Monkey's 2017 TBR Nook

The 2017 list has arrived! :D


(11) 1. Petersburg Tales - Nikolai Gogol 26.5.2017
(05) 2. All quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque 27.4.2017
(07) 3. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 14.5.2017
4. Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
5. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (finished 24.1.2018)
(17) 6. Notes from the Underground and The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky 20.12.2017
7. The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens
(13) 8. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 30.5.2017
(04) 9. Chapel Road - Louis Paul Boon 21.1.2017
(01) 10. Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins 6.1.2017
(14) 11. Walking with the Wind - John Lewis 12.6.2017
(18) 12. In Their Father's Country - Anne-Marie Drosso 22.12.2017

13. The First Circle - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(16) 14. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight - Vladimir Nabokov 16.7.2017
15. The Metamorphoses - Ovid
(02) 16. Mary Poppins - PL Travers 6.1.2017
(10) 17. The Instructions - Adam Levin 25.5.2017
18. I May Not Get There With You - Michael Eric Dyson (finished 4.1.2018)
(15) 19. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts 18.6.2017
(03) 20. In the Pirate's Den - Jorge Masetti 8.1.2017
(12) 21. A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain 29.5.2017
(09) 22. A Gun for Sale - Graham Greene 21.5.2017
(08) 23. In a Glass Darkly - Sheridan le Fanu 20.5.2017
(06) 24. Anthem - Ayn Rand 10.5.2017

Progress: 18.6/24

So, the vertical ones in front of The Instructions (the big red one) were already moved in here. But starting with that one, was what I went to pull out of the shelves. So, that, MLK, John Lewis, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Solzhenitsyn, Shantaram, Dickens... you see where I wound up busting out laughing as I pulled titles out from the shelves realizing what I'd done to myself! LOL. I don't think any of that will compare to the four volumes of Journey to the West, though, hahahaha. I guess it's good I'm getting all 24 done this year (not much left to go on Nabokov!), because fat chance for 2017! xD

Oh my!! You really did present yourself with quite the challenge for next year. Some of those books should almost count as 2 or 3 books. lol. At the very least, you could read and use them for some bicep curls as well.

You have a couple on here that I've read and liked - Anna Karenina and Pride and Prejudice.

Wow! Some door stoppers in there. I remember loving Don Quixote and Mary Poppins when I read them way back when. I have Connecticut Yankee in my TBR stacks somewhere, though not on this years list. I'm definitely curious to hear your thoughts on it.

>3 LittleTaiko: Hahaha! The Instructions and Shantaram I expect I'll get through pretty quick, they're just modern genre fic stuff, so they look all intimidating but should be fine. But the multiple giant classics, probably won't be such quick reading, plus the two civil rights bios, and Solzhenitsyn... And then who knows about the Rand, it's not huge but I'm a bit scared of what I'll think LOL it might wind up taking forever. I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged years ago, and liked some things about them and disliked others. And now I know a lot more, of her, and life, and...yeeeah. Lol.

I expect I'll quite like P&P, I read my first Austen this year and thought it was great, and I read P&P&Zombies back like 6 yrs ago which is what made me think I might actually enjoy Austen; prior to that I'd had the idea of her writing "romance" and equating it with the more modern idea of it and not as the literary fic it actually is, so she'd been on my list of get-to-someday just because, but I wasn't looking forward to it. But now I imagine I will probably read most/all of the 6 left in the collection in 2017, as I wound up doing with the Brontës this year. :))

>4 Narilka: My husband read Connecticut Yankee and liked it, so I'm expecting reasonably good things, lol.

You do have some wonderful books on your list. I think the four volume set could count as 4 titles. I loved Anna Karenina and Don Quixote and Pride and Prejudice. I've read Anthem, but I can't really recall what I thought of it at the time. I have Atlas Shrugged on my shelf, but I'm not ready to read it yet. I didn't really care for The Fountainhead.

Nah, others might do that, and of course I would totally support that choice lol but for me, it's just one title so it counts as one. We shall see how it goes! xD

I was 17 when I read The Fountainhead so, I don't recall very much. I know I disliked certain particulars but the overall story I had thought was pretty decent. I don't know that I really paid much attention at all to her ...politics, that stuff probably just went over my head - as something I had zero interest in, plus I'd have just figured it was for the story. When I read Atlas Shrugged I was in my early 20s, so it was impossible to miss the politics (plus that damn radio speech, urgh). Again, I found the story pretty interesting, and I agreed with some things she said, but even then, she took things to such extremes; it does get frustrating. But I did think the story premise was interesting and worth reading, you just need to try to think of it as a story and not as a...life manual? LOL. The only really big downside was the radio speech that happens like, 2/3rds? into the already-long book, where, you know, she's using the story as a way to illustrate her ideas, but then she goes and has this speech happen, like two hundred pages of "summing up" the book's point, minus the story! It drove me nuts. But if you're not a glutton for punishment like I am, you could easily just skim/skip that bit and get on with the story, lol.
Anyhow. Next year, if I manage to finish Anthem this year anyway, I will have We the Living for the list and then I will be done with Rand forever! ...Unless I feel like revisiting either of the two tomes at some point, just to see them from a more experienced adult perspective, lol.

Ah, I've been waiting for this list! I've read six of these, that's a pretty good chunk (Remarque, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen, Rand). Twain strikes me as always good but I haven't read that particular one. Gogol is a Russian I'm not aquainted with yet.

I haven't read Mary Poppins, but I've read about it. She edited the chapter "Bad Tuesday" to be more politically correct in 1981. If you've an earlier edition you'll get the off-colour visits to various peoples around the world. After 1981, they all became animal representatives instead.

>7 .Monkey.:, Anthem does push her agenda but it's by far the easiest Rand to read, you'll have it done in a day. From a literary perspective, We the Living might be her best one.

Oh good, I'm glad to hear both of them shouldn't be too bad. Of course I expect anything she writes to push her stuff, that's just who she was, haha, but there's degrees! I don't think I could force myself through anything like that radio speech again! XD

Aww, this is a new print (actually of a box set of the first three), now I'm curious what she removed! If I come across any old 2ndhand copy I will have to get it, lol.

Oooh six, that's a bunch! I read Gogol's Dead Souls several years ago, it was pretty good, though I didn't quite grasp all the humor that I know was in there, lol. I'm expecting good things. From all my Russians! Which is apparently a mini-theme in my list lmao.

Wow what a super challenging and chunksters to boot! I own Shantaram but not next year. Anna Karenina great book! Lots of joy ahead of you, good luck with your challenge!

I have probably had Shantaram around a decade now, it is time! Hahaha. Thanks :)

Finally had a look at your picture (I have to use another location to get around that firewall, grr), your copy of The Old Curiosity Shop is exactly the same one that I read. I try to get Dickens editions with the fun classic illustrations in them, that one has them. Struck out with Dombey and Son this year, unfortunately.

501 has had me look into Marco Polo and Ibn Battutah but I don't know this Wu Cheng'en fellow, sounds like it's along similar lines?

Edit: looked it up now and nope, not really, lol

*ponders* I think Curiosity Shop was one passed to me by an LTer, along with Christmas Carol (that one I'm sure of! lol), they'd acquired newer copies and wanted rid of the tattier ones, so I volunteered as receptacle :P

Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of the Chinese! You hadn't heard of it? For shaaaame! Now go right this minute and watch the crazy The Monkey King (aka The Lost Empire) with Thomas Gibson & Russell Wong made by NBC/SciFi so you, too, can be puzzled by what's going on onscreen and utterly intrigued by the story! XD

I've read and liked Bridge of Birds, which begins to sound as though it was inspired by the tone of Journey to the West. You've got me googling the other three great novels, sounds interesting.

Sounds interesting yourself, now I'm curious about that one! xP

Wow, intimidating list. I've read two of the titles on it: All Quiet on the Western Front and Anthem. All Quiet I remember liking, but I was 13 or 14 when I read it and would probably look at it completely differently now. >8 Cecrow: is right about Anthem - it's a pretty quick read. I couldn't handle Atlas Shrugged - got about 100 pp. into it and gave up.

I did a really crappy job of keeping up with your progress last year; I'll try to do better this year.

Finally - good luck and happy reading! :D

Haha no worries, I tend to fade in & out a bit myself! :)

That looks intimidating. Wishing you lots of persistence and joy during this year's challenge!

First two books completed! Another Roadside Attraction I finished late this afternoon. Excellent, as always. At first I was a little worried, it was a little slow to get into and I was wondering if I hadn't messed up, (accidentally) "saving" his first book for last (I read them in the order I randomly happened to acquire them). But then once I got into it I thought back and realized, that's actually normal, it usually takes a little time to warm up to whatever particular oddities are to be found inside. xP So yes, very happy there.

And then I read Mary Poppins after dinner. Being a children's book I knew it would naturally be quick, but I wasn't expecting to have it done in like 2 hrs hahahaha. But that's okay, I was slow my first few days with the Robbins, now I'm all caught up! ;P Anyhow, enjoyable series of snippets of life with Mary, but goodness I had no idea she was such a huge snoot! I do want to rush off and read the other two I have now though LOL but I will wait, they will be there waiting to help boost my annual numbers later on when the big stuff slogs me down, lmao.

I can't decide now if I should go with Louis Paul Boon, or the Cuba one... *ponders*

Two down, twenty-two to go!

>19 .Monkey.: Nice going!

Great start! I remember reading all the Mary Poppins books to my girls when they were young. I really enjoyed them, too.

And there's 3 done! Finished In the Pirate's Den: My Life as a Secret Agent for Castro last night. Not tons of detail about any one particular thing, but it was certainly interesting and gave a nice sort of overview of what that kind of life was like and how things were in Latin America in the 70s/80s. Masetti followed in the footsteps of his father (who fought with Castro and Che before being killed in the mountains when Masetti was a boy), and spent the bulk of his life as a compañero, a revolutionary: fighting with guerrillas in various countries, helping to plan or carry out various money-making schemes (including kidnap for ransom and bank robberies) so they could buy the needed weapons and food and anything else, working with Cuban Intelligence behind the scenes, and so forth. In the end, his father-in-law (one of the high-ranking Intelligence men), who he was very close to, was killed by Castro in a sham trial (FIL's twin was put in jail for 30 years; no one could ever say Castro wasn't viciously smart, the whole point was they, and Ochoa, were good intelligent men who were seeing things in their real light and would likely have become a threat to him at some point, though they were all currently still faithful & loyal, hence, the right time to dispose of them and belittle their contributions to the country. So two were murdered and one was "saved" as a show of Castro's leniency) and it forced him to look back at everything and see the reality of it all. He and his wife managed to make it out safely to Spain a year later, since he was actually Argentinean not Cuban. One hell of a wake up call, though. :( Definitely recommended as a sort of intro to the Latin American revolutions, for anyone interested in that area of history.

>19 .Monkey.:, you might like the movie "Saving Mr. Banks", where Travers and Disney butt heads over the movie version. They definitely did not have the same vision of the character, as you have now discovered.

Geez, you are quite the reading machine this year! Way to knock three off the list so quickly.

I think the word you are looking for is "overachiever" ;)

>23 .Monkey.: That is one heck of a story. I can't imagine living through something like that.

>24 Cecrow: Ohh interesting! Though I have to say, I don't think a movie version where she's a conceited ass to everyone would have gone over very well, LOL. There's some things that just work better in books. xD

>25 LittleTaiko: / >26 Narilka: Hahaha well these have been shorter, well two of the three anyway. Don't worry, once I get into the tomes I'll slow waaaaay down! XD

>26 Narilka: Yeah, it's nuts. Like he really chose the life, he didn't know what to do with himself when he wasn't involved in the fight, but, man. I mean, part of the reason was surely due to the loss of his father and why his father was gone, he (somewhat naturally, given the circumstances) rebelled quite a bit as a child and never felt like he belonged, so once he fell in with the revolutionary crowd he finally "fit in" somewhere and, like many of his fellow compañeros, continued to cling to that ...until his brutal awakening. From what he wrote, it seems like there was only one period where he was really involved in direct guerrilla fighting (in Nicaragua with the Sandanistas), the rest of the time he was at risk due to what he was doing but wasn't in the direct line of fire, but even still, he was incredibly lucky - most of his friends & fellow fighters were killed in action or in retaliation after carrying out operations. Plus the fact that he never got arrested either, with all his illegal activities and fake passports for traveling over various borders all the time and everything.

>27 .Monkey.:, In fact that almost describes Travers as she's portrayed in "Saving Mr Banks". As this story has it, Disney at last finds an angle that makes his many other changes at least palatable to Travers. It's a moving reason, actually, but I'm not sure how true it is.

Re Pirate's Den, does Che Guevara ever enter into the story?

Only nominally. Masetti never met him, he was too young. There's a few photos in the middle though, one of his father with Castro and one of his father with Che. When he died off in the mountains, he was actually leading a group of guerrillas that were meant to be the start of a thing that Che would then come join up with & take over once it had made some progress. Though Masetti said looking back he can see that clearly the action was never going to be successful and his father pretty much just got sent out there to die. :/
So yeah, he's just referenced here and there, in regards to the father or the revolution there or such, but not as someone actually in the stuff going on.

Congratulations! You're doing great! :D

Keep knocking 'em down!

What an excellent list! I went easy this year as it is going to be a very hectic year. And three done already! Walking with the Wind is on my TBR, but didn't make the list this year. I also want to check out the non-fiction graphic novel trilogy, The March, that John Lewis has published recently.

John Lewis (and Walking with the Wind) in the news:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/15/rep-john-lewiss-books-...

Oops, once again I've gone LT-negligent.
I forgot to post that I finished Chapel Road back in Jan - really enjoyed it and was sad when I no longer could check in on what the people of Ter-Muren were up to. The format was very original and it's considered his masterpiece, as he weaves in Ondineke's story mixed with the sort of postmodern narrative of him and his friends discussing how the story ought to go, also interwoven with a retelling/reworking of the classic story of Reynard the Fox. It's quite unique and interesting on all counts and I'm a fan.

Then I spent the last two mos not doing much reading at all, so I am woefully behind. But I have started on Don Quixote now, and I may mix that up with something shorter & quicker to try and make back up some lost time a little. ;P

I've been dragging my heels this year too, but consistent with my "be more relaxed about my reading" vow. It's great to knock off a list, but not if you gotta stress about it and rush some stuff that's better taken in slowly.

Yep yep, I mean if I don't get to stuff it's all good, but I do want to read the things I picked, mostly sooner than later, so I do hope to make at least reasonable strides with it by the time the year's up! :P

I read All quiet on the Western Front on the 27th, had ~4hrs to kill in trains and finished about 80% of it then, would've been more if I didn't stop for food breaks and such. :P Anyway, really excellent book, can certainly see why it has been the war book for so long. It seems to me it's just about the closest glimpse you could get to what it was like being in the awful situation of trench warfare, particularly as a child who has no idea why they are even fighting and watching all their friends die/fall apart around them. The bit where he had leave and visited home was particularly heartbreaking as well.

I'm slowly making my way through Don Quixote, which is not quite what I had expected (though I don't really know what I expected but this was apparently not it lol), but it is growing on me the more I read. Even though I want to slap Quixote silly lmao.

I'm thinking I will pick another of my shorter titles to read soon also, make up a bit more time while I wade through this one. :P

All Quiet was a book we studied in high school, and one of the many I was glad to be "made" to read. Last year when I read The Wars I was thinking of it again and still believe Remarque's the crowning achievement, as you say.

I don't well remember Don Quixote front to back, but there's a few stand-out scenes that remain fresh in memory. Those scenes probably differ for everybody, so it makes for an interesting book to talk about.

Haha, I can imagine, since it seems to be comprised of just many small moments. Though I do wonder why the windmill thing is what got famous, like, is it just because it's at the beginning and more people read that little of it, or what?? Because, that was probably the shortest "event" that has happened, and yeah, it's goofy, but... it was barely even a thing!

I think my favorite stuff as yet all involves Sancho lol, like his being "blanketed" and the stuff about the basin/crown where he's finally all flustered and pretty much tells Quixote he's nuts lmao.

I was taken at the time by an early bit where a young man is heartbroken and all his friends decry the cruelty of the woman who ignores his pining. Then she comes into the scene and gives a speech to the effect of "I'm not your property and owe you nothing" that shames the whole bunch of them. Even poor mad Quixote is like "Yeah, she's right, let's pack it in guys", lol. I'm sure that must have been a commentary on typical romances of the period.

There's a later bit involving lions you may not have gotten to yet ... Ha! I should dig out my copy and read that part again.

Our local Shakespeare group is actually doing a production of Don Quixote this summer which my book club group will be attending. Pretty sure the Shakespeare people have gotten tired of nothing but Shakespeare as they've also done Cyrano de Bergerac and Tartuffe among others in prior years. Both of your comments have me really interested in seeing the show now.

>39 .Monkey.: I really did like the windmill part, but I think you are on to something about it being at the beginning of the book and so the part everyone read. I felt the same way about Proust and the madeleines. I am on a low carb diet, but I came across some madeleines at the grocery store and could not resist trying them simply because they were made famous in that book (plus, of course, the movie The Transporter).

The windmill is a handy iconic symbol. And it gave rise to the "tilting at windmills" expression.

>42 billiejean:, reminds me of when I was eager to sample Turkish Delight after Edmund asks for it in Narnia. I decided the kid has poor taste in sweets.

I know I've read Don Quixote before but it's been so long that I don't remember anything but windmills. I think it may be more that I remember the symbolism like >43 Cecrow: mentioned more than the story itself though.

I'm happy to report that the madeleines were delicious. So I can't buy those anymore.

>40 Cecrow: Heh yeah, that part was well done. Almost feminist, except she went on a bit much about the whole chaste/pure thing lol but otherwise very impressive speech!
Hah, I just read the lion bit last night. :P

>41 LittleTaiko: Oh you should, I'm sure it would be tons of fun!

>42 billiejean: I mean, it was funny that he saw them that way but, it was literally like "Look, there are some giants, I must slay them!" "No señor, those are just windmills" "No those are giants there must be an enchantment preventing you seeing!" *goes and attacks, gets knocked down by windmill, hence getting a bit battered* The end. It's legit like a short paragraph. Plenty of other things are far longer/more noteworthy! So I was really confused when I got to it and was like, oh windmills, the famous scene! followed by ...wait what that's it?!? heh.

>43 Cecrow: LOL I'd already seen stuff about it and have no desire to eat any! I did just have a candy from the excellent Turkish restaurant by our old apt the other day, the guy gave it with my husband's "Turkish apple tea," the wrapper said "Turkish Delight" on it but it was lemon flavor, and basically just a not-so-strongly lemon flavored gummy-like candy. That was alright. I guess if they do other fruit kind of flavors and it's like that, those could be okay. But the main kind I see talked about looks total eew. Hahaha

>44 Narilka: There's so many better parts! Like the whole situation that takes up at least the last 1/3rd if not more of the first book, with the two couples and their tragic love tales. That was when I really started getting into the book, that whole thing was far more interesting then a nutty dude stopping & attacking nearly all the people he encountered due to delusions lmao.

>45 billiejean: Hahaha! They were made famous by Proust? I had no idea, lol. I'm actually not sure if I've ever eaten one but they've always seemed to me like they'd be tasty. :P

Finished #6, Anthem. That was suuuuper short, I had no idea. My copy is the 50th anniversary edition, so after the actual story, there is a "facsimile edition" of the original British edition with all her edits made to the American one (because it took so long before it got printed in the US, so she had honed her craft by then), and this takes up more than half the book. I would be curious to see the edits, but a lot of it the words are too blacked out to see what it was that had been crossed out, so I gave it up as futile. So, just a quick hundred pages was all.

I'm not sure what I think of it. It's an interesting story, and I agree with her--to a point. Like, yes, sheeple = bad, have your own mind, etc, BUT (unsurprisingly, I mean this is Rand, duh) she takes it way too far, acting like doing anything that is not 100% beneficial just to you, is something awful and destructive. Eff off, you selfish bitchy lady! Man, she must've been a joy to be around! *shakes head* Anyway, up until the very end it was pretty decent. Glad to have read it, glad to have it knocked out!

Still working on señor Quixote, got about 200p left to go. The first third or so was definitely the worst, but once things started to get moving, more people, more stuff happening, it picked up. Sometimes it gets a little overly silly and makes me groan, but there's a lot of humorous bits. Overall enjoying it. :)

Even when I was devoted to Rand's philosophy in my university days, she didn't make my list of historical people I wish I could have met in person, lol. I think We the Living stands up as her best literary work, since it speaks more to Communist than Objectivist oppression and she had the personal experience to back up what she was writing about.

At least when there's a digression in Quixote, it's an entertaining one. Unlike, say, in Les Mis. ;)

Haha, I thought the Les Mis ones were interesting, though! They just, went on a bit long. xP

#7 is doooone!! Well, it started off a little slow, and he was a little too dumb at times, but overall very enjoyable read, highly amusing. Sancho would be a lot of fun to hang around with, hahahaha. Glad to tick this one off my lists! :D

Awesome. Wow, we agreed on one, lol

Congrats on finishing! Visited my parents this weekend and found out that my dad had just purchased DQ. It's like the universe is conspiring to tell me it's time to read the book.

Hahaha!

Done with #8 - In a Glass Darkly. :D A collection of 3 short stories and two novellas. The short stories were alright, but I didn't love them. The first one I was annoyed because I felt it didn't really have a proper ending, and also it was totally the dude's fault, like I was angry at the character for having behaved in such a way that totally resulted in the ending scenario, LOL. The second & third ones I liked better, but they didn't wow me. But the two novellas were very good. Of course, everyone (I hope!!) knows of Carmilla, one of the main inspirations for Dracula. I have it in its own edition that I read several years ago, but I didn't remember the specifics and especially after watching the web series they made very loosely based on it I was curious for a reread. And then the other one, The Room in Le Dragon Volant, which is not actually supernatural but an intriguing mystery/thriller story, which I think was actually the best of the bunch. I did figure what must be going on, but it made the story no less gripping to read, to find out how it would all actually work out and such.

I think I might go for Greene next, get another short one knocked out, keep my progress moving. ;)

#9 done, woo! Did indeed go with A Gun for Sale, did not disappoint, not that I'm surprised, it's Greene after all. I was worried for a little while that it was going to be a bit much of a downer (Greene is definitely not the most cheerful fellow), but I feel rather satisfied with the ending. A good quick read. :D

I think it's time to delve into a less short one now, I've done pretty well at getting back up to speed. Still gonna hold off on the real slow ones, but I think I will go for either Instructions or Shantaram, I'm guessing that while larger those will be fairly fast-paced and allow me to finish by the time the month is up. Hopefully. :P

>53 LittleTaiko:, at first I read DQ as Dairy Queen, and then I remembered what web site I'm on.

>56 .Monkey.:, awesome, I've got that Greene ahead of me so that makes me more comfortable about it.

He could really weave together some excellent tales, even if the overwhelming emotional vibe tended to be a bit on the dreary side, haha. I always know I can expect great things from his works. :)

I decided to go for Instructions next, and I'm racing through it even faster than imagined. I just started Sunday evening and I'm already not quite halfway done. :D

#10 finished! I really liked that. Which should be apparent given it took me like 3.5 days to read it and it's 1030 pages, hahaha. I am not totally convinced about the ending, I think I'd have rather it been a little different, but, it was good enough.
I will say, as much as I enjoyed it, this is not one of those books I'd suggest just anyone read. I think it will have more appeal for Jews, and I also enjoyed that it was actually from my former area, I knew the schools and roads and things involved. Also, because it's written "by" a junior high kid with tons of jr high kid dialog, meaning full of goofy slang words, and in this case (at least as far as I am aware) fake slang words (which I think is a good choice because the speed with which those words go in & out these days is absurd, so if they were legit ones they'd have already gone out before it even got published, so by making up his own but giving them the right feel, it works very well)... well it can get aggravating if you're not used to that sort of thing, particularly given the length, heh.

In any case, it was different and interesting and I'm glad I finally read it! :D

Next up I think I will go for a Russian, probably Gogol. :)

You are blowing through your list lately :)

Gotta make up for the ~2.5mos I wasn't reading, hahaha.

>59 .Monkey.:, sounds pretty unique. I'd never heard of it before, where did you find out about it? Do you mean it was written expressly for people who already have some familiarity with this location/culture, and not very accessible outside of it, or could it provide some insight?

No no, the location stuff is just that the author is from my area, and the places are real (rather than fictional in a real city). It's an actual school that I've been to (only outside, though) that it all takes place at, other local schools that are mentioned, etc. Always makes things more alive when you actually know them, you know? The book we happened to pick up randomly from the store several years ago, sometime in 2012 I imagine, it caught my eye (that spine is rather hard to miss!) and sounded intriguing from the little of the blurb I looked at. Funny thing is there were just some copies of it at the Boekenfestijn a week ago, lol. The Jewish stuff, it's just that the boy is Jewish and that's the theme surrounding it all, he's a "scholar" who had attended an orthodox school until an incident happened, and it's the prime motivation behind most of what he does. There's plenty of Hebrew/Yiddish words tossed out and such. It's not that those unfamiliar wouldn't be able to read it and make sense of most of it, just it probably wouldn't have the same sort of impact. But it still ought to be an enjoyable story I think, provided one doesn't mind the jr high speech stuff, heh.

#11 done! Petersburg Tales was interesting, I certainly see why The Nose is the famous story, I liked that one best. Oddly amusing. I still need to go through the wiki page reading all the various interpretations, heh. The other three stories were interesting but all ended on sadder notes, though the one at least did get a a humorous little twist at the very end.

Now I am taking a short break to read the book I've had out from the uni library for months >.> (Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner) before getting back to the list. It seems like I will probably finish this one fairly quick, so I think I'll go for another quick read after it to finish this month also (perhaps Twain), and then next month start on either John Lewis or MLK.

Gogol is probably the biggest name in classic Russian lit that I haven't sampled yet. Would that be a good place to start?

Sure! Just 4 stories, pretty fast reads (they're each ~50p), and The Nose is probably his most famous work aside of Dead Souls (which I believe was on my list a few yrs ago :P and is the only other of his I've read, which was interesting and amusing though kind of awkward without having an ending, heh). I did like the other three well enough also, just they weren't exactly cheerful. Sort of Graham Greene-esque like that lol.

And there's #12! Not overly fond of Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court, which follows since I'm not overly fond of Twain. I actually quite like him, I think he'd have been a great guy to know, but his stories just don't do much for me. I enjoy his satire, though, which makes sense as I think I'm pretty in line with his views on the world. Ah well. The writing was of course decent enough, and there were humorous bits, and the ending was pretty decent (though I wish it were happier), so not too bad.

I haven't read much of him besides Tom, Huck and one of his travelogue's I read for the 501 list, A Tramp Abroad; liked all of those.

I saw a movie version of this Yankee story in the 1970s as a kid, entertained me enough at that age, "The Unidentified Flying Oddball". Good luck finding a copy of that one these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_Flying_Oddball

LOL what in the world! It doesn't tell much about it but it does seem like they changed up the plot a bit. Also while the book did have its humorous moments, a lot of it was pretty serious, rather Dickensian, plight of the poor peasants and all that.

#13 Pride and Prejudice is complete! Even more awesome than I was expecting. Super love that. If only "romance" books had stayed in the vein they used to like this, I would have no objection to them. Such brilliant writing!
Anyway since I don't want to start one of the serious ones (John Lewis or MLK it'll be) until the new month rolls around, I think I will continue on to Mansfield Park now. :P

I've not read enough Jane Austen, but I did read that one. It doesn't beat Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre for me, but I agree it was a good one.

I tried watching the movie with Keira Knightley in it, but it was irritating me too much to finish. The actors and scenes were not selling Austen's dialogue.

I'm not sure what to think about Connecticut Yankee now. It's in my TBR pile but sounds a lot more serious than I was expecting. I think it's going further down the list for a bit.

>71 Cecrow: I followed it up with Mansfield Park, and I think I might have liked that one even more. Except it didn't have the great humor of P&P, so that was lacking, but aside of that...

>72 Narilka: Yeah, he was going through rough times like halfway through writing it, and he said himself that he had held off because he didn't want to lose the fun that was in the first part, but eventually he needed to just write and stuff came through anyway. It was good, and certainly not written in such a weighty style as Dickens, but yeah, he was very much feeling his discontent with the oppression of people essentially all through time, and expressing it creatively.

#14 done! Walking in the Wind was incredibly moving and I am ashamed of US history for never having mentioned John Lewis' name. What an amazing man, and what a touching (and horrific), wonderful account of the Civil Rights Movement. I'm always worried with books about such things that they may come off dry, just listing dates and events and such, detached, etc. That was not the cast at all here, I was gripped from the first moment, it was like reading a novel. Except no novel I'm aware of has so much hatred and brutality, and hope and perseverance. Cops (and "possemen") beating pregnant women so bad they miscarried, at least one of whom was 6 months along. Literally bashing skulls in. Intentionally trampling on prone people with horses. Just, sickening. And Lewis is so candid about everything, even though he didn't dwell on the deaths of MLK and the Kennedys, his accounts of them all made me well up. He is so passionate, mainly about wanting to help the country be a better place. I strongly urge everyone to read this.

Not sure what I'll go for next, might break for a little genre fic, might go with Shantaram, we shall see.

>74 .Monkey.:, sounds like another good one, on a great topic. You picked a lot of winners this year.

Yeah I've been very happy with my reading. :D I did decide to go with Shantaram next, or well, I took it down to look at the first page and see how it was and if I thought it'd be what I needed at the moment or if I should go pick out some random thriller or such, and wound up hooked from word one. xP I'm in love with the writing and completely intrigued & absorbed with the plot.
Here, this is how it begins:

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them.

And the crazy part of it, is that this novel is actually mostly real - just like his character he spiraled out of control after being divorced & losing custody of his daughter, and was convicted of a series of robberies supporting his drug use, jailed in a max security prison in Australia, where he escaped over the front wall after 10 yrs - half his term, and then traveled the world, mostly settling in Bombay where he "established a free medical clinic for the slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for the Bombay mafia." The paragraph explaining this is written just before the start of the novel. So basically, this is an incredibly interesting dude, who is pretty damn smart, and clever, and a brilliant writer, who has written this essentially somewhat fictionalized memoir, about the wild ride he had. I'm just 100p in right now but it is amazing.

Wow, what a beginning. You have me hooked as well, and I don't have a copy. Rats!

Right?! I mean I haven't gotten to the end yet clearly lol, but I feel pretty safe in saying this is a super awesome book that is highly recommended! :D

I added Shantaram to my wish list. That sounds pretty amazing.

Annnnd that's #15 done! That was really good. I took a two day break in the middle to read two novels (Mary Poppins Comes Back (and I'll probably read #3 before the year is up too, lol, it annoys me how awfully bitchy & conceited she is, it just feels so wrong! but she's also beloved and magical and somehow endearing, so conflicting! hahaha) and Lansdale's The Nightrunners), break up the intensity a little, but yeah, that was great, and now I need to find the sequel, hahaha.

I think I will first take a little break with the next Austen, and then I will probably go for Dickens, or maybe Dostoevsky. I've also got two library books that'll need reading sometime in the next several weeks.

Keep knocking 'em down!

You seem to like Greene a lot: I'm one-eighth into my first book by him (The power and the glory), and the writing is so much better than I was expecting. Likely not my last by him!

I do indeed; he's one of the ones I include a title from every year, as I slowly make my way through his body of work. :) That was the first I read by him (probably like many, as it's pretty much his most renowned work), I want to reread it because that was when I was maybe 19, so naturally I remember next to nothing of it lol, just that I recognized the writing as being far above the caliber of the thrillers and such I tended to mostly stick to back then. :P

Another author from my challenge that somehow, some way, I have got to fit in.

I've finally started my next one, I've read a few off-list titles and mom's in town for her annual visit so I've not had much time, but I'm now reading my Nabokov and it is of course amazing. There's one bit where he's actually describing describing things (his works often feature characters as authors) and it's just so perfect, like who would think you could make quote-worthy literature about how someone writes?! I don't have the book at hand this moment but I will come quoting later, hahaha.

I mentioned Shantaram to my daughter, and she said that it is a great read. So I put it on my kindle wishlist.

I will be waiting to hear what you think of it! I actually noticed the sequel in the store a few days ago, but it was new in a large chain, so totally overpriced, so I passed. Will get it eventually, though! :P

#16 is done! It is impossible to touch anything of Nabokov's and not be awed.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that in a certain sense, Sebastian's life, though far from being dull, lacked the terrific vigour of his literary style. Every time I open one of his books, I seem to see my father dashing into the room - that special way he had of flinging open the door and immediately pouncing upon a thing he wanted or a creature he loved. My first impression of him is always a breathless one of suddenly soaring up from the floor, one half of my toy train still dangling from my hand and the crystal pendants of the chandelier dangerously near my head. He would bump me down as suddenly as he snatched me up, as suddenly as Sebastian's prose sweeps the reader off his feet, to let him drop with a shock into the gleeful bathos of the next wild paragraph.

I mean, it's like he could be describing himself. Lol.

With something akin to fanatical hate Sebastian Knight was ever hunting out the things which had once been fresh and bright but which were now worn to a thread, dead things among living ones; dead things shamming life, painted and repainted, continuing to be accepted by lazy minds serenely unaware of the fraud.

How can you not be in love with the things this man could do with words? Nope, I will never ever stop being bowled over by Nabokov.
I would suggest Sebastian Knight to anyone curious about his work, as it is short and interesting and easily readable (unlike some of his others that are rather like working through a seriously complex puzzle, hahaha), though I'm sure there's a lot hiding beneath the surface.

>87 .Monkey.:, those are some impressive quotes, for sure.

Status update:
Well I'd started Journey... but the intro is 100p long and it's interesting history/backstory info stuff so I want to read it but, well it literally makes me start yawning when I pick it up LOL. I've gotten through 80p, but it was so slow-going, when the new month started I decided to put it on hold and pick up Dickens instead. That's going well, but it was just the Deventer Boekenmarkt, and I was not about to carry a huge heavy hardback Dickens on the train & all around town for hours while browsing for books, so I took along Nnedi Okorafor's Who fears death (which was amazing btw, READ IT!!), which I just finished a little bit ago, and then finished rearranging books in the "library" to fit all the new ones in. So tonight I will be back with Little Nell, got about 2/3rds left to go. :)

Who Fears Death is getting some kind of television treatment that George R. R. Martin is going to be somewhat involved in.

Ooh really? Nice. It was brilliant, I'm so sad not to "be with" Onyesonwu and Luyu and Mwita anymore!

Well, I made it through p307 of 517 of Old Curiosity Shop, and since that time (a couple weeks back) it's been sitting untouched. I think I am making one of my super rare decisions to quit and call it done. I knew it did not end well, and given how depressing things already had been going... yeah I just do not want to read more about the awful plight of these sad people. So I went on Wiki and spoilered myself so I now have the basics of what else happens, and I'm calling it a day with that. Little Nell can rest easy in my own mind, if nowhere else. ;)

Dickens achieves his height of sentimentality with that one, which makes it sticky. As Oscar Wilde said, "You need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell". One of the subplots I remember ending more happily at least. I was getting really exasperated with Nell's grandfather.

Yeah I was already really irritated with him. Like, he's trying to do it for her and not just being a jerk, but damn man, wise the hell up already! I'm assuming the happier one is about the poor servant girl with the idiot lawyers? I know Wiki mentioned Dick befriended her... and I feel like Kit would probably be too preoccupied about Nell for anything noteworthily happy happening to him, lol. But he was doing well with his new work, so who knows. Anyway, yeah, that one is just not for me. I may finish it some day but, not in the near future anyway. heh.

I'm reading Water Scott's The Monastery now (gotta read those library books before they can't be renewed anymore!), will probably aim for Dostoevsky or Tolstoy once I finish that.

Can't go wrong with the Russian authors. :)

For sure! :D

Here's something for comparing notes with, when you do that "all of King" read you were proposing. Or you can just read through these instead: https://www.tor.com/series/the-great-stephen-king-reread/

Eyyy look who finally knocked another off the list! Lol. Dostoevsky is donnne. These were not my favorites of his, they're good, and I can see, in a way, why Notes... was put on the 1001 list, but eh, his other stuff is better.

I'm gonna see if I can't still knock out at least one more before time is up. :P

WB Monkey! And congrats on finishing Dostoevsky.

Hurrah, a familiar face returns! I've fallen short as well, already shifted the bulk of remainders to 2018.

I'm working on In Their Father's Country right now, I definitely ought to be able to finish this one, at the least, so I can't finalize my 2018 list yet! xP I've been working on it, though. And, clearly, there will be several shuttled along, haha. At least I wiped the slate clean last year, so a few extra this time are just making up for that. XD

Congratulations on finishing the Dostoyevsky.

Looks like you may have to transfer four books to next year's challenge. That's not too bad!

Five! Haha. I ought to finish this current one tomorrow, Saturday at the latest, so there's still technically time to get another in and be down to four, but all the last five are large ones, heh. I will be contemplating either the MLK one or the Solzhenitsyn, but I'm not sure I can get through them in a little over a week's time, so I may go for non-list reads instead, either try and bump up my 1001 titles (I'm only on 16 when I wanted to be at 20+), or just simple genre fic to bump up my total number lol, since I'm currently working on only #53 of the year, which is looowww. :P

In Their Father's Country is done. Very well-written and real (I would recommend it based on that), but sad. Basically a story of two (very different) sisters in Cairo, and their family ...dynamics, let's say. Essentially the course of their struggle through life's battles.

5 left now, and I think I may actually shoot for the MLK and hope for the best! :P

Since it was off this list, and since it was almost done so not carried over, I may as well share my review I posted in CR over here as well. :P

I may not get there with you: the true Martin Luther King, Jr. - Michael Eric Dyson

About 18 years ago, I read The autobiography of Malcolm X. And loved it. And him. It is one of the very very few books I have actually reread, and I continue to love it every bit as much as the first time. Just last year, I read John Lewis' Walking with the wind. And loved it. And him. Between what these two courageous heroic men, who put their lives on the line time and again in their struggle to make their country a better place, mentioned about MLK in their memoirs (which wasn't a great deal), I admit, I had a bit of a distaste for him. Rather than seeing that as a negative, I was actually kind of hoping, on some level, that this book might clear that up; you know, two other big figures in the movement, maybe they had some clouded perception of "the" leader that was somewhat unjust in the bigger picture. I had never read up on MLK himself, he's such a huge figure that "everyone knows about" that I always just avoided it. I knew he was a hugely important and influential figure in civil rights, he had done a ton of good for the country, even giving his life for the cause, what else did I need to know, right? Except, of course, when someone is that huge, it is good to learn the specifics. And, as someone interested in the topic, for various reasons, as well as biographies of important/interesting people in general, it only made sense to read up on him at some point. So I picked up this book along the way.

As it happens, my hope did not prevail. After reading this very comprehensive look at his life, the immense good combined with the immense flaws, I must say, I rather detest the man. Don't get me wrong, of course I have massive respect for what he accomplished and that he sacrificed his life to do so. Despite this, as a man, he was simply awful.

King claimed that the American dream is "a dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed" and "of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few."

There is no doubt at all that Martin Luther King, Jr. was an incredibly intelligent, insightful, charismatic, perceptive man who could see to the heart of things and use his oratorical skill to energize and motivate people into courageous acts, that he was intensely loyal to the movement and in speaking out, whatever the cost, about what he believed was just and moral. There is no doubt at all that he was a most key figure in the Civil Rights Movement due to these things.

However.

According to one friend, King "said that he was willing to fight and die for black people, but he was damned if he could see anything pretty in a black \dark-skinned\ woman."

The movement he became the face/hero of, could never have happened or progressed the way it did, if not for countless unnamed other heroes, who got down in the dirt and actually mobilized the people, going door to door, working beside them in fields, standing beside them in lines to register to vote, etc etc. People who MLK never acknowledged, work that MLK never did. As there is no doubt about his being a key figure and face of the movement, there is also no doubt about his being a vain, chauvinist, sexist, close-minded man. He refused to let his wife have the career she had been working in college towards when they met. He refused to let his wife be part of the Movement (though she had been active in it prior to being with him and always desired to continue being part of it). Why? Because her place was at home. He had countless consistent affairs. He refused to pay much attention at all to the many female unsung heroes of the Movement, those without whom the Movement would never have had a fraction of the impact it did. People like Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Septima Clark, Victoria Gray Adams, Diane Nash, Dorothy Cotton, Mary Church Terrell, and so on. He refused to let any of them in the board of the SCLC as he had no use for women's brains. He refused to give more than the slightest nod to anything they accomplished, even if he went so far as to write entire books about the ordeals (like the Montgomery Bus Boycott) — which he came into completely after the fact! Not only was this sort of behavior utterly petty and disgusting, just imagine how much more could possibly have been done had he actually joined forces with these women! It is a huge loss to the Movement that he refused their knowledge and skills. So yes. MLK the activist was a great force for American civil rights, but MLK the man left a lot to be desired.

Anyway. Opinions on the man aside. The book was a thoroughly enlightening and interesting read. Dyson views King as a hero, "the greatest American in our history", even, but also acknowledges him as a human with flaws. Unlike the very common theme of washing out all the flaws of anyone considered a hero, Dyson feels they are just as important to explore as all the positive feats and aspects, that in order to properly value someone you must see the whole picture. I agree; it only causes harm to act as though human heroes are inhuman and perfect. So Dyson fully explores the entirety of King, the good the bad the ugly, not hiding the warts. I feel like I've learned a ton about him, and I'm really glad I read this, and am now aware of the many specifics of what he did, and didn't, do, and the nuances of his role in history.

In fact, what King said about the John Birchers is true of much of the rabid right: that they "thrive on sneer and smear, on the dissemination of half-truths and outright lies." King concluded that they "are a very dangerous group—and they could become more dangerous if the public doesn't reject the un-American travesty of patriotism that they espouse." King's warning in still apt today.

I have also been motivated (thanks for your chauvinism, MLK, you've inspired me! ;)) and went and ordered Mary Church Terrell's autobiography, a book on the women of SNCC, a book on the "Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970," a biography of Ella Baker, and the book compilation of Iba B Wells' three "meticulously researched" pamphlets of the horrors of lynchings in the south that resulted in her fleeing north. Because, thanks to John Lewis, I was familiar with many women's names and knew some of what they did, as he worked beside many of them, and now thanks to MLK I want to delve deeper into these important women's contributions to history. So, the book was a big win on multiple counts! :)

>105 .Monkey.:, well that's interesting. I've never so much as heard a single speck against his character before. It's sure and certain that nobody is perfect, but that's less perfect than I ever would have anticipated in this case.

For example, I read a good eye-opener for me about his many accomplishments in LIFE: Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr., something I still own, and it's nothing but good reflections on him.

Yeah most of the bios, not just of him but of anyone held in such high esteem as a "hero," usually try to pretend like they were completely flawless. Which is just dumb. They're human, of course they had flaws! And having flaws makes them more relatable, not some giant on a super-high pedestal, but someone everyone can aspire to be like.

I'm surprised you hadn't heard anything at all about the cheating though, the fact that he cheated at all is pretty commonplace info - it's the extent of it that I think most folks don't know. Also, the plagiarism. I didn't mention that part in my review because honestly I don't care about it, his schooling has nothing to do with anything, and when it comes to his speeches he made things his own enough, so whatever. But it's also a less-hidden failing of his. I'm not surprised, though, that LIFE didn't bother to go into that sort of stuff. The mass media likes to make a martyr out of people, and you can't make a good martyred hero out of a man who sins as much as the rest of us! Heh.

Tripped across this old post by you, of the classics you really wished to get around to reading when you posted in 2012. You've made some stupendous progress in the last five years, I'd say. https://www.librarything.com/topic/145254#3720009

>108 Cecrow: Hah, wow, I have indeed!

I have not, however, made much of any progress here this month, hahaha. I had been quite invested in SteamWorld Heist and Pillars of Eternity, lol. But I had my husband pick me up Fanny Burney's Cecilia from the uni library the other day, because I read & really enjoyed Evelina last month, and I started reading it and am having trouble setting it down. But it's like 950p, hahahaha. But yesterday I read from p220-504, so I ought to finish pretty soon. Meanwhile I am super stressed about what is going to happen. XD Burney is like Austen (or rather, Austen is like Burney), so it feels like the nice boy & girl ought to be set to end up together, but there are a couple other boys who aren't evil scheming monsters so it's possible things will change that makes her wind up with one of them instead... and who knows, maybe she doesn't always wrap things up with a pretty bow like Austen, I've only read the one so far! I can't say yet! And it's making me nuts! XD