July 2016: What 1001 Books are you Reading?

The year is half over! What 1001 books are you reading this month?

After many interruptions, I am going to finish The Guermantes Way and pick up The Captive and the Fugitive. This is my month for long reads -- I am also planning on reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

LOL, good luck with all that! But if anyone can do that, you can!

I'm coming to the end of the very entertaining The Last Chronicle of Barset and have just started The Art of Fielding which seems it will also be a good read. Justine on the other hand, will take some discipline to finish I fear....

The Captive was my favorite of the series... I hope you enjoy it too, Eliz_M.

I have The Cement Garden coming up next.

I have The Cement Garden coming up next.

That one is a barrel of laughs... :-)

Having just completed the rather painful Thais, I'm planning to participate in the group read of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

I'm sipping at The Once and Future King which I really am enjoying, but it's a chunk of a book. And I have too many other non-list books stealing my attention.

I am very slowly starting in Ulysses and will join the Group read in a couple of days, after finishing a non-list book.

Always Clarissa. But I'm also nearing the end of The Well of Loneliness, which I am finding just an amazing book.

At the moment I'm listening to In a Glass Darkly and reading Silk (which is very short so will only take an hour or so) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which, although quite short, is very intense so I can only handle it in spaced out sections.

After that I want to read Brideshead Revisited because I took it out from the Library and I Capture the Castle and Cain because I have the audio books.

I am also planning to listen to Barchester Towers as I am working my way through the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, even though only the last book in the series is one of the 1001 list books.

>10 M1nks: What do you think of the Chronicles of Barsetshire? It looks like a huge project just to get one book off the list but I also hear many people love Trollope. I haven't read anything by him yet.

I read The small House at Allington years ago and liked but not loved it (I think that was #5 in the series) and I had similar feelings about The Warden which I've only read recently. I think Trollope will become a staple favourite; I like period books and he writes well but doesn't have the humour of Dickens.

I read a lot and much of it is off list so reading 4 or 5 extra books isn't an issue especially if it means I appreciate the final (list) book even more with all of the background attachment to the history of the series.

>11 Simone2: Like M1nks I'm making my way through the Chronicles before getting to the The Last Chronicle of Barset. I generally enjoy wordy Victorian novels and so far The Warden and Barchester Towers have been wordy, Victorian and enjoyable.

I realised that I hadn't posted my review for The Warden which contains comments on Anthony Trollope's writing style. I've now posted it - I'm not sure how I came to miss doing it :-)

I am still plodding along with Our Mutual Friend and The Invisible Man but I'm hoping to find a book on the list about Spain or written by spanish authors as we are travelling there in a few months. Does anyone know of any on the 1001 list other than The Conquest of New Spain?

I read La Regenta last year. Mixed feelings - I felt a little lost, probably because I haven't read much Spanish literature, but I think I appreciate it more from a distance.

There's always Don Quixote!!

This might help a bit: https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/970-boxall-s-1001-books-you-must-read-...

Next up for me will be One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which may or may not be re-read, and Couples, Passerby.

I am reading the Group Read and will start Blaming because of someones review here, which made me very enthusiastic.

thanks for the recommendations japaul22 & the link M1nks, gives me a great list to get started on!

I was the same with Cold Comfort Farm. I just couldn't remember if I'd actually read it or just watched the movie several times.

Turns out I hadn't read it.

Finished Emile, or On Education at the 11th June hour; got done with Castle of Otranto real quick; diving next into The Vicar of Wakefield; hope to be done with that before the month is out, so I can start Tristram Shandy before August.

I decided against The Mandarins because I needed something that was in no way framed by World War II -- which knocks out an incredible number of 1001ers, in fact. Even though I am writing a WWII novel myself, it gets a little wearying. Instead I am reading Memory of Fire: Genesis. I now realize that this book is actually 3 volumes long! This will help me in my slow-down resolution.

>22 MartinBodek: how was Emile? I read it so long ago I don't remember. I am now reading Rousseau's Confessions. In spite of the fact that he wrote Emile and other things about education, this man forced his wife to abandon all 5 of their babies to the orphanage because he thought they (the babies) would be better off that way. Seriously.

Anna, this was my review of Emile:

"Quite an interesting and attention-getting format. Not so interesting: the myopic, elitist, arrogant, overall opinion of human perfection. The author seems to be raising a Bear Grylls, not an Albert Einstein, and he has quite the opinion about the inevitable inner nature of a man who is brought up according to his restrictive rules.

The chapter about the perfect female is hilariously retrograde, and calls to mind the most offensive Talmudic opinions of woman, and particularly calls to mind the many gender biases and offenses of Avigdor Miller. I could only laugh.

It took a month to read the book because the good nuggets required reflection, while the bad ones required me to take notes for a future stand-up routine.

This book is quite separate from reality."

>23 annamorphic: can you tell us more about the novel you are writing? Is it fiction?

>25 MartinBodek: fantastic review!!

>26 Simone2: It's a young adult time-travel novel in which 5 modern Jewish girls named Cassandra find themselves in London in 1938: they know the future but nobody would believe them. It will be a 3-part series.

>27 annamorphic: Interesting concept. Promising. When will it be published? Sounds just like something my almost young adults should read! And me of course!

>27 annamorphic: Wow!

I'm listening to H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man while I drive. Great vacation fare for listening while driving unfamiliar roads.

I finished off Treasure Island very quickly at the beginning of the month. I have Arabian Nights ongoing, but I'm in the middle of some non-list reading and not sure if I'll finish anything else off this month.

Forgot to mention that on audio I'm still listening to Rousseau's Confessions. Always a weird book, it has now degenerated into his incredibly detailed accounts of how all his friends conspire against him. Not sure I'll actually make it to the end. There is only so much 18th century paranoia that I can stand.

I've started Cannery Row. What an amazing first paragraph! This is the last Steinbeck on the list for me, but he's one of those list authors that I plan to read more of.

Just started reading The Garden of the Finzi-Continis for this month's read.

I finished The Well of Loneliness and have started Fingersmith, so I guess there's an unintentional theme there.

I started Neuromancer and so far haven't got a clue what it's about. I'll struggle on for a while because of the four stars it gains here on LT.

I think that one might be a bit peculiar. It's labelled as sci-fi/cyberpunk which isn't a standard genre right off.

I have an audio copy which I'm waiting to be in the right mood for before starting.

>35 Simone2: I think it might be one of those books that is rated highly for historical reasons, rather than writing. It was a pioneering book that defined cyberpunk and coined the word "cyberspace".

In structure it is a hardboiled detective novel, but its merits are on the world, style, ambience and language: latter of course will be a challenge especially if you are not reading in your own language, Gibson creates his own jargon, and of course if you don't fall in the world, reading the book is a huge struggle.
Historical reasons and the influence it had on later scifi and popular culture of course play a role but it has its own merits too (and I'm saying this as someone who wasn't even that big a fan...)

I've started the largest single volume on my bookshelf - the 1,184 pages of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Hope it's worth a couple of weeks of reading investment.

OK, there is a copy of The Devil to Pay in the Backlands for sale on ebay for $195, which is $100 less than the usual asking price. Do I go crazy and buy it? Feed my family on bread and water for the month of August? I just got a raise! I can do something crazy! It's such a great book.

>40 annamorphic: Just got a raise? I'm happy to be an enabler! Do it!!

>40 annamorphic: Carpe Diem! Just do it!

I did it! There were already four people "watching" the item so I knew I didn't have a lot of time to ponder. Thanks for pushing me over the edge...er....

>43 annamorphic: Ha! Congratulations!

>43 annamorphic: Woot!

I'm currently listening to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It probably wasn't the best book for me to choose for audio, since only towards the end am I understanding the family relationships. Not to mention the Spanglish/Spanish phrases dripping throughout. I know just enough Spanish to be able to puzzle out written sentences - but I don't have the ear for it.

Still the more I listen, the more I like it.

>43 annamorphic: Yay!

I'm trying to get in to The Ambassadors by Henry James. It's always a challenge to give in to his convoluted writing style.

>43 annamorphic: Wow! Lucky you! How happy you must have felt afterwards!

>47 Simone2: shell-shocked is more like it, but I don't think I'll regret it. I've never spent even half that much on a book that I couldn't get reimbursed for, but it is one of the most extraordinary 1001-ers I've read; there is a kind of cult around it, too.
It really needs to be reprinted.

>48 annamorphic: Really, some cult around it? I have a cheap Dutch translation and haven't read it yet. I do remember your review, that's probably why I bought it. Now I feel that it must be really special and that I'll have to read it one day soon!

I picked up a copy of Blonde at a library sale yesterday and it may be my favorite Oates yet. I don't have a positive history with Oates, so I'm not sure that says much...