicious!

A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne

3 stars

Not quite everything I'd hoped for but it just rates a full three stars. I found it a little disjointed but I think that was mainly due to the fact that it was unfinished (due to death). If time hadn't been quite so pressing perhaps it would have run a little more smoothly.

What there was of it I liked. I did find myself listening intently for the subtext, perhaps a little too intently but I didn't want to let slip what was 'really' going on. Unless I'm very dense though I don't think there was quite as much raunchy stuff going on as I had been led to believe. Not that the young man was uninterested, it was just that there weren't as many opportunities as would have been needed.

>333 M1nks: Perfect review of Henry James, except when I feel that way about his books I rate them much lower! ;)

>333 M1nks: The first time I read "circumlocatious" I immediately understood what it meant but wondered why I didn't know it and have it as part of my lexicon. Now I think I am going to have to use it. Maybe we can convince the OED to add it.

>333 M1nks: In Alan Bennett's amusing The Uncommon Reader, H.M. the Queen (the Uncommon Reader the title refers to) is reading Henry James when she is heard to exclaim "Oh, do get on!" Having just finished The Wings of the Dove this month I totally sympathise - your review captures the problems I had with the book and I was a less generous 2/5.

House of Leaves is long but because of the unique writing style, some pages have only a few words. It's actually a fairly quick read.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

3 stars

Ok, so this book isn't quite as glorious as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a madcap romp of a book which blew my metaphorical socks off. But it's still worth the purchase price. And I will now have to go out and buy it because although I think I may have owned a copy in a past (a gift) I no longer have it on my bookshelves (at least I think I don't, my books are scattered all over the world and left at different people's houses so it is possible that I actually do still have it).

I read this many many years ago, before I read the first in the series, and that was a mistake. Not only was I (possibly) too young for it, I was knee deep in impossibility before I knew what was happening and fairly much just scratched my head at the weirdness that was Dirk Gently. Now, after a more gradual introduction, I was more able to appreciate his inimitable approach to life, especially as I wasn't the one having to deal with him.

For example, here is Dirk Gently resolving the problem of being unable to order what he wants at a café due to verbal misunderstandings caused by a broken nose.

When the girl sitting at the next table looked away for a moment, Dirk leaned over and took her coffee. He knew that he was perfectly safe doing this because she would simply not be able to believe that this had happened.

Or a mechanic that was taking too long to fix his car:
He noticed that the mechanic's pick-up truck was standing nearby with its engine still running and elected to make off with this instead. Being a slightly less slow and cumbersome runner than the mechanic he was able to put this plan into operation with a minimum of difficulty.

He swung out into the lane, drove off into the night and parked three miles down the road. He left the van's lights on, let the air out of the tyres and hid himself behind the tree. After about 10 minutes his Jaguar came hurtling around the corner, passed the van, hauled itself to an abrupt halt and reversed wildly back towards it. The mechanic threw open the door, leapt out and hurried out to reclaim his property, leaving Dirk with the opportunity he needed to leap out from behind the tree and reclaim his own.

Truly the man is a mastermind which makes it all the more puzzling that he is definitely the sort of fellow, that when the music stops, is always left holding the stinky fish and looking for a chair.

Still, in the course of little more than a day he manages to assist the Gods, sort out the problem of his fridge and break or impale nearly every part of his body. Oh, and probably not get paid.

The Bridge on the Drina by Iva Andric

4 stars

An extraordinary book and one which I would definitely have never read or even heard of if it wasn't for the Boxall 1001 book list.

This work covers about 500 years of Balkan history beginning from its building during Ottoman times to its (not quite final) fate during the World War. It's not a single story but rather a set of semi cohesive vignettes centred around the people of the town living by the bridge. The bridge itself sometimes having only an 'honourable mention' in some of the stories, yet, in all of them the inanimate stone is shown as central to the very life of the village and its people.

Time moves in fits and starts; people grow old (if they are lucky) and die in the shadow of the stones while the bridge itself remains untouched by the tragedies, large and small, which happen around it.

The Bridge on the Drina isn't precisely easy to read, not because the prose is difficult or hard to follow but because so much is packed in and what is written is so lovely you'll want to slow down and savour every word. The stories which make up the book occur in discrete, readable chunks, so I would tend to read them one at a time. Pausing between each story to appreciate and digest it before reading another. It made for slow progress but it was worth the extra time.

Man of Property by John Galsworthy

4 stars

A fabulous start to the trilogy The Forsyte Saga. It's rather refreshing to be reading about the upper middle class; my literature in the past has tended to focus on either the aristocracy (or at least the upper class) or the working man/poor. It makes sense as at this time the middle class was growing and, perhaps, very understandably they were obsessed with money and 'property'. It was this that a man strived for, to increase his prosperity and secure a place for his family. Education and culture was all very well but money was the foundation that they stood upon and, in the end, it was the only thing that really counted.

Soames, the 'coming man' embodies the values of this upper middle class way of thinking. He comes from a wealthy family and is intent on working hard, increasing his prosperity and establishing himself as a man of consequence. His wife, Irene, might not feel the same way although she is so silent and withdrawn it is hard to tell.

The players in this family drama were well drawn by John Galsworthy - none of them perhaps were truly likeable, being rather shallow and selfish in their various ways, but they are all extremely human. I especially found Irene to be maddening, so much so that I had some sympathy for Soames in his frustrated treatment of her, something I never thought I'd be able to do.

The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic

1 1/2 stars

Not an easy read for me as witnessed by the fact that I finally finished this a year after it was attempted as part of our group read. I loved the concept - a defunct group of people (the Khazars) who many years ago were converted to one of three major religions, but which one? The Christians, The Jews and The Muslims are all sure that the Khazars converted to their religion due to the clever arguments put forth by their particular holy man and the intervention of the Princess Ateh who added her voice to the debate at the crucial point in time.

What then follows is a book in three parts (well 4 I guess including the final bit) which can be read either straight through, or, rather more interestingly, rather like a dictionary. Each religion has similar thoughts on the history of the time but each has their own slant, and, as a reader you can jump through the texts following your interest in various people and learning what each of the three different texts has to offer. It's quite an intriguing way to write a book and it would have worked for me if it wasn't for the fact that the three books themselves were so unremittingly bizarre. And when I say bizarre, I mean, absolutely, off the wall, wtf are you talking about? type of thing.

I like my weirdness in controlled doses, when it gets too much I find my enjoyment slipping and this whole book was an exercise in jumping the shark at fairly much every opportunity. As such I had to force my way through - if this hadn't been a 1001 book I would never have finished it.

So my rating is 1 star for my enjoyment. I disliked it, but it wasn't offensive so I didn't hate it, and I gave it an extra half star for the entertaining way it was presented. The content meant I didn't like what was on offer but it was really a rather unique way of writing a book

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

4 stars

That was just... I don't even know what that was. Not what I was expecting anyway.

Normally I would never give four stars to a work like this; it deals a lot with individual introspection and self flagellation. It's very 'emotional' and said emotions are usually far too ridiculously intense for my liking. Typically I find such books very much not to my taste (The English Patient for example).

I'm still not sure why this one got a free pass; there were times I'd still wince and mentally ejaculate something along the lines of 'Oh go cry me a river!' and 'Build a bridge, get over it and move on'.

A part of it has to do with the words - there are lots of good ones and they interact in good ways :-) Jeanette may talk about clichés but she doesn't write that way. When she talks about love, when she talks about pain and hurt it's positively visceral. It gets to you, right down deep inside. I couldn't relate personally but, being human, I can sympathise.

Another reason I forgive her is her humour. She's very funny and it's always a trifle disconcerting to find that a 'serious' writer writing about such a 'serious' thing as 'love' has such a thing. I'd trip over Virginia Woolf's sense of humour in a similar way but Jeanette's is a little more off the wall.

And that leads to the third reason - she's very self depreciating. She's fully aware that intense human emotions always seem rather ridiculous to those not caught up in them (or so it's always seemed to me) and downplays as much as she can the sense of 'woe is me, the end of the world is nigh!'. She ramps up the emotions to an almost unbearable pitch and then cuts the juice, leaving the reader panting, shattered and gasping for breath. She gives you time to collect yourself and then, perhaps, she does it to you all over again. Never giving you more than you can handle in one sitting, but sometimes coming very close to the edge.

She strips as much of the 'personal' out as she can, even to the point of not identifying the protagonist as either man or woman. It is probably a man but you can't tell for sure. He or She has many rather disastrous love affairs with various men and women, further stripping the sense of the personal. He or She can be whoever you wish, however you relate best to them, make it so.

So, with all of that being said I'm left with a very clever novel written by a very gifted woman. It's a paean to love, but also to heartbreak, to human stupidity and loss and it got me.

The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf

3 stars

One of our book group reads; a very early Woolf, her first novel in fact, so this is prior to the 'stream of consciousness' style that she was famous for. I would have said that that makes it a good read for those new to her who want a slightly less intimating introduction than Mrs. Dalloway however, although it's undoubtedly an easier read stylistically, as it was rather panned the work as being 'boring' I'm not so sure. I didn't find it so, but mine was rather the lone voice.

There were some complaints that the setting didn't really make sense. (It starts out in London then moves quickly on-board a private yacht bound for South America. Partway through the journey they pick up a Mr and Mrs Dalloway and then they all part company again . Eventually they arrive in South America and we meet another large group of people and the next part of the story follows on from there) It is rather patchy, it's true.

The main focus of the book was Rachel, an extremely! sheltered young woman who is taken under the wing of her aunt in an attempt to show her a little more of the world. She is introduced to men, a rather alien species in her eyes.

South America seemed to be a bit of a 'destination' at that time as there was a large boarding house full of British visitors of all shapes and sizes. Rachel meets a few youngish men, two in particular who stand out. A Mr Hirst who was hilariously portrayed as an intolerably arrogant intellectual who plumed himself excessively on his great intelligence and desperately wanted attention and approval whilst despising the entirety of the human race. Also his friend Terrance Hewet, slightly less obnoxious but still rather an ass. Rachel begins to get intimate with Mr Hewet, continuing her 'voyage' from a young girl into a true young woman.

As is typical with Woolf this book is beautifully written but chronically short on snappy bits. It was slow but I didn't find it boring, however, as I said, I was in the minority :-)

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

4 stars

Somerset Maugham never disappoints. I started out reading his short stories many years ago and I wish I could remember why I started. Were they recommended to me by a friend? If so I owe that person a great debt and I would like to thank him or her for the years of reading pleasure his extensive collection of short stories has given me. I haven't been as industrious about reading his longer works so it's nice to have these still left to savour. They are a little more work than his short stories but anyone who likes W.S.M's style will like anything he writes as he's consistently good, unlike some authors who have flashes of brilliance and then release some rather shoddy work.

The Razor's Edge follows a small selection of people seen through the eyes of a writer, the inference being that said writer is Maugham himself. The main thrust of the plot is that a young man, changed by the war, comes back to his pre-war life and finds that he can no longer remain inside the role allotted to him. The impact of this on those around him is rather severe.

This isn't a book with an easily understandable point. For those who want a tidy ending where people are married/arrested/winners this is likely going to leave you with a feeling of incompleteness. I thought it quite a positive novel; with typical Somerset Maugham understanding it shows how different people want different things out of life. He's very good at portraying people without belabouring a moral message. Many writers populate their works with hero's and villains while Maugham always draws the most effective portraits of actual human beings. I think it's his greatest writing strength.

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

3 stars

Amusing but I do agree with what appears to be the general consensus that it isn't nearly as engaging as the wonderful The Pursuit of Love. The narrator is the same but the character of Polly isn't a patch on Linda, whose antics during the first book had me frequently hooting with delighted laughter. Polly is colourless, frequently emotionless and spends half of the book absent from its pages entirely.

Given that the characterless Polly is hardly the sort of person that a book can successfully hang itself on I got the sense that there was a quest for a suitable character to take her place. We run through the old suspects from The Pursuit of Love but Uncle Matthew and even Davy don't have their old sparkle here. Polly's mother, a bit of dark horse, starts to come into her own as the book progresses but it isn't until we are nearing the end that there finally arrives someone with enough panache to rescue the drab characters and illuminate them with a little of his reflected glory. Unfortunately the book then closes and he is taken from us too soon.

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West

1 1/2 stars

Well, that was 100 pages of sheer misery. Nathanael West could give Zola a run for his money!

'Miss Lonleyhearts' is a single young man living in America during the depression; a sexist, disillusioned and violent drunkard of supposed Christian faith who was shoehorned into writing an agony aunt column for the newspaper he works for. Approaching it with the contempt of the supposedly intelligent man being called upon to dispense his invaluable advice to his inferiors, after reading so many distressing stories he begins to absorb their misery, poisoning whatever little humanity he had and turning him into a complete psychotic.

This is apparently 'black humour' but I think it's telling that Goodreads doesn't have that listed as a main page genre. This, thankfully extremely short, novella is pure, unadulterated, bleakness and despair.

>351 M1nks: Still one of my favourite books of all time.
I guess some books are just bound to be highly divisive, some loving and some hating: Miss Lonelyhearts is my Little Prince.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

1 star

This was the first work of Marylynne Robinson I had read and I chose it for the book group I oversee. Basically, the writing was good, a little wordy at times, but the plot was forever leading me nowhere. Two young girls are being raised by their grandmother after the mother commits suicide. She dies and her sister replaces her. The sister is eccentric, a hoarder and one of the sisters refuses to live that way and moves out. The sister who remains reveals some of the adventures she and her caregiver experience, making little to no sense as to how they figure into the plot.

The end is startling and left me wondering why I even began to think there was hope for the novel. I hope others found it more rewarding than I did.

Err, Isah, why are you posting your reviews on my thread? If you want to join this group that's great and welcome aboard but people have their own individual threads for posting their personal reviews.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

2 stars

Another one of the 1001 lists, dreamy, thinky, feely, not much happening kind of novel. I don't like these. This was a little more interesting as some things had happened in the past and the time perspective would occasionally shift back there. Of course these events were often being remembered and those doing the remembering would have copious amounts of thoughts and feelings about all these events which happened in the past. Then they might relate what happened in the past to what was happening now and have lots more thoughts and feelings before perhaps going to get something to eat or change a bandage or something equally earth shattering.

The best bits of the novel was the information about the sappers during the war. It's the only reason this gets a full 2 stars rather than my standard 1 1/2 stars for novels of this type, the 'well written so far as language goes but bored the pants off of me because nothing happened' type of book.

Watchmen by Alan Moore

4 stars

The only comic (or 'graphic novel') on the list and I can see why it's there. What a gritty and absorbing read. I could only take it in chunks as it was so intense but I kept being pulled back into its orbit (like it was some sort of black hole) so my reading pattern went something like 'read for 20 minutes, go make a sandwich, read for 10 minutes, go run a bath, read for 5 minutes, have a bath, read for 20 minutes, check the bbc website, read for 10 minutes... etc etc'.

The comic deals wonderfully with the moral ambiguity which most people try not to think about and pray we never have to face - for example; if I shoot one person I can save 200 - do I? Do those 200 people deserve to live? Does that one person deserve to die? What makes it ok for me to decide. If I shoot one person I am guilty of direct murder but if I let the 200 die am I also guilty of murder through neglect?

Man, I think I'll go and make myself another sandwich...

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

3 1/2 stars

This book left me with very ambivalent feelings. The first part of it especially was fantastic and gripped me almost from the first page. I loved hearing about the expedition to Mars and then the political ramifications of Mike's birth and the discovery that he had been living on Mars for so long.

The whole legal tangle, although very entertaining to read about, made me think two things:
1. Robert A. Heinlein was definitely an American.
2. Q. You are locked in a room with a Tiger, a Cobra and a Lawyer. You have a gun but it only has two bullets. What do you do?
A. You shoot the lawyer. Twice.

Mike is first charming and endearing and his thought processes exotic. Then there is a scene in the book when you realise there's more to him than meets the eye. It's startling and just a little bit freaky. All good stuff.

So what didn't I like about it? Oh boy!

First there was the sexism. This was everywhere and if you read this then you either need to just accept it and not let it rile you up or you need to not read it. Just say no. It's horrendous, it's pervasive and it's something you need to deal with because there is no way to avoid it.

It's also homophobic but this is mostly concentrated in two specific parts of the text. The second time it comes up it's really bad, as bad as the infamous "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault" quote. So be prepared.

I'm also mostly on-board with the consensus view that the plot starts to go off the rails during the last third which goes into the religious cult with group orgies and public sex. I actually come around after a while and started to enjoy it (er, I just realised how that sounds - I meant I started to enjoy the story again even with all the gratuitous sex and various other aspects of Heinleins sexual wishes made manifest). Not as much as I had the first two thirds but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I guess having low expectations helps :-)

So with all of that negativity I will still say that I liked the book and I'm glad I read it. Instead of being a 4 1/2 star it became a 3 1/2 star but it was still an entertaining read. I won't say it was 'thought provoking' at least it didn't provoke the sort of thoughts that Heinlein was probably aiming for. The thoughts it did provoke were pretty uncomplimentary towards the author.

I can see why it's such a seminal work but my final verdict is that I think that it was a fantastic story which was greatly spoiled by Heinlein's obsession with sex and personal beliefs.

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

2 1/2 stars

After reading Around the World in Eighty Days I am aware that while M. Verne has great inital ideas the creative and exciting imaginative part in his brain which deals with the follow through is sadly lacking. He can take the most wonderful premise and turn it into a dull and pedantic read, somehow managing to completely miss the wildly romantic side of the story.

Journey to the Center of the Earth suited this approach rather more than Around the World in Eighty Days so I ended up enjoying it a little more but I encountered another problem: did Jules Verne believe the total nonsense he spouted off in the work? Was he truly as stupid as all that? It's like reading about some author writing a story where the main characters prove that the world is flat. They reference the science which states that it is round but then, amazingly, they actually discover that it really is flat! What a scientific breakthrough! Queue the old geezer pontificating about how science doesn't know everything. It made it pretty hard to pay much attention to any point in the story where some scientific principal is discussed because although science isn't my strong point I know enough to know that Jules Verne was frequently talking out of his butt hole.

Sooo, other than the hilarious science and boring pedantic writing it was an ok story. The narrator was frequently amusing and the bit at the start of the journey where they travelled across Iceland was extremely interesting.

>359 M1nks:

I read this one in January and although I agreed with you that Jules Verne could make it more of an adventurous tale, I still found it fun.

And considering the fact that for the book to work one has to basically ignore scientific fact, I thought Verne handled it well. He would always state the actual science before presenting the fantasy and always had a character mention how this fantasy world errs from science. This prevents misinforming the reader but also maintaining the air of adventure and fantasy.

Even the magma chapter he mentions how it's a type of "boiling substance since obviously this boat could never float on a bed of magma" even though we, the reader, and Verne are well aware that this boiling substance is indeed actually magma. So yes, I was able to enjoy the read even being a scientist myself, since it's always wonderful to imagine a fantasy world where science might work differently from our own.

(Plus when I read The Mysterious Island as a child it was enchanting so definitely a good age to read Verne or maybe a way to read Verne: through a child's eyes.)

If you're curious here is an interesting article about whether or not Verne is the father of science fiction. The author concludes that Verne is not for much of the same reasons we have both mentioned in this thread.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/jules-verne-father-of-science-fiction

>349 M1nks: I too started reading Maugham's short stories and I do remember why. I was just cruising the stacks in our main library trying to decide on something to read. I saw all these small books by Maugham and thought "I know he is supposed to be a good writer. I'll take one of these and see." I devoured that one and then kept coming back to the stacks until I had gone through all of them.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

3 1/2 stars

This is the sort of novel which gladdens literature professors hearts and now that I've navigated the craziness for the first time and I've got a few signposts mapped out I want to delve a little deeper into it. I want to re-read this and with some more in-depth analysis. There is a lot going on and I'd really enjoy discussing it with some like minded people and hearing other points of view.

The surface plot has the devil and his merry band of misfits flying into Moscow to give a ball. They arrive a little early and have some fun with tormenting the local inhabitants. They drive nearly everyone they meet insane (literally) and generally enjoy themselves by exploiting the weaknesses of others. It's cruel but makes for great telly.

Along with the devil and his crew we have a grumpy poet (who does wind up in the nuthouse at some point), some guy called 'The Master' by his devoted mistress Margarita and also Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. It's rather a weird novel in case you hadn't picked that up already.

As all of these crazy characters danced around each other I frequently felt lost in the maniacal energy of the work but I eventually popped up for air at the end of the book having had a quite spectacular ride.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

2 stars

Rather a hodge-podge sort of a book. I had no idea what I was about to read when I started so that was my first shock. I thought 'Oh, it's poetry'. Then as I began reading said poem thought 'Very bad poetry'. Then 'Very, very, bad poetry'. Followed by 'This has to be a piss take!'

And indeed it was.

Vladimir Nabokov pokes fun at academic and literary pretensions, while writing a far more entertaining (in my opinion) main story about the ridiculous reviewer. It was a good joke but it went on too long. To enjoy my main dish I had to trudge through the 4 dull and uninspiring canto's, reading copious footnotes which dealt with nonsensical issues raised by the verses. The trouble is footnotes tend to be aggravating even in real cases by breaking up the flow of the narrative. Very few authors do them well and here Nabokov was making a deliberate nuisance of them. As I said, the joke went on too long.

That doesn't surprise me :-)

Harriet Hume by Rebecca West

3 stars

"...he was struck by something familiar in the aspect of the wall by which he was walking. A pretty green creeper ran half the length of it, and at intervals drooped pale waving tendrils a fore-arm's length down into the street, so that it looked as if a harem had drugged their eunuchs in a body and had stolen to the confines of their prison to have their fingers kissed by a queue of lovers."

What a wonderfully evocative description; I nearly rated this 2 1/2 stars due to the fact that I didn't enjoy it all that much but it's been so beautifully written that I couldn't bring myself to value it as anything less than a full three stars.

The eponymously named Harriet Hume begins this book as a young lady nearly engaged to a young man, Arnold Condorex. After a rapturous day glorying in their love Harriet discovers that she has the ability to see into the mind and heart of her fiancée. That's probably the sort of gift you are going to want to return to the store! She doesn't see it that way, Arnold, after experiencing it, does and picks up his hat and departs. So much for romance.

Their paths cross occasionally over the years and each time Arnold, drawn to the spritely and beautiful Harriet, cannot help showering her with his delicate compliments, like 'You seem a little slut, but no one loves little sluts as I love you.' or 'dusty trull'. But he does think well of her and is solicitous of her health "Curse it, I had forgotten that you are only a silly slut who has walked too far in the heat, and that I had brought you here to rest!". Although even with these distinguishing marks of gentlemanly politeness he does occasionally let slip hints that, as he is a man of affairs, he is of greater value than herself "You are not a person of importance. I doubt if you have many appointments. You had better stay with me in this very pretty room. It will no be for long, since I am sure to weary of you soon, and will kindly send you home in my magnificent motor-car. So make the most of your time.". Ah, what exquisite generosity the man has.

At some point in each meeting though Arnold's thoughts turn to some unworthy deed or deception which he has lied to himself about and he finds, that in Harriets presence he can no longer do so, and his rage flames out against her. He blames her for exposing his true motivations and every meeting ends with his declaration of his hatred towards her. Poor Harriet to have let a prince like this slip through her fingers.

If there was any doubt remaining that Rebecca West wrote this as a commentary on the position of women in society it was removed by this:

"But why," his spirit asked itself, "is this more terrible than the other two discoveries she has made regarding me?"

Detestably, since he had not spoken aloud, she answered; "Because then you were outwitting women, and there has been such an immense deal of propaganda in favour of regarding this as a proof of high spirits in a gentleman, that it is neither here nor there. But now that you have turned against your own sex, where the obligation of honour is recognized, then perhaps things are going not so well with you."

This was definitely a peculiar little book and I didn't quite know what to make of it. Ms West has three other works on the combined list so I'll have more opportunities to evaluate her style in the future.

Contact by Carl Sagan

3 stars

Fantastically written so far as scientific verisimilitude goes but somewhat lacking in human warmth and feeling. I'm interested in cosmology and Carl Sagan really delivers the goods in this area even if he's a little lacking in other parts.

I liked the conflict between science and religion and thought it was handled well; human beings are irrational creatures en masse, especially when threatened or frightened. My main problem was that there was too much logical thought and not enough plain old human emotion. Ellie was the epitome of the ivory tower intellectual, never really connecting to anyone, not even her own family; and as she was the main focus, her distance kept me at a distance.

Final verdict is that I loved the concept but not the delivery but it was worth reading even though the book had few surprises as I've seen the movie (which I greatly enjoyed). The movie was faithful to the general plot while at the same time it added some 'heart'.

Verisimilitude. What a great word.

And I didn't even have to invent it :-)

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

1 1/2 stars

Well I'm surprised to find myself swimming against the tide with my rating for this one; I disliked it when I expected to enjoy it. It was meant to be a sort of antidote to too much Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady and it started out swimmingly but then I hit a bit of a snag. I realised that I had stopped enjoying it and no longer cared about any of the characters. For this two things were to blame.

Firstly, the plot was ridiculously convoluted, which, although a pain to follow was forgivable, right up until the point when I realised that it was 'pointlessly' convoluted. It was as though the criminal minds had heard of philosophy's like Occam's razor and weren't having a bar of it. Why buy a paper at a newsstand when you could climb out a bedroom window, sneak down a back alley, swim across the Thames and break into the public library after dark and read it there? Much cleverer!

The other reason I realised I'd lost interest was the main protagonist, Lord Peter Wimsey, amateur detective. What a totally annoying prat the man was. I'm always cautious of any author who puts puns into characters names. When encountering the oh so whimsical Peter Wimsey my suspicions were immediately aroused. Then, later finding out that his middle name was Death my worst suspicions were confirmed. Dorothy Sayers clearly thought this bit of clever word play an absolute hoot. What a riot she must have been at party's.

Lord Wimsey was also the biggest Mary Sue I've ever yet encountered between the pages of fiction (baring perhaps James Bond but even he had some flaws)- there was absolutely nothing this piece of perfection couldn't do. Besides being supremely clever he was an accomplished acrobat, a brilliant cricketer, a superb automobile driver, witty, charming, irresistible to women, the list goes on. I'm sure if the plot had required a world champion swimmer or pilot Lord Peter Wimsey would have been up to the task. By which I mean of course he would have been superlative. 'Average' is clearly not a word in this mans dictionary.

I didn't like the man, I didn't like his sense of superiority and the way he quite happily deceived all those around him with nary a qualm of conscience. The only time he displayed any at all was when his involvement caused the death of one of those he came into contact with. This was indisputably so and the remorseful Lord Peter demonstrates his pity with a line to that effect. However he is reassured that the death is 'no great loss' and he doesn't mention it again.

Just to round this off I'd like to say a brief word about the classism which comes up a fair bit. This might have been of fair concern at this point in time but Ms Sayers belaboured the point quite dreadfully. There is a marked difference between those who had been educated at Public Schools and the 'right' sort of Public Schools at that. Eton and Harrow basically. Rugby didn't really make the cut and as for any others! Well, they are for jumped up social climbers who can't get into a 'real' Public School ie Eton or Harrow.

Anybody who come from those hallowed institutions were quite obviously greatly above anyone else in society. There were those who resented this fact and sneered that they were just as good, while showing through their atrocious manners that they clearly weren't, and those who meekly accepted that they were obviously inferior due to their poorer education and gee wasn't it frightfully nice of those properly educated Public School boys to kindly say that it didn't really matter and they shouldn't feel so inferior.

Right then, thanks frightfully old chap, I'm sure we all feel so much better now! Actually I feel better now I've finished it. It wasn't terrible and Wimsey, although annoying was so light and ridiculous that he was easily discounted as not being worth the effort of being really riled up over. The main fault of this book is that it bored me - the characters were silly and the plot even more so. I'll probably try one more of Ms Sayers works because I don't want to discount any author on the basis of a single book but if it's anything like this I won't be adding her to my bookshelves.

I chose to look at this book as tongue-in-cheek, I think. If it's serious, it's dreadful, but if it's not, it's kind of fun. I liked The Nine Tailors better.

Sayers does have a tendency for convoluted plots...
And you seem to share her opinion about Wimsey, apparently after a while she wasn't too fond of him either (just like Doyle got tired of Holmes and Christie Poirot), so I feel there is a sense of parody about him, turning him into ridiculously capable in everything (her actual stand-in Harriet Vane showed up a bit later and was a bit more damaged...)

Oh I didn't know Christie got sick of Poirot. I can see how it might have gotten tiresome seeing how many books she wrote and she could certainly be excused for wanting to write a different character. Poirot had his faults though, he wasn't perfect and she always poked gentle fun at his mannerisms. His outstanding feature was his incredible brain, his 'little grey cells' but that was the only extraordinary thing about him. He didn't strain my credulity otherwise.

The same with Doyle, although after reading his work again later in life I found myself being annoyed with Holmes as well, or rather I should say I became annoyed with the way that Doyle wrote - everything became so repetitive.

I can see Wimsey as being tongue in cheek but the book itself wasn't. It dealt with serious topics and because it did it forced me to take Wimsey in a somewhat serious way as well. And hence my problem. I should point out that I liked the first half of the book, it was when it started getting darker that I began to dislike Winsey and that might have been a reflection of the fact that he was no longer a somewhat ridiculous figure but pronouncing social judgements of people and interfering quite callously in the affairs of others.

I might try your recommendation for the next time I try to read her. Is it a little less complex and silly?

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco

3 stars

A blending of murder mystery novel and medieval history textbook detailing scientific thought and religious schisms. It didn't quite work for me. I like history and I already had some small understanding of the sh*t storm that was the catholic church during the medieval time period (my favourite book for this is A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - a wonderfully salacious read) but I was still a little at sea with all of the ins and outs and the various names that the sects could call themselves. I was also listening to this on audio and was really lost with all of the Latin phrases being chucked around. Not following them left me feeling a little frustrated and lessened my enjoyment.

Regardless it was still an enjoyable reading experience overall and I'll be marking this down as a re-read at some point, this time with a paper copy so I can do some translating (All Praise The Divine Google Translate!).

on Peter Wimsey -- I read all those books on an almost yearly basis from about age 14-30. My best friend and I had Peter Wimsey code names for the kids in our school and made one another crossword puzzles with Wimsey clues. We were obsessed.

That said, I feel like if you didn't like Murder Must Advertise you might not like any of them. It's an easy one to like and the plot doesn't seem that convoluted to me, relative to some of the others like Five Red Herrings -- ouch! Nine Tailors, the other one on the List, is indeed a better book and definitely less silly, but may still have some of the other characteristics you disliked. They are all certainly products of their time; Sayers, while a rather brilliant scholar (she translated The Divine Comedy for Penguin Books, among other interesting things), was not wildly outside the social mores of 1930s England. OK, she had an illegitimate child, but she did not like Jews or lesbians nor does she question class structures. All those things come out in different Wimsey books.

Two actors have played Wimsey in BBC series. Ian Carmichael plays him the way you see him, but Edward Petherbridge gives him a very different, much more awkward, insecure, and self-aware character. If you watched a Petherbridge one (I'd suggest Strong Poison), you might see Wimsey differently.

Addendum: Wimsey is playing a role in Murder which changes how he presents who he is. I do think that the snide remarks about public school are meant to show a class-based weakness -- that's not something even Sayers believes. I seem to recall that attitudes like that bother his non-U brother-in-law, maybe not in this book? As for charm, I knew somebody who taught at Oxford a few decades back who assured me that all the boys from Public Schools were insanely, unnaturally good at conversing with whomever they were seated beside at dinner, as if it had been part of the training. I take that to be the case with PW. He is incredibly awkward (yet still loquacious) when nervous.

OK, no more defending this old friend of mine....

The Nine Tailors is far less silly, and, for me, Wimsey didn't feel like the same person in both books. I would probably feel more connection between them in a few years weren't between reading the books, but still, I don't remember him the same way as in Murder.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments, I have taken careful note and will approach my next PM book with those ideas in mind.

And thank you Cliff for your kind words regarding my review. I'm most pleased you like it and I'm sure 'your' name puns are both witty and amusing!

Every now and then I reflect on how great the list has been for expanding my reading. For a small sample, looking at those books from the 2000 section I have now read:

2000s
253 White Teeth
254 The Devil and Miss Prym
255 Atonement
256 Life of Pi
257 The Book about Blanche and Marie
258 The Sense of an Ending
259 The Art of Fielding
260 1Q84
261 The Blind Assassin
262 The Colour
263 Drop City
264 Never Let Me Go
265 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Of those the only one I had read prior to seriously committing to this a year or so ago was The Blind Assassin.

Not all of the books on the list suit my taste but they are usually all worth it.

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

2 stars

My rating of 2 stars is probably more a reflection on my personal reading tastes than on this book.

The Black Dahlia is mostly well written and fairly engrossing but I have an aversion for books and films which portray too vividly the grimy, seedy side of city life. Racist police, corrupt institutions, violence and lack of common compassion leave me feeling like I need a bath. I'm not sure how accurate any of this is. If law enforcement in the States was ever as appalling as this suggests then I feel sick. Dog knows no country is perfect but that any nation which purports to uphold any sort of moral ascendancy could allow this cancerous tumour to fester. Ugh. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Passing over that though this work has some other issues. The actions of the characters often wasn't very believable. They did idiotic things for reasons which just weren't reasonable. Surely they couldn't all be crazy and illogical.

The ending was also rather a mess. I felt like Ellroy was flailing around for the most shocking denouement he could invent and kept upping the ante with the belief that it was tightening the dramatic screws. I just found it ridiculous; I'd really lost interest at this point tbh.

In Chancery by John Galsworthy

4 stars

* Note: This review contains spoilers for the first book in the series The Man of Property

In Chancery is that rare book, the second instalment in a three book trilogy which is the most enjoyable of the lot.

In this the fallout of the dramatic events of The Man of Property resonate throughout. Soames remains married to Irene due to his inability to see that he has totally lost his wife's affections and that she will never return to him. He still fails to understand why their marriage has broken down so irrevocably. After all, he loved her and was willing to forgive. He is rich and generous, surely that is enough?

It is this inability to understand the sensibilities of Irene (or anyone cast from a different mould to himself) which is his biggest fault and his greatest excuse. Soame's bewilderment rather touches the heart even as it alienates him.

At the start of In Chancery he has, finally, reluctantly come to see that if Irene won't be reconciled to him then he must somehow obtain a divorce and remarry if he is to have a son and heir; something he desperately wants. Unfortunately as so much time has passed since the affair with Bosinney he anticipates great difficulty in securing one from the courts. (I spent a fair amount of time wondering why he couldn't obtain one seeing as Irene has deserted him and refused to come back but I guess the laws were much different back then and divorce was not nearly so easy as it is today).

The best solution is for one or other of them to have an affair but Soames steadfastly refuses to lower himself any further in the eyes of society. After all, hasn't he suffered enough from Irene's shocking behaviour?

In the midst of this impasse steps 'young' Jolyon. His (second) wife is now dead and as his father left Irene an income in his will which he administers for her the two come into contact and find each other extremely agreeable and sympathetic.

Along with all of these heart burnings time is passing for the Forsyte family. The Boer war has a great impact on certain family members and the older generation is slowly passing away while the younger generation rises - less concerned with 'property' and not so family orientated. The devotion to middle class values and the dogma of the Forsytes seems to be fading, and with it, perhaps, the pre-eminence of the family as a whole?

Time will tell.

To Let by John Galsworthy

3 stars

* Note this review contains spoilers relating to the previous two books of the trilogy *

In the final book of the trilogy we see the Forsyte family is no longer the cohesive unit it once was. The gatherings at 'Timothy's' are no more and with that gone so passes the 'Forsyte Change'; that social connection whereby every Forsyte knew everyone else's business and secrets. It might have been annoying for some but it was the social glue holding everyone together. Now it has gone. Timothy is the only one of the old generation still living and he is totally gaga and looked after by his devoted servants. 'The Forsytes' as a group are nearly no more, far from being too much in each others pockets now they don't meet for years at a time and have no idea what is going on in each others lives.

Jolyon and Irene are still living at Robin Hill with their son 'Jon', a sensitive and kind hearted boy who adores his mother.

Soames has his daughter Fleur on whom he absolutely dotes, in contrast he cares very little for his wife, who, also caring little for him is happy to conduct their marriage as one of 'convenience'.

Fleur herself seems a rather unpleasant young lady - beautiful and spoiled with the cool calculation of her French mother and grasping nature of her father she seems a wildly inappropriate match for the mate of her choice - the gentle natured son of Jolyon and Irene. This connection is obviously viewed with more than disapprobation by the family - goggle eyed horror is more like. But Fleur is determined to get what she wants and is heedless of the cost to anyone other than herself.

>383 M1nks: So you finished The Forsyte Saga, at least the three books we have to read for the list. Are you going to read further installments?
Although I hugely enjoyed the Saga, I haven't so far, mostly because my favourite characters are either dead or getting less important. I assume Fleur will play a big role in the next ones and I am not sure whether I will like that.

I feel the same way. I really loved the close knit family of the first novel and the loving closeness of the second. By the third, although it was well written, it was just a group of selfish, modern people who didn't really have anything special to distinguish them.

Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton

3 stars

You never read Edith Wharton for a dose of 'happy' so I fairly much knew what to expect. This story of two working sisters who only have each other in all the world was a good and very short read but, perhaps due to length constraints, it wasn't as subtle as her other works. Ms Wharton rather hit you over the head with the drama and I felt that the two sisters were nearly stereotypes. Actually I felt that way about nearly all the main people in this book.

It's definitely worth reading although I agree with its removal from the 1001 list in 2008. There are certainly books which were more worthy of that slot.

I have finally finished Clarissa...

The last quarter of the book. Oh good heavens. Why didn't somebody stop him?!

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

3 1/2 stars

What an undertaking! There's always a feeling of great satisfaction when I finish a genuinely huge book and the effect is tripled when it's a classic. So, as Clarissa is one of the very longest I'll ever read I'm going to give a self satisfied nod when I tick it off the list (and then I'll see how many more I have to read and feel pretty darn discouraged! But that's another matter).

To continue with the 'epic' vein I had some feelings of apprehension on embarking on this quest to conquer The Clarissa. What, if like Lovelace, I should encounter immovable objections and be at my wits end in over coming them? Well, I soon found that my fears seemed to be groundless. I greatly enjoyed the opening scenes. Clarissa, was to be sure, a supremely virtuous young lady, that is to say, I had nothing whatsoever in common with her. I felt more of a connection with her dearest friend Miss Howe, although, if all truth be told, I thought her rather a cow.

In fact what I liked most was Clarissa's execrable family. Oh how much I loved to hate them! And her brother! And her sister!! I wanted to pickle them all.

This showed the circumstances where I liked the perfect Miss Clarissa best; when she is being oppressed. It is then that her goodness, patience, intelligence and willingness to compromise and offer palliations even though she won't concede the final point - marriage to a man she dislikes but to whom her family is determined to marry her - shine through. This held true throughout the book entire. When left alone I found her company rather cloying, but when suffering I admired her steely backbone. No matter what got thrown at her she would hold fast to her ultimate principals and not yield.

In all of this interfamily strife the infamous Lovelace makes gay whoopee. One thing I will say for these old fashioned good time boys, they were prepared to put in the hours. Long after I would have given her up as a bad job there Lovelace was, determined to steal Clarissa away from her family. Putting up at a local inn, standing in the rain, plying strenuously away with his pen.

Lovelace himself was rather a character. At first, as I become more acquainted with him (which takes a while as the first section deals nearly exclusively with the correspondence between Miss Howe, Clarissa and her family) I loathed and despised him to the very depths of my soul. At some point however I realised that, although I still disliked his character, I found his antics actually rather amusing. His over the top insults to all and sundry, his schemes and plans, that, when they began to blow up in his face, he would curse himself for, and then, five minutes later, come up with a brand new one. Lovelace became a sort of comic relief in parts and a foil to the oppressively pious Clarissa.

O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she... I'll be as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the life

I... cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's name in her mouth in such a way. But the little devil was not to be balked; but fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming, fainting, that I never saw my lovely girl so well aped. Indeed I was almost taken in

I'm quite sure, although not explicitly mentioned, that during this grand performance there was much lifting of eyes and raising of clasped hands to heaven, seeing as this book has revealed to me that this was the invariable way anybody expressed any sort of horror or virtue. Indeed, several persons indulged themselves so much of this activity that I am sure they would have developed RSI had the book continued much longer.

Perhaps though it was through such injudicious and excessive applications to heaven that was at the root of all of those dangerous sickness's which caused people to be knocked down like flies. Usually just when Clarissa needed them.

I had intended to wait on you in London; but my mother is very ill - Alas! my dear, she is very ill indeed

Clarissa herself seemed to do less of the pious eye and arm lifting than might have been expected of her as the undoubted heroine of this text but possibly that was because there were plenty of other people clustered around her to do it for her and, besides, abstaining in this one area left her more time for fainting, reproaching herself, reproaching Lovelace, reproaching her family and writing letters to Miss Howe. And commending herself to God.

Miss Clarissa Harlowe, we are continually reminded, was practically divine in her exemplary goodness and piety.

She then turned from me towards the window, with a dignity suitable to her words; and such as showed her to be more of soul than of body at that instant...

The women were extremely affected... We have an angel, not a woman, with us

and

My own child I love: but I both love and honour you: since to love you, it to love virtue, good sense, prudence and everything that is good and noble in woman.

and

every time I approach her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship with saints and angels

and

Oh you get the idea. And so did I. But Samuel Richardson kept on pressing the point, over and over and over and over. It was during these times that a bit of Lovelace levity comes especially welcome into the text.

Come hither, toad... let me see what a mixture of grief and surprize may be beat up together in thy puden-face

Ah, yes, thank you Lovelace.

I felt more in need of some levity as the book entered the final quarter.
Lovelace had accomplished his plan of ravishing Clarissa, not through conquering of her virtue as he had planned, because he found that unassailable, but through drugging and raping her. A deed which fairly much did the business for her. After bearing up with great dignity and with impeccable inner strength (she is always at her best when suffering direct adversity) Clarissa manages to contrive her escape and subsequently gives up on life and spirals down into the grave, or rather, as Samuel Richardson assures us, is uplifted to heaven on the wings of angels.

Whichever interpretation you go for, the last (very large) chunk of the book is one long death scene. Nevermore object to Shakespeare taking a couple of pages and a long monologue to knock off someone in his plays, this book puts that very much in perspective! Miss Harlowe, orders coffins, appeals pathetically to her implacable family for forgiveness before the Lord claims her and writes horrific 'Meditations' on her various troubles based on bible quotes. Gentle reader it was too much for me - after struggling through the first with pop-eyed disbelief I skipped all the rest. Everyone has their limit - that was mine.

For the final bit of drama Clarissa begins using her tombstone as a writing desk. Mr Samuel Richardson, you deserve a right proper bitch slap for that piece of rubbish.

Finally she dies and I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I hadn't seen with a sort of sick horror that I still had another 14% of the book left to get through. And this is a very, very long book.

Firstly came the letters from beyond the grave. Then came the tears, the sobs of remorse and slowly the punishment of the wicked. Mr Richardson really went all out here. Some of it was great, this piece of prose ranks as one of my favourite from the book.

Her misfortune has not at all sunk, but rather, as I thought, increased her flesh; rage and violence perhaps, swelling her muscular features. Behold her, then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy carcase: her mill-post arms held up; her broad hands clenched with violence; her big eyes, goggling and flaming ready as me may suppose those of a salamander; her matted grisly hair, made irreverend by her wickedness (her clouted head-dress being half off, spread about her fat ears and brawny neck;) her livid lips parched, and working violently; her broad chin in convulsive motion; her wide mouth, by reason of the contraction of her forehead (which seemed to be half-lost in its own frightful furrows) splitting her face, as it were, into two parts; and her huge tongue hideously rolling in it; heaving, puffing as if four breath; her bellows-shaped and various-coloured breasts ascending by turns to her chin, and descending out of sight, with the violence of her gaspings.

But, as with most things, over hammering of a single moral point detracts from the worth of the message. As misfortune fell to every person involved it came to feel like a ticking off of a list. 'That person punished - check'.

This tying up of all loose ends in such a bland and systematic way seemed rather rushed. And it may very well have been. I noticed as it got closer to the end of the book that Mr Richardson was, more and more, including a précis of a correspondence rather than the full letter itself. I guess even he was feeling some compunction about the length of the work. Or maybe he thought he'd be dead before it was finished if he didn't speed things up somewhat. For what's it worth Mr Richardson, thank you for that small mercy.

So for the rating? Well, I loved the first section, then found it dropped off a little, picked up again before hitting the wall of dragging horror. The finale was decent, if a little bit too formulaic. In the end after jumping from a 4 star, to a 4 1/2 star to a 3 star, I have compromised on a 3 1/2 star as I greatly enjoyed a lot of the book and if I was to ever read it again I would give myself a free pass to skip over those over long final sections.

>388 M1nks: Wow, you make it sound like a readable book. You even enjoyed it. I always thought it would be one of those I would not read. 1550 pages... Your review makes me reconsider this!

I agree with what Simone said. Yours is the first review I've read that doesn't make it seem like a chore. Maybe next year for me.

>388 M1nks: What a great review!

Thank you kindly Streamsong and Simone :-) It really was a lot more enjoyable than I was braced for, although the end definitely did drag in places.

Arukiyomi also enjoyed it and posted a favourable review, so I'm not alone. Having said that though it is not a book that I would really recommend to others to read. It's such a time commitment and I don't think it would be to the average readers taste.

Cliff, you are too kind.

I invested so much time and emotional response into Clarissa that the review just poured out. It's often that way with books I really get involved in - when it comes to review time I just sort of brain burb all my thoughts out on the page.

Unfortunately that doesn't make for elegant and thoughtful writing most of the time :-) Looking back at what I've put down I'm wincing over some rather terrible arrangements that I might just go and fix...

Thank you Paruline. Have I inspired you too?

I have once again accepted the fact that I am not going to get around to finishing House of Leaves this month. How many times have I failed to do to this now? I honestly forget.

I don't know where to put my face...

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

3 1/2 stars

Fair less emotionally traumatizing than I expected it to be - which I suppose can be attributed to Harriet Beecher Stowe wanting to 'show both sides of the argument' and putting in a good selection of 'see, it isn't so bad' scenes. Not that she herself actually thought so; she certainly still held a few racial prejudices which I am happy to write her a free pass for considering, but she tolerated no part of slavery. To her, any system which deprived a fellow human being of the right to determine their own destiny if they wished to and placed them at the mercy of a law which gave them no rights or consideration, was a system which needed to be totally dismantled.

A clearly passionate woman, she looked at every single aspect of slavery and poured scorn on the whole lot. And not just the slaveholding southerners, but all people who were complicit in the degradation of a race of people either through actively selling human flesh for profit (hypocritically saying that they weren't 'slave owners'), turning a political blind eye and voting to return escaping slaves, or just not vocally condemning the practice.

Harriet Stowe makes a clear pitch towards women in this work. Women who aren't interested in politics because such a thing is not a woman's place, but who, as good and worthy Christian women, should feel themselves bound by every duty to God and morality, to speak out against this horrific practice of slavery. No Christian, she maintains, should accept it, but women especially, loving mothers and wives, should feel particular abhorrence. The business of slavery tore children from their mothers and broke up marriages. What Christian mother, said Ms Stowe, could see such sacrilegious acts, and not be sickened to their souls.

An excellent book, very moving in parts. I found one specific section a little trying as it dealt with a very angelic being which brought back unpleasant memories of the last part of Clarissa. Still, this is a novel, and given the subject matter, some over-the-top proselytizing was only to be expected.

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado

3 1/2 stars

Group read for May and another pleasant List Surprise.

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon was very like a Gabriel Garcí­a Marquez novel which had been stripped of its crazy characters, excessively over the top romances and all magical realism; what we were left with was a story about a Brazilian town struggling towards modernity. Only a few scant years ago all disputes were settled with guns and now that cacao plantations have been fought for and fortunes are being made the town of Ilheus wants to move on from its bloodthirsty past and enter the modern world. But it's not quite that simple.

Into this thriving place steps the wild Gabriela, less of a real woman and more of a child of nature. She has no patience for conventions and society restrictions; Gabriela lives a life of sensations which means she comes into conflict with those who, although in their heart of hearts might think that they prefer her that way, feel compelled by societies unwritten codes of conduct, to restrict her freedoms and force change upon her.

Gabriella's conflict is a small microcosm of the conflict in the town and region at large. People are being forced to change; some embrace it, some resist it, some chose one side or another not because it is what they personally agree with it but simply because their code of morality insists that they support those who they have sworn loyalty to. Is bloodshed inevitable or can there be a symbiosis of the old way and the new?

Good review of GCC. You helped me take another step in clarifying for myself the role of Gabriella in the book. She just annoyed me too much!

On the other hand, I liked UTC a lot more than you did! I actually found the egregiously soppy scene of which (I suspect) you speak to be kind of fascinating. It made me think about the function of a "good death" in pre-modern times, and when I got to Bel Ami, in which there is a totally bad death, I understood that because of Stowe. Reading UTC also made me into a kind of warrior against the current use of the term "Uncle Tom" which is such a misreading of his character. I've corrected various people on that!

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

4 stars

My exposure to Rudyard Kipling prior to reading Kim were The Jungle Books, so, although I loved his stories, I hadn't had much experience with how he would write a long 'adult' book.

Unsurprisingly, he wrote this 'adult' book superbly well.

I'm aware that posterity does occasionally throw mud and stones at his work and shout things like 'Imperialist', 'White Apologist' and 'Smug, Patronising Git', but I honestly don't really care all that much. I mostly try not to be excessively PC when I read older books and although sometimes it is hard to ignore in this instance it really wasn't. What really came through was Kipling's real love of India, the people, the colours, the customs.

Kim, an orphan white 'sahib' has grown up on India's streets and his love and knowledge of his homeland are the central pivot of this somewhat confusing story. Kim meets up with an out of town holy man and becomes his protector and guide as this man heads out to find the holy river which will wash away his sins and enable him to leave this life and obtain Nirvana. However just when I was settling down for a nice entertaining travelogue, Kim runs into a brick wall and the book I was expecting failed to materialise.

A good read (actually, a good listen) and I raised it an extra half a star for the included details of India; something I found absolutely fascinating.

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

2 1/2 stars

I didn't dislike these short stories but I didn't really like them either. I don't think Murakami really suits me as a writer, but, seeing as he's so popular, I don't think he's really going to miss having me as a fan.

These 5 or 6 short stories deal with people who are all lost in some way or another; all misfits and disconnected from society. I noticed that the people became slowly more 'with it' as they progressed and possibly the length of the stories may have increased as well but I was listening to them rather than reading them so I might have been wrong.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

3 stars

I described my sensations on reading the first section of this as like being dosed up on strong medication or how I feel with a severe head cold. Everything moves sluggishly and my body seems unconnected from my brain and the rest of the world.

I had no idea what I was reading and felt a fair amount of disbelief at the droning narrator as he related to me, in pedantic detail, the events of the day.

It was this disorientation which has probably won such acclaim for this short novel and, once there was some action, I felt more involved in the story and found the second part to be engaging enough to make up for my boredom during the opening half.

I can't say that this will ever be listed amongst my favourite reads but I did enjoy it. Eventually :-)

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

3 stars

Extremely well written and extremely difficult to read. Having a birds eye view of a mind smashing to bits isn't a light-hearted reading experience no matter how skilful the author. It wasn't overly depressing but there was so much going on that I felt compelled to read this in reasonably small sections; allowing each 15/20 pages or so to settle down in my brain before I read another small section. I was intimately involved in 'Joy's' life and I felt it would have been disrespectful to her to rush through all of her pain as though it really didn't matter.

A really good book but not a cozy afternoons reading pleasure.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

2 1/2 stars

I seem to be reading all of Salman Rushdie's work in order and this is the first one I haven't hugely enjoyed. It started out well with his trademark humour and seeming craziness but shortly after the two main characters touch down in England after somehow surviving their plane being blown up and their plummet downwards it just seemed to go nowhere very much. There were certainly entertaining bits scattered around but in general I found myself thinking 'what is the point?' as Rushdie bounced around time, place and person.

Oh well, can't win them all and as I loved his first 3 books and didn't totally dislike this one I'll still be pleased to continue reading through the rest of his books on the 1001 list. I'm just glad I didn't start with this one which I could have done seeing as it's his most infamous.

>404 M1nks: I combined reading it with Mohammed, a biography of the prophet by Karen Armstrong.
So I noticed that many parts of The Satanic Verses are based on Mohammed's life and the Koran. Rushdie draws these parallels so smart and so subtle. Because of this (and the fact that Rushdie is a great storyteller) The Satanic Verses became one of my all-time favourites. Maybe one day, once you've finished your 1001 books, you should read this biography and The Satanic Verses again!

I did :-) I still didn't like it that much.

I'm not Stiller by Max Frisch

2 stars

A well written book about identity and acceptance of self and others but I just found it dull. Those things aren't my cup of tea though and it's no reflection on the book. If you are the sort that rather likes introspective navel gazing then have at it!

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

5 stars

One of my favourite Dickens and I've read it more times than I can comfortably remember. Seeing though as it is my first re-read since seriously working through the 1001 book list, I will commemorate it now with a proper review.

In Martin Chuzzlewit Dickens takes aim at hypocrisy and selfishness, traits which infect even the 'hero's' of this work (not the heroines of course, because all Dickens heroines are sickly paragons of virtue and saintly self sacrifice). The opening chapter sets the scene with a comedic look at the antecedents of the Chuzzlewit family, who will be front and centre during this drama. Clearly rising from rather uninspiring (not to say, criminal) ancestors the Chuzzlewit paean skims over every hint of scandal and dwells with satisfaction on their long and distinguished family history.

Now enters the supremely virtuous Pecksniff (architect and land surveyor) and his two devoted daughters, Charity and Mercy (Cherry and Merry). Their quiet little village is shortly inundated with many of his family, in hot pursuit of the old Mr Martin Chuzzlewit, a wealthy man of poor health but no children; his previous favourite, his grandson and namesake, has fallen out of favour and this prompts a scrummage amongst the family to secure his money for themselves.

Only a few of these characters are destined to become major players which is a bit of a shame; this snippet of conversation showed so much promise.

'As to eating, I beg to say, whatever bitterness your jealousies and disappointed expectations may suggest to you, that I am not a cannibal, ma'am'

'I don't know that!' cried the strong-minded woman.

'At all events, if I was a cannibal,' said Mr George Chuzzlewit, greatly stimulated by this retort, 'I think it would occur to me that a lady who had outlived three husbands, and suffered so very little from their loss, must be most uncommonly tough.'

The young Mr Martin, whose falling out with his grandparent came because he fell in love with his grandfathers attendant, has a very high opinion of himself and thinks very little anyone else; a seemly universal family failing. His objections to his grandfather are that 'he has two very great faults, which are the staple of his bad side. In the first place, he has the most confirmed obstinacy of character you ever met with in any human creature. In the second he is the most abominably selfish.... I have often heard from those who knew, that they have been, time out of mind, the failings of our family... All I have to do, you know, is to be very thankful that they haven't descended to me

Turned out of doors as it were, Martin is joined by the wonderful Mark Tapley, a jovial fellow who is determined to 'come out jolly' under the most trying of circumstances. After making Martins acquaintance he thinks that managing to maintain his positive outlook in Martins company is just the sort of severe trial he has been looking for.

Martin flees to America in pursuit of opportunity and, moving on from commenting on individual hypocrisy, Dickens enlarges his theme to include the entire United States of America. A paragon, he writes, of hypocrisy in its finest form.

The character of the country may be summed up in one word. Dollars. All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues and associations, seemed to be melted down into dollars... Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars... The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to them!

and

'What an extraordinary people you are!' cried Martin. 'Are Mr Chollop and the class he represents, an Institution here? Are pistols with revolving barrels, sword-sticks, bowie-knives, and other things, Institutions on which you pride yourselves? Are bloody duels, brutal combats, savage assaults, shooting down and stabbing in the streets, your Institutions! Why, I shall hear next that Dishonour and Fraud are among the Institutions of the great republic!'

That last observation seems as relevant today as ever it was; All Hail The Holy Divinity that is the Second Amendment.

Martin Chuzzlewit is peopled with the usual array of glorious Dickensian characters, only a few of which I have mentioned here. The young ladies are typically nauseating, some of the sections involving a Miss Ruth Pinch for example I found quite genuinely stomach churning. But if you can gag your way through those horrific passages you're sure to be rewarded with some wonderful conversation from my personal favourite 'Sairey Gamp'; midwife and nurse. Really, I think it's worth reading this book purely to make her acquaintance .

It's not a 1001 list book (yet) but I have to comment on a recent read (listen) The Orphan Master's Son. What a great book!

I'd had a few not so great 1001 books in a row and was looking for something a bit different and I decided to try that one as all of my Goodread friends who had read it hadn't rated it any lower than 4 stars. Anyway, wonderful. I'll be interested to see if it makes it on the next version of the list - whenever it finally gets released.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

3 stars

Much less ridiculous than Tipping the Velvet even if it was still wildly improbable :-) There were a few twists but many of them were well sign-posted so if you are paying attention you aren't really going to be totally surprised.

Overall I enjoyed it enough to rate it 3 stars; not sure if I'm all that keen to read any more of her works though. Maybe The Night Watch?

I liked The Night Watch better than Tipping the Velvet, so perhaps there is hope!

Have you read Fingersmith?

No not yet.

The Warden by Anthony Trollope (non 1001 - part of series)

3 1/2 stars

A very nicely written story. I have only read one other Trollope but his style seems to be firmly in the 'realistic novels' camp. He lacks the wild plots of Wilkie Collins and the only slightly less fantastical and more mawkishly sentimental stories told by Dickens; indeed he takes a hefty swipe at Dickens during this book where he declaims that things are rarely simply a case of right vs wrong and that to try to look at life through this sort of lens may cause a great deal of unintentional damage.

In The Warden the gentle natured Warden has been appointed to the guardianship of a hospital set up many years ago by a charitable trust and paid for through rents obtained through properties. In a will left by an old philanthropist the church is to use the rent money to provide housing and living for 12 indigent old men, any extra left over money could be set aside as recompense to the church for administrating this charity and to pay for the services of their appointed Warden who would oversee the hospital. Over the course of the years the lands which obtained these rents increased greatly in value while the costs of the hospital remains fairly static and so, subsequently, the churches surplus portion of the bequest also grows. A fact which has been gently working away at the back of the Warden's mind and causing him a certain amount of almost unconscious unease. An unease which grows exponentially as he is challenged by the hot-headed suitor to his daughters hand to defend his right to so much money for simply administrating the bequest.

I liked this book very much - it's definitely much 'quieter' than Collins or Dickens, but that doesn't mean it's boring. I felt for the poor Warden, a kind-hearted and unassuming man who couldn't bear the stigma of being thought greedy or covetous by either his neighbours or complete strangers but who found it equally horrible to simply resign his post; an action, he was assured, that would be both cowardly and an act of betrayal towards the Church.

This was a very enjoyable start to the Barsetshire series.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

4 stars

I wasn't sure if I'd read this or not; I've seen the movie several times as it's a favourite and I had the vague idea that I had read the novel. However, no, I hadn't.

I won't say that the book is a 1000 times better than the movie, because in honest truth it does some things better. Due to time constraints it merges a few roles into one single character and dispenses entirely with many others. This is actually an improvement; a large cast is not needed for a comedy of this nature. There are also (I felt) improvements made with Ms Posts bosom friend - she is much more entertaining in the movie version and Joanna Lumley plays her very well. In fact the whole casting was extremely good. I couldn't help chuckling over Mr Mybug and visualising Stephen Fry or seeing Ian McKellan quivering with holy fire in the Church of the Quivering Brethren.

The book does however shine in other ways so it's not a case of 'oh well, I'll just watch the movie then'. The humour of Stella Gibbons descriptions come through far more clearly in words than in visual pictures and the length of the book, although not very long, is enough to allow more lingering over the farm, the countryside and the people themselves. I felt I knew the Starkadders much more intimately after reading the novel and that was a good thing.

This book put a real smile on my face and I'll probably ended up adding a copy to my bookshelves at some point.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

5 stars

David Mitchell is something else.

He's a new discovery for me as I've been hopeless over the years at paying any attention at all to 'hot writers'. My reading rut was really bad for exploring anything new, especially if by 'new' I meant 'an author who wasn't actually dead'.

Anyway I picked up Slade House from the library when I saw it there because:

A. It was short
B. I recognised the name and knew that he had at least one book on the 1001 list
and
C. I think I'd seen some of my Goodreads friends rate and review this same book very highly.

Well, I loved Slade House and seeing as I managed to sneak myself an audio copy of Cloud Atlas I just dove on in.

I was expecting a 'proper' novel. Slade House was an odd sort of book - a series of almost distinct vignettes all stitched together to form a mostly cohesive whole. I expected Cloud Atlas to be more standard.

Wrong. It was the same sort of format - individual stories thrown together to make, sort of, a single book. Even more peculiar was the fact that stories all progressed through time and were sliced in half. You got the first half in the beginning and the last part later on down the track. It came around in a circle and you finished back where you started

It was so extreme that I thought my audio copy was faulty. The first story just stopped mid sentence and it took a quick google search to establish that this was how the book format was. Unusual, but, I decided, in the end, that it worked. Each story was told in a different style and every reader would have their favourite, but to my mind they were all excellent.

As for what it was about? That's a little harder to explain. The message wasn't the most cheerful but perhaps we are left with a grain of hope?

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

2 stars

My second taste of Kurt Vonnegut and I didn't like it nearly so much this time. While Slaughterhouse-Five was seeming madness that turned into a strong message, Breakfast of Champions looked like it was going somewhere right from the start but gradually dribbled away into a melted mess. I know Kurt had something he was trying to tell me but he piled it on too thick and I ended up not caring.

Too much crazy, not enough clever.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

4 stars

A wonderfully entertaining story about the Corleone family and the New York mafia. I have seen the movie (which is similarly excellent) but I do recommend the book as it packs a lot more in. In a way it tones down the violence; the Godfather is shown to truly be a man who wants to offer a 'deal you can't refuse'. He wants his way, he'll get his way, but he doesn't want to have to resort to violence if he can arrange a deal which suits everybody. He's a negotiator and a businessman, not a thug. Or so he'd like to be known. In America the deck is often stacked against the immigrant; in his world the only people you should ever rely on are your own.

As nearly everybody who reads this will have seen the movie first the attraction isn't going to be a sense of mystery, after all you know what's going to happen. It would no doubt be a more thrilling ride if you didn't know but it's still a great book. If you liked the movie then read on for thrills and chills!

Beloved by Toni Morrison

3 stars

Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.

Such is Beloved. A former escaped slave (Sethe - pronounced Seth-ah), is living alone with her youngest daughter, Denver, in a haunted house which is shunned by the rest of the black township. Things have remained this way for many years when one day a fellow former slave, by the name of Paul D turns up on her doorstep. Many years prior they were slaves together on a small plantation called 'Sweet Home', along with several other young black men. In discrete slices, as the novel progresses, we begin to learn more about those years and the events which caused Sethe and Paul D to take the step of running away. The memories are very rarely pleasant; just as the house is haunted, so is Sethe by the ghosts of her remembered past. Ghosts which may shortly become very real.


“Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my memory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.”

This isn't a happy story, but neither is it a particularly miserable one. The largest problem I had with it was connecting enough to either events or characters to care what was going on. It can be very difficult to follow, especially in the earlier sections where you are given very little of the puzzle pieces, just the odd dropped comment and vague allusion to past events. I found it a little irritating but once I knew more about Sethe's past history it became much more engrossing. This is one book which would improve on re-reading I think.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

3 1/2 stars

Warning for swears from the book.

Drugs are Bad, M'kay? Especially acid. Stay well away kiddies.

If you don't take this good advice you might find yourself saying things like:

Look over there. Two women fucking a polar bear.

Or something similar.

It took a little while for me to appreciate Hunter S. Thompson's special brand of humour. Unlike with Naked Lunch I was aware from the start that this was meant to be funny, it's just that I find wild drug trips whilst driving a car extremely unfunny. Eventually though I did get into the right record groove. About the time of the polar bears.

I shouted at the waitress for a bill. She came over, looking bored, and my attorney stood up.

"Do they pay you to screw that bear?" he asked her.

This cross species intimacy seemed to be too much for Mr 'Duke' and his attorney and they decided to leave the Las Vegas Casino.

"Can we make it?" he said.

"Well . . . that depends on how many people we fuck with between here and the door."

Their rapid egress was unfortunately impeded by the slowly turning rotunda type thing they were on; Mr Attorney finding himself incapable of stepping off of it his friend helped him by kicking him in the back.

"Did you see that?" he said as he caught up with me. "Some sonofabitch kicked me in the back!"

"Probably the bartender," I said. "He wanted to stomp you for what you said to the waitress."

If you're looking for plot you've come to the wrong place. If you're looking for creative excuses to give policemen when you are questioned about unloading a handgun into cactus out in the desert, then this is your spiritual home.

"Well . . . no . . . not literally attacked, officer, but seriously menaced. I stopped to piss, and the minute I stepped out of the car these filthy bags of poison were all around me. They moved like greased lightning!"

In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu

3 1/2 stars

This collection of five stories is very uneven in quality. The three shorter ones are 'ok'. They are bland and eminently forgettable, but the last two, much longer offerings, are very good.

My rating for the separate stories are as follows:

Green Tea - 2 stars
The Familiar - 2 stars
Mr. Justice Harbottle - 2 stars
The Room in the Dragon Volant - 4 1/2 stars
Carmilla - 3 1/2 stars

I won't bother discussing the 3 shorter ones but Carmilla and The Room in the Dragon Volant are worth talking about.

Carmilla is likely the first use of vampires as we know them in literature today. It predates Dracula and probably provided both inspiration and 'rules' for a vampires modus operandi. For this alone it's well worth reading and if you liked Dracula then you will likely also enjoy the much less well known Carmilla.

Carmilla though, although very enjoyable, took a back seat to The Room in the Dragon Volant. This was wonderfully entertaining! Kudos to Sheridan Le Fanu for demonstrating that he can make his male 'hero's' just as blindingly obtuse as his ladies. The guy in this was so appallingly stupid he really should qualify for a Darwin Award even though he doesn't die (not a spoiler - he is writing the story from the future so we know he survives).

Leaving his incomparable dunderheadedness to one side though, all the elements of a great gothic thriller are in this one: mysterious ladies, dangerous and unpleasant men, troubling disappearances, old and crumbling houses - every trope that goes to make up this genre is in this. Pure Gold!

Cain by Jose Saramago

4 stars

My second foray into the works of Jose Saramago was much more successful than my first (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis). Cain was entertaining and funny, although it probably helped that I both know my bible and view it the same way I view all other mythologies. So, because I know all of the events of Genesis (which Cain covers) I know what is going on, but because I'm not religious it doesn't offend me or trouble my thoughts as Jose lets rip on all of the injustices and inconsistencies contained therein.

I'm sure my enjoyment was greatly increased by listening to this on audio. I didn't have to deal with the solid wall of text which is apparently a feature of Jose Saramago's writing (call me picky but I like paragraphs) Also, comedy can be either greatly enhanced or totally destroyed by how it is delivered and the narrator (Jay Villiers) was superb.

Cain opens in The Garden of Eden after God has created Adam and Eve. After they are banished (and Jose very irreverently hints at a possible paternity for Cain that is not Adam..) and Cain kills his brother because God doesn't like vegetables (just like little kids) Jose embarked on his 'totally well researched' biography on the rest of Cain's life. These are the bits we don't get to see in the Bible. Although we really sort of do because Cain is actually present at many of the major crisis points in the Bibles well recorded history.

The aftermath of the Tower of Babel? Cain was there. Sodom and Gomorrah? Yep, Cain was there. The sacrifice of Issac? Cain was there and a good thing too because the angel was late due to a wing malfunction and Issac would have been so much dead meat without him. The blowing down of the walls of Jericho? Cain was there - he was tending the donkeys. The massacres of all of the following cities? He was there; until he got sickened by all the continuing slaughter and did a bunk.

He was also there at God's decision to wipe out all life on Earth because he thought men were wicked. Yes indeedy, Cain was on the Ark. The man is like a super selfie crasher.

Anyhoo - very amusing, entertaining and all those other good adjectives but if you are Christian and an apologist for the events of the Old Testament then you should probably approach with caution.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

3 stars

Reading it felt a little bit like filling in a missing hole; on all of the 1001 lists this is up there with Rebecca and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as popular classics that I haven't read.

Now there is one less hole.

It was an interesting book. Interesting rather than a 'fun read'. Being inside the mind of an autistic (or Asperger's ) teenager was certainly very different but his pedantic way of looking at the world meant it was never going to be a smooth ride. It did feel a little bit like watching a creature in a zoo or reading about an alien from another planet as Christopher's thoughts and feelings were so different to mine. I didn't like that feeling as I wanted to feel what we had in common rather than the differences which set us apart, but it was the differences which were constantly highlighted.

The story itself was well done and the unique style of the narrator can be tedious at times but is, I think, ultimately rewarding.

Silk by Alessandro Baricco

3 stars

This was nice but nothing particularly special.

The basic gist of the story is that a young French man travels to Japan several times in search of silkworm eggs which he can then bring back to France to use in the silk mills of his employer. It's a long and dangerous trip especially as Japan is at that time extremely hostile to both strangers and people messing with their silk trade in any way.

He manages to make a contact and is struck by a lovely young woman who lives in the household. He never speaks to her but she seems to take a fancy to him and proceeds to initiate just enough contact to cause trouble.

The whole book is very, very short and while interesting enough due to the time, locations and the silk trade there just isn't enough detail to make this any more than extremely superficial.

It rates a 3 star because of the dreamy style it is written in (at least in my translation) and the fact that it is quite a different sort of book taking one with another. In all honesty though I'm surprised it was ever considered a valid book for the 1001 list.

>424 M1nks: I listened to the audio and the narrator brought the book to life in such a fantastic way.

>425 M1nks: - Ha! I said exactly the same thing when I read it last year. Interesting story but one that made me go right back to the 1001 listing to see what was so special about it.

I listened to the audio and the narrator brought the book to life in such a fantastic way.



Was he Australian? I did listen to it on audio and the reader was certainly good.

I'm listening to Tarzan atm and the difference in readers is sadly rather marked. What makes it worse is that I'm not particularly enjoying the book itself.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

5 stars

This was quite a book! A 4 star read the whole way through which became a 5 star in the final pages because I was so very impressed with the long setup to the grand finale. John Irving had woven events so dextrously into the narrative that I didn't notice their importance until the very end; something which earns massive kudos from me.

A Prayer For Owen Meany is one of those 'life long' books. By which I mean that it is a long look back from 'the present' to important events in narrators and his best friends (Owen Meany's) life. Owen and John grew up together in a small New Hampshire town. Owen was always peculiar - his family was strange, his size was unusual, his voice was completely weird - in other words, he was special.

John Irving was very skilful with how he handled the books progression. Although it constantly moved through different time periods, moving backwards and forwards in the narrators memory as it suited the plot, it was done so seamlessly it never jarred. There was also never a feeling of deliberate tantalisation. From the first you know that Owen Meany killed John's mother during a little league baseball game, even though he was so tiny he virtually never actually hit the ball during games. We know that this event was a catalyst for dramatic, but as yet not described events in the future. It should have been a little frustrating but it wasn't and I can only ascribe to John Irving's skill as a writer. I felt like the book was a tapestry that was being woven before my eyes. There were no cliff hangers or 'gotcha' moments, everything just unfolded quietly in its own time.

I was particularly impressed with how he handled people coming and going out of their lives as time passed and how there would sometimes be a moment of shock when you found out something about a person that you didn't expect. A realisation that people, all people, have private as well as public lives and that sometimes you don't know a person as well as you think you did. John's mother was obviously the most prominent. She had a great secret which she never told him - who his father was. She never told anybody. He always thought that she would 'when he was older' and then she died.

Once she was gone I realised that due to the books structure she was still there. Irving would write about times where she was still alive, and like a memory that we have of someone who has passed she lived again. As the story continued I noticed this happened less and less until she truly became a memory. Was this deliberate? I think so, and if it was it was beautifully done.

This was just a wonderful read. I think it's the last Irving on the 1001 list but as it's been many many years since I read The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp I could probably pick them up again at some point. I've also never read The Hotel New Hampshire and I've been meaning to.

>428 M1nks: Great review of what sounds like a really great book. It's been years - or decades - since I read The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire, and even though I remember them as great reads, I just never got around to Irving againg. Now I'm looking forward to it!

Owen Meany is one of my favorite literary characters and the book is my favorite Irving. None of his others have yet impressed me the way that one did.

Howards End by E.M. Forster

4 stars

This is possibly E.M. Forsters best novel so far as literary craft goes, although I prefer both A Room with a View and A Passage to India so what does that say about my taste?

I had read this about 10 years ago but, although I could remember certain scenes, mostly it was totally fogged over. Once I started the re-read it came back as I read each part but only section by section, so, in effect, it remained a 'new read'.

The cultured and rather refined Schlegels (Margaret and Helen) find their lives running in parallel to the far coarser Wilcoxes a brash and materialistic family, completely ignorant and contemptuous of the more refined pleasures of art, literature and music. A third connection, that of the impoverished Mr Bast and his wife, also seems to be linked in some way to the Schlegels. These three very different sorts of people show the huge gulf that exists between the classes in England; one that is only bridged through a concerted effort and willingness on both sides, something that is usually lacking.

The book is quiet and restrained as suits the time period, but it is full of incident. The main characters also are rather prone to calling a spade a spade rather than hiding forever behind euphemistic phraseology. I supposed that reflects the times; Victorian prudery is fading and being replaced by the more 'immoral' standards of the Edwardian era. There is a rather delightful character representing the social mores of the earlier age, the Schlegels aunt Julie, but she provides a little comedic relief rather than being an example to follow.

It's the sort of story that E.M. Forster seems to love writing; not precisely tragic but dwelling on the realities of life - socio-economic status, English manners, relations between the sexes, culture vs practical hardheadedness. People die, others are born and life just goes on.

>431 M1nks: Excellent review!

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

3 stars

Books from the Noir genre really aren't my bag but this one is probably as good as they will get for me. And that is likely because it's less a hard-boiled detective story and more a social manners comedy. It still has the requisite tough guy, but he's an ex gumshoe who now runs his wife's various businesses; although how he manages to do so is a bit of mystery seeing as there is probably more alcohol in his bloodstream than red and white blood cells.

His wife is quite the party girl as well and very tolerant of her husband, even forgiving him for punching her out when a lunatic crashes into their apartment (because he thought it would be too distressing for her to be conscious during all the drama). Then she probably wandered off and fixed them both a drink. In the UK people make a nice cup of tea when they need to calm down, in the States you apparently head straight for the booze cabinet and mix yourself up a cocktail or three.

Did anyone actually eat during this book or did they subsist entirely on a liquid diet?

Together these two drink and party their way through some pretty crazy characters, one of the crazy dames in particular was just so nuts I'm thinking she should belong in the nuthouse rather than her ex-husband who apparently is crazy. And, seeing as he is avoiding seeing her, that is somehow deemed as being proof of his craziness rather than an intelligent precaution against spending any time with this bunch of crazy drunkards. Although it could have something to do with his personal assistant being murdered as well.

Hmm, not pleasant. What to do, what to do? Well, that's easily answered! Break open the whiskey! Seriously, cirrhosis of the liver must have been a major problem in the US during this time period.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

1 star

Ugh. I did not like this one. It seems like it would be enjoyable enough although a little bit too much with the chest pounding 'Me Tarzan, you Jane' type nonsense, but what actually comes through is so much worse. The sexism of the book is nothing compared with the racism and the eye popping stupidity of the plot. One might be forgiven without the presence of the other, but when a book is both cringe worthy in terms of its execrable views on bloody purity and just cringe worthy in pure fact it makes me want to shove it down the loo and push 'flush'.

Firstly we have Tarzan, the son and heir of not only the Greystoke title and fortune but, far more importantly, the inherent dignity, intelligence and nobility of mind which shines through at all critical moments regardless of upbringing. Tarzan, son of a line of such noble white ancestry cannot but help being superlative in mind and body. And, once he comes into contact with the lovely white Jane Porter, his courtesy and charm of manner spontaneously erupts.

Up until the point of seeing her and her companions, his only previous dealings with men had been the ugly and bestial blacks which revolted him. But, as soon as he clapped eyes on white people he knew that they were his own race.

He can't communicate particularly well with them even though he taught himself to read and write through some books he found (and seriously don't even get me started with just how ridiculously stupid you have to be to even consider it remotely feasible to think that someone would be able to do such a thing) but he can protect them from the jungle which has a lion to prey ratio of about 100 meters.

The white people (and one black servant) are totally incapable of looking after themselves. Jane Porter and her suitor are the only ones with anything resembling an IQ. Jane's father and his assistant are so wrapped up in their intellectual discussions that they seem totally oblivious to the world around them. Even to the point of disregarding a lion stalking them. And, I swear, if I had to live with a man like the Professor who said 'Tut, Tut' every five seconds I would brain him with the nearest heavy object.

Jane's servant is fat, histrionic and she faints every time anything dangerous occurs. Which in that place is every five minutes. Fortunately Tarzan is there to save the day, which he does because he fancies the pants off of Jane.

I will not be following up with the rest of the series...

love your review of Tarzan Minks! :)
and have now moved Owen Meaney up the list after reading your review, sounds interesting

Thanks - it's often the ones we dislike which bring out the stronger emotions from us :-)

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

4 stars

The cover said a lot about this book - it was a group of ladies decorously sewing while a man hangs around in the background.

This novel by Elizabeth Gaskell wasn't the book I was expecting. For starters there was a lack of an overriding plot; instead it was a series of vignettes being relayed to us through the narrator. The narrator had a very effacing personality (unlike many of the ladies of Cranford) and wasn't even a permanent resident of the town, she just visited various friends from time to time and caught up on all of the gossip which filled the rather empty lives of the genteelly impoverished women. In fact I think her name was Mary Smith and you really can't get a blander name than that (huge apologies to any Mary Smiths who might read this!).

Once I had realised that I shouldn't be looking for a standard book structure (which took a while) I settled happily down to revel in the little dramas which made up their little lives and all of the important points of social niceties. Ms Gaskell has quite a wicked sense of humour and she laughed a great deal at this group of fussy older ladies even as she dealt sympathetically with all of their genuine griefs and sorrows - of which there were many. In spite of all of their ridiculousness there was a dignity in their restricted lives which could touch my heart a bare minute after I had laughed at some silly little hypocrisy that was indulged in.

I really enjoyed this book but I attach this caveat to potential readers; be aware of what you are getting into. This is not an action story. There isn't even really much of a point to it. It just shows a section of society at a certain point in time; something I found highly interesting but I think this would only appeal to a certain type of reader.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

4 stars

How many times have I read Jane Austen's books? Oh, far more than I can remember...

So, here is a review for Northanger Abbey after, perhaps, my 10th read?

I love it. She's great. Go read it.

Oh alright!

So Northanger Abbey isn't actually my favourite of her books but it's still fantastic. Catherine, the young heroine, is a kind hearted and naive girl who goes to Bath with some family friends for a spell of pleasure seeking. Being fanciful and yearning for romance she throws herself into reading some Gothic novels that a new friend supplies her with (of The Mysteries of Udolpho variety) and begins to see mysteries and horrors in the staid everyday life of Regency England. Fortunately she makes some other new friends whose sense and propriety can gently steer her back towards common sense when her imagination begins to get a little out of hand.

I have always liked Catherine; she may have been a little silly but she was very sheltered and very young. At her core she had a true sense of what was proper behavior once she started listening to her head a little more and a loving heart. I'm glad Jane Austen always writes happy books so she would get her happy ending :-)

I am ashamed to say that only Austen I read before (20 years ago) was Emma and I remember not liking it much. I am now trying to rectify that this year. I started with Sense and Sensibility and am now into Pride and Prejudice and really liking both. I will re-read Emma soon and see if my mind changes.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

2 1/2 stars

A gothic tale - sort of. Nathaniel Hawthorne is as bad as Henry James (or rather the other way around since he was writing first) in letting a flow of words and descriptions get between the book and the plot. And, subsequently, the actual reader.

It started out well; an ugly neglected old woman living 'alone' in a ramshackle house and lovingly kissing a photo of some (we presume) dead lover. An innocent maiden enters the picture bringing with her some light and happiness all ready to be a lamb to the slaughter in sacrifice to some unspeakable horror.

We hear a little more about the unspeakable horror, meet the guy in the photograph (what? not dead!?) and then we get a long discourse on the day to day running of a cheap little shop. Where's the horror? Where's this curse? Who cares about some stale old gingerbread and the greedy little oink who can't stop eating them!

Nathaniel Hawthorne is good at writing interesting characters but not so good at keeping us entertained in a tightly scripted narrative. At one point I thought I must be mistaken about the genre, but no, he did eventually get back on track, it just took forever. Well, half the book...

So my final verdict is 'both interesting and dull'. If this had been cut down to about half its length it would have made a very readable novella. As it is it just drags on too long.

Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

3 1/2 stars

Continuing my 4 book run of works set prior to the 1900s Bel-Ami nicely rounds them out. It's French novel and features a completely amoral male protagonist who seems to have the 'Lynx Effect' on any woman he comes across. Never mind that he's greedy, sulky and ungrateful, once he has them in his clutches they lose all sense of dignity along with their knickers.

George Duroy (Bel-Ami) is an ex solider who is eking out a hand to mouth existence and fairly much starving on the streets of Paris. He most fortuitously runs into a old friend from his army days who gives him an entre into the world of journalism and, with some help, Bel-Ami learns how to both make and damage a reputation and how to make use of the wives of influential men. It's well written, just a touch salacious and, given when it was set, it feels very modern in outlook.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Not a 1001 list book)

2 1/2 stars

This is not a 1001 book but as it's the book before Home and sets that one up it's part of my personal 1001 reading list in so far as it should provide a greater understanding of Home than if I just read that one on its own.

I would very much have liked to have given this a higher rating and I want to stress that this 2 1/2 stars reflects my personal tastes rather than the worth of the novel. I am in full agreement with those 4 and 5 star ratings among my Goodread friends and with the Pulitzer Prize that it was awarded; it is definitely deserving of both. It's just that a rating must reflect not only your appreciation of the book but also, surely, your personal enjoyment of it and unfortunately I'm just not a spiritual navel gazer. I liked the Faulkner like descriptions of small town poverty (Faulkner like in what it portrays rather than how it is portrayed) and the great love of both individuals and general humanity but I found the constant introspection and ruminations on God and the spiritual to be too tedious to allow for proper enjoyment.

So, this just wasn't my cup of tea but as I often think I'm about as spiritual as a brick and have very little patience for philosophical meanderings that never get anywhere tangibly productive, I am not the target audience.

>442 M1nks: Are you also going to read Lila? Although the third written, chronologically it takes place before Gilead & Home and, in my opinion, has the most interesting narrator.

I probablywill if I think it will add to the richness of the actual 1001 book?