December 2007: Which of the 1001 books are you reading?

I finished Death in Venice today. What a strange, creepy book. Next up for December I have The Story of Lucy Gault, Billy budd and Last of the Mohicans.

Interested in what you think about Last of the Mohicans. I read it as a kid and as an adult. I liked it both times but for completely different reasons.

Currently reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and listening to an audio book of Tarzan of the Apes by Egar Rice Burroughs.

Just getting ready to start The Double by José Saramago

I'm going to start reading The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Grrrr. Touchstones! Why do they never work?

I am reading Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. A little slow going but starting to become enjoyable now ~ pg 200 or so. requires a little brushing up on the Russian revolution.

I am reading She and An obedient father.

I am listening to the life of pi by Yann Martel.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

I'm reading Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, and I'm enjoying it very much. It's a real page-turner, I can't wait to know more about poor Pamela's misfortunes.

Just started Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.

1/3 into The Trial by Kafka.

I now find I have to read only 5-10 pages at the time, or else I totally loose the plot...

Just bit into Middlemarch last night. I also picked up Watchmen from the library yesterday and, of course, I'm still working on Tristram Shandy, little by little, piece by piece.

Am reading The God of Small Things.

I finished an obedinet father and am now reading The box man which I do not believe is on the list.

I've just started The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald and the prose is beautiful.

I finally finished all that dystopic fiction (Nineteen Eighty-four, The Handmaid's Tale, and six others) and I really, really needed something completely different, so I'm giving The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford a try. I just noticed, however, that it was written the same year that Orwell started Nineteen Eighty-four, and both authors are British, but I hope that's where the similarities end.

Listening to an audio book of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Well, it IS December, after all!

I devoured Philip Roth The Plot Against America this week past, so easy to read! Now I have just started Saul Bellow's Seize the Day (very short 115 pages) and after that plan on some of the other Bellow's list as my partner has a pretty comprehensive collection of his stuff.

Started listening to an audio book of Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy today.

Just started Gravitys Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I'm about 30 pages in, and finding it a little bit less fun than The Crying of Lot 49, which I really liked, but I'll keep pushing through.

Finished Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - a disappoinment; I am reading Vanity Fair by Thackeray now -- good so far, but quite thick.

I'm listening to an audiobook of Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. I think I read it when it first came out in the 70's (I was working at a bookstore and tried to keep up with the popular titles) but didn't remember enough of it to mark it off my list as 'read'. I can 'see' all Vonnegut's drawings in my mind's eye as I listen, however.

I just don't believe that life is a random, inane, insane sequence of happenstance and coincidences. It is challenging my life view, but it's very depressing.

#22: JHowell

Sorry to hear that Dr Zhivago was a disappointment. What was it that you didn't like? Was it boring? Poorly written/translated? Or ?

I was looking forward to that one, though I'm not sure I've ever sat through the whole movie.

I've been kind of flaky on the list this month, jumping off to read some other books instead.

Right now, I am reading Les Miserables, which is my "big book" for the quarter. Waiting patiently in the wings are a couple of lighter reading: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and Thank You, Jeeves!

-- media1001

#24 Nickelini -- Dr. Zhivago is actually fairly beautifully written; but all style, no substance. The story and much of the incessant philosophizing is dull as dishwater. There is not much pay-off for how hard one has to work to read it and follow along. I did a full review sans spoilers on LT if you are interested.

Last night I started reading The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink. This has been in my TBR pile for years--ever since someone passed it along to me. I've never had any interest in it. Also, it's an Oprah Book Club selection, and I usually am not big on those. Maybe it's because my expectations were so low, but I'm pleasantly surprised. So far it's pretty interesting and conversation inducing. And it's a quick read, too.

Has anyone read this one? Thoughts?

#27 Nickelini: I read The Reader several years ago and thought it very good.

I finished the Reader yesterday. Definitely worth reading, although it presents some troubling ideas. Glad I read it, but not sure I actually liked it. Would make an excellent book club read, because there is lots to discuss and debate. And it's a quick read.

Now I'm on to The French Lieutenant's Woman, by John Fowles, which promises to be yummy. I'm going to read this slowly and closely, so I won't be back to post here for a few weeks.

#29 -- The French Lieutenant's Woman was just about my favorite book of the year; maybe one of the best I've ever read. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I have a review of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James on my profile page. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

I also have a review of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

#31/32 - Ryan -- I like your kind of review - more of a to the point personal account of what you thought of the book and why; thats how I write them too. I agree with your The Catcher in the Rye; but I actually found The Turn of the Screw a quick creepy little read.

I am reading Notes from the underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Great stuff,

I know it's not on the list but has anybody read "Ruins" by Scott Smith. I just picked it up for $.50(awesome) and I heard great reviews of it. Thanks jhowell for your kind comments. I am quite impressed with your reviews and the fact you have reviewed your entire library.

Am reading Les Miserables and also just quickly read High-Rise. Of my 300+ TBR books, only 17 are on the 1001 list, so I need to mix it up and am now reading From to the Earth to the Moon, not on the list.

"The Godfather" by Mario Puzo
I had to make this one of the first I read from the list because whenever it is on TV I can't help but watch it. Godfather marathons inadvertently consumes my weekends.

War and Peace Leo Tolstoy.
I am reading this in volume chunks along with a number of friends, some LJ ers in a Yahoo group. I am reading the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation. It is beautiful writing in a beautiful edition!

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

I also went and picked up a copy of Atonement by Ian McEwan yesterday, and plan on starting it soon.

>39 ankhet: ankhet
I'll be reading Atonement in a day or two as well! I don't expect to see the movie but I don't want the hype to influence the read. I've enjoyed all the McEwan I've read. His spare prose leave a lot for the reader to conjure.

Moby Dick on audio via Librivox.

I'm taking a wee break from The French Lieutenant's Woman to read The Thirteen Clocks, because I just found that my daughter has it out from the library and it's due later this week. It looks interesting and short, so I should be back to FLW shortly.

dare I say that I am about to give up on Possession - amazing because the first touchstone that comes up is Anne Rule and actually I think I might have preferred it that : the one by A.S. Byatt is a lot of silly drivel

The sex is really really boring, and the intellectual stuff isn't much better.

edited for spelling mistake - sorry

I finished A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day. Now, seriously, I am finally going back to Middlemarch.

Aemilys--I LOVED Possession. Couldn't put it down, but I knew that it was a book that would be difficult to recommend to others. I think only a small amount of people would like it.

I liked Possession quite a bit -- but I did get exasperated by the hysterical (and I don't mean funny) poetry. #43 - I think that upon further reflection of some of that "intellectual stuff" as you say -- I think alot of it was actually meant to be satire; If you do continue try to imagine Byatt actually making fun - as if to say look how over the top ridiculous we literary scholars can be.

Although it was a long time ago - I did so enjoy Possession! Aemilys, sorry it is not for you. Strandbooks - I know what you mean! My experience has been that readers either love it or loathe it.

As for my reading this December? At present, 1001 Books To Read Before You Die Peter Boxall - from Santa! Now I have my very own copy and I am thrilled!

Touchstone not working?

I am back on the 1,001 list and reading The Handmaid's Tale.

>48 juliette07:
Maybe the touchstone wasn't working as I think the exact title is the much more urgent 1,001 books you must read before you die

I finished The remains of the day and The devil and miss prym and am now reading Love in the time of cholera and Teresa Raquin.

I used one of my Christmas gift cards to get Gulliver's Travels today, and happily started reading it. We read excerpts from it in my English lit class this past semester, and I fell in love with it. Can't wait to read the whole thing!

Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice, got it for Christmas. Trying to work through books I own at the moment, rather than use the public library.

52- Trying to work through books I own at the moment, rather than use the public library.

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That was one of my goals this past year, and I did really, really well. The problem was that I still bought more books than I could read. Next year's goal, I guess.

>50 keren7: keren ~ I loved The Remains of the Day!

I've started on He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope. It had been gathering dust on the shelf since early May!

I'm halfway through Wuthering Heights - part of a wonderful Bronte box set brought by Santa. I've also got Proust's The Fugitive (vol. 6 of In Search of Lost Time) on the go. They're pretty different!

Hi all! I'm new to 1001 books and I'm presently reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

I've never read any literature by the Russian writers before and I'm so impressed by Tolstoy's clarity of description of characters and motivations. I'm reading the Pevear and Volohkonsky translation.

I'm appreciating the musings on living a good and right life through the dramas of the different families, Anna's tragedy and Levin's personal growth.

I started at the beginning, going for Moll Flanders and Joseph Andrews, but a friend who knew I had the 1001 Books and had a copy himself gave me Eugenie Grandet, which I read, and The Grapes of Wrath, which I'm now reading. Some of the old ones are crushing bores, I think, that nobody wants to admit not liking. Pilgrim's Progress is supposed to be dull, dull, dull, for example.

>57 cronopio1970: - Even if people now consider Pilgrim's Progress to be dull, it was enormously influential long after it was first written, being one of the most widely read books in both England and America.

In general, I find it odd that people categorically dismiss older literature (particularly 17th and 18th century) as boring, even to the point of saying that "People back then didn't know better, they could get excited about practically anything, and were complete dupes of the authors." (This isn't directed at you cronopio, BTW, I've talked to other people who have said things like this). When I encounter something that strikes me as dull or superficial yet was beloved by many bright people, I take it as a challenge to see what about my reading practice or assumptions prevents me from sharing the same response. That has helped me realize how witty and ironic many of these prima facie dull texts actually are.