Marvas 2008 book counter

I have never kept track of the books that I read, so I'm interested to know how I will fare. I aim for at least a book a week so that should bring me to 52.
Books i have on my shortlist to read soon are: Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Any human heart by William Boyd, Embers by Sandor Marai.And finally I would like to read something by Dostoyevsky this year.
Some books I loved in 2007 in no particular order.
The welsh girl by Peter Ho Davies
This is all, the pillow books of Cordelia Kenn by Aidan Chambers
Our lady of the forest by David Guterson
Margarettown by Gabrielle Zevin
Harry Potter and the deathly hallows
The average american male by Chad Kultgen
Into the wild by Jon Krakauer
Sunshine by Robin Mckinley
The audacity of hope by Barack Obama

1. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Just finished it and really liked it which is nice as I wasn't really expecting that.
Next up Embers by Sandor Marai.

2. Embers by Sandor Marai.
A very good book, it's just two men siting by the fire and talking, but the suspense is almost unbearable. It reminded me of Harold Pinter; every word conceals as much as it reveals.
Just started The shipping news and I'm in awe of the language. I've read Brokeback mountain, wich I found a perfect short story. I must read more by Annie Proulx

3.The shipping news by Annie Proulx
What a great start to this challenge, so far every book has been better than the previous one. The shipping news is amazing, I will highly recommend it to every one from now on.
Next The invention of Hugo Cabret. Very excited.

4. The invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
That was very quick for a big book like that. It barely contained enough text for 2 hours of reading. Worse however is that it felt as if the author was rushing through the story, instead of letting it develop in it's own pace. It is an interesting attempt to revamp the novel form and the drawings are beautiful. But I am left with the feeling that here are lots of opportunities missed.
next Dark places by Kate Grenville.

5. Dark places by Kate Grenville
A fantastic book, the first book in a long time that I couldn't wait to get back to every time I had to stop reading. This is a long hard look into the abyss, into the mind of someone who is a true psychopath. I have never read a book where evil is descibed so utterly convincingly from the viewpoint of the evildoer. It is fascinating and horrific. The best book I have read so far this year, it goes straight into my all time top ten.
6. Persepolis I by Marjane Satrapi
Which I picked up because of the upcoming film. It is the first graphic novel that I have ever read.
It is funny, true, heartbreaking and ultimately devastating. Can't wait to read part two.

7. Persepolis II by Marjane Satrapi
Now reading Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale, very promising.

8. Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale. Wonderful book, it reminded me of What I loved in the writing, the compassion with which the author descibes his characters and also the theme of art and life and how they are sometimes hard to combine.

9. The raw shark texts by Steven Hall.
I'm in two minds. I was continually entertained while reading the book, but having finished I'm not quite sure what I've read. What does it all mean?
Next: I've got my hands on a proof of The host, a novel, the eagerly awaited new book by Stephenie Meyer. Can't wait.

10. The host, a novel by Stephenie Meyer
And I won't say anything.

11. Any human heart by William Boyd
A brilliant, brilliant book. For the first hundred pages or so I didn't like it at all, I found it a struggle to read, I didn't like the character, found the story mundane and boring, but then slowly it won me over and captivated me totally. I feel like I met Logan Mountstuart, had long converstations with him, experienced things with him. He became my friend and now he is gone and that truly makes me sad.

12. Paint it black by Janet Fitch
I liked it, but considering what it is about, I expected it to move me much more than it did. The grief gets a little repetitious at times. But Janet Fitch writes beautifully.

13. A complicated kindness by Miriam Toews
It didn't grab me at all. The narrative was very distanced, and I didn't get into all these complicated emotions that the main character says she has. The story is interesting, but I felt the author could have gotten much more out of it.
Am now reading A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess. Am slowly getting into the language. I wonder if it's more difficult because I'm not a native english speaker.

14. A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess
What a magnificent book! After about fifty pages the language didn't bother me at all anymore, infact he rythm helped propel the story forward. I don't think that I had more difficulty than a native speaker would have. This book demands some hard work from any reader, but it rewards you for it. Anthony Burgess is a visionary who gives you lots to think about.

15. Be near me by Andrew O'Hagan
A tough read. It's a complicated novel, crowded with themes, thoughts and metafores, through all that it is hard to connect with the main character. I found the hysteria of the community and the alientation of the character in the midst of the scandal and subsequent courtcase the best parts of the novel. But mostly for me the story just drudged on and on, trying to be deep and philosophical but lacking real heart.

16. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
After a couple of demanding reads this was exactly what I needed; a charming fairytale. This is the third book I read by Neil Gaiman and, while I don't think it is his best (that is American gods) it is still witty, playful, funny and just lovely.

17. Slam! by Nick Hornby
Well, this one really angered me. I don't know why Nick Hornby decided to write a book for teenagers, but it can't be because he has so much affinity with the age group. He thinks apparently that teenagers are all dimwits and morons, because he explains everything not once, not twice but ad nauseam. The narrator has a severe case of word dhiarrea, trying to sound hip, cool and now, but it feels false and contrived. Most annoying are the flash-forwards. The character is being 'whizzed' into the future by his poster/hero Tony Hawks. In Slam! this is not simply a literary technique but a real occurance, which is explained and stressed by the character saying every other sentence that he doesn't understand anything that's happening because he doesn't know the future. Uh, I got that, thank you. Also the talking to Tony Hawk; Hornby needs a page and a half to explain to me that Sam, the narrator talks to his poster of Tony Hawk on the wall but that Tony just answers in quotes from his autobiography, which Sam knows by heart. and then, every time there is an interaction between boy and poster, this is explained again, that it can't really happen but it happens nonetheless, and also that Tony's responses aren't very helpful (why he is a 'genius' is beyond me).
When an author has so little trust in the reader and in the medium of fiction, and on top of that next to nothing interesting to say on the subject that he chose to write about, I have to wonder why he writes at all.

18. A brief history of the dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Wonderful, charming, fascinating, exhilarating, horrifying, gripping, moving novel. Very original story, brilliantly told.

19. What is the what by Dave Eggers
This one took me a long time to read, nine days, a lot longer than all the books I have read so far. I'm glad I've read it, I've been putting it off for a long time, but I didn't really like it. It's an important book, and Dave Eggers knows it and I know it as I'm reading it and we both feel morally superior, but as a novel it doesn't deliver. It's like reading the newspaper, you read it because you have to, because you feel it is necessary to know about events that are happening around the world, but you don't enjoy reading it.

I'm about half-way through with What is the What, and I'd say you just gave the perfect summing up as far as what I've been thinking going along. If you want a work that is just as relevant but more enjoyable and an easy fulfilling read, I'd suggest The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari. I read that first, and it's making Eggers' work all the harder to get through. Hari's may be a true memoir, but it reads more like fiction and is beautiful in both the thought and the writing--obviously, I can't speak highly enough of it.

My first comment! thank you very much and welcome to this thread. I will certainly check out The translator

let me know how it compares in your thoughts, and good reading... :)

20. Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
It was fun, short and unlike anything I've ever read before. It reminded me most of the movie The royal Tannenbaums. I'll have to read more of Kurt Vonnegut.
Bonus: it's one of the 1001 books to read before you die.

21. Walk two moons by Sharon Creech
Finished this one last night. Wept my way through the last three chapters, I should say. What an amazing book! I cannot praise this one enough, easily the best book I've read this year and in long time.

22. To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee
The second book in a row that made me cry, I had to hold myself back a bit because I was in a cafe, otherwise I would have wept and wept.
I am in awe of this book, even more so because Harper Lee hasn't written anything else (has she?). Why? She is an amazing writer.

23. The pesthouse by Jim Crace
I enjoyed this book but wasn't wowed. The writing was overly descriptive and overly poetic at times, like the author wanted to impress me more than he wanted to tell a story. Also it is not quite clear to me why he set it in a post-apolytic America. It doesn't seem to add anything to the story. Still, a good read. Maybe I would be more positive if I hadn't read two amazing books before this one.

24. The dead fathers club by Matt Haig
I really liked this book, it is a take on Hamlet told from the point of view of an 11-year old boy, Phillip, whose father has died in a car crash. The voice of Phillip is utterly convincing, he's confused, he tries to grief but it's so difficult because his mother is already moving on, his father's ghost badgers him about murdering his uncle and he desperately wants to do the right thing, but he doesn't know what that is. All the elements of the Hamlet are there, but Matt Haig plays with them, changes the order of events, the shape they take, and the outcome. Everything is not what it seems and it all boils down to one question: to be or not to be.

25. All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque
This book is horrific and so beautifully written, it left me devastated. No book captures the reality of war like this one, I'm sure. This should be required reading for everyone, and especially for those generals and commanders-in-chief that are still sending out soldiers to fight every day.

26. Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I've wanted to read this book for years. It was one of the goals I set when starting this challenge. I've done it. I would like to say that I enjoyed it, but unfortunately this book felt more like work than any of the other books I've read this year and I'm sure that I would have set it aside if it hadn't been for this challenge.
Having said that, I am glad that I persevered. I found the parts where the author discusses the concept of crime and the inner journey of Raskholnikov very interesting. I didn't care for the melodramatic story of the drunk father and his family. Most of the characters I found grotesque and unbelievable. Maybe the rusians aren't for me. Maybe I'm not quite ready. I'm sure I'll try again at some point.

27. Year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks
An LT recomendation. Wonderful book. The descriptions are gorgeous and give the whole novel a magical melancholy hue. I'll definitely be reading more by Geraldine Brooks.

28. Endgame by Any Secombe
The literary equivalent of a bag of chips. Unfortanately this one tasted a little old and stale and it didn't have the nice crunch hat I wanted. I was tempted to throw it away half-eaten, but that would have been wasteful.

29. Black girl/white girl by Joyce Carol Oates
This a beautifully written complex book about the fascination of a young white student for her black roommate in the midseventies. It is not a political book really, but in the light of the recent troubles of Obama and his pastor it was certainly a timely read. And it did touch on the huge gap there was, and maybe still is, between black and white in America. The whole story is permeated with a sense of guilt for things that happened and that cannot be changed or forgiven. This is one I'll be thinking about, Joyce Carol Oates is not in the business of giving easy solutions or answers, which is precisely why she is so interesting.

30. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
This is the second book by Janet Fitch I've read and I liked it much better than Paint it black. She has a beautiful, rich, poetic writing style. I loved the sense of sadness and loss that runs through the book and the way she is able to keep an emotion just at arms length and examine it from different sides.
I did think that the story fell apart a bit at the end, like she lost the direction, but overall I would recommend this.

Ok, I'm thirty books and three months in, time for a top five so far.
#1 walk two moons
#2 All quiet on the western front
#3 To kill a mocking bird
#4 Any human heart
#5 Dark places

So far I've put one book aside after starting it: Day by A.L. Kennedy I don't know if I'll pick it up again.

I'm averaging 10 books a month, so I should be able to read 120 books this year.
In the next three months I want to read: Miss Pettigrew lives for a day, In Europe, Middlemarch, We were the Mulvaney's and Happenstance.

Right now I'm reading The Keep by Jennifer Egan.

31. The keep by Jennifer Egan
Wonderfully crafted novel. Egan entwines two different storylines, each with a distinct atmosphere and tone, that seemingly have no connection with eachother. When she does bring them together both stories are beautifully and movingly resolved. This is a very clever author, with a great imagination and a great heart.

32. Cold comfort farm by Stella Gibbons
I love this book! I've been bothering my boyfriend for days reading bits to him and explaining why it is so brilliant, finally I've worn him down and extracted the promise to read it too.
Stella Gibbons's writing is crisp and firm, much like Flora Poste. The satire is extremely intelligent, which makes the story rise up far above the usual parody. Above all the book is life-affirming, full of joy and a pleasure to read. The ultimate feel-good novel, I had the biggest smile on my face when I turned the last page. I plan to reread it at least once a year.

33. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
Charming memoir of Lee's childhood in a Cotswold village. He lovingly sketches a time and place that have long since dissapeared. It is very cute, but I must say that it didn't really touch me.

34. Happenstance by Carol Shields
Nobody writes about ordinary people like Carol Shields. In this book a married couple, for the first time in their lives, spend a week apart. What happens in that week is told in two seperate 'novels'; the husbands story and the wive's story. Not that very much happens, they meet some new people, they have dinner, they walk around, they go about their lives. Mostly they think, about eachother and about themselves, their marriage, their children, their expectations and dissapointments in life. And when they get back together something had changed.
Shields has the ability to write about normal humans and ordinary events in a way that gives them enormous depth and resonance and in all their ordinariness something heroic.

35. The enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
Stranger claims to be the uncle of the emperor of India, tells the story of his mother's life.
Didn't like it at all. It seemed to drag on and on, I didn't care for any of the numerous characters, the story seemed pointless and endless and predictable. Was relieved to turn the last page.

36. We were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
The Mulvaneys are a happy family, fortunate and blessed, then something happens to the daughter, Marianne, and everything starts falling apart. None of the family members seems to be aware what is happening and why it is happening. Certainly none of them can turn it around. It is a wonderful book, very sad, about people's limitations, about how people hurt each other, especialy when they love each other.

37. Pleasing the ghost by Sharon Creech
After Walk two moons I wanted to read more by Sharon Creech, this is a very short book for much younger readers. Unfortunately it doesn't even come close to Walk two moons. I found it quite disappointing, even if you consider it was meant for seven-year olds.

I've taken a little break from Middlemarch to celebrate reaching the halfway point and read
38. Animal farm by George Orwell
I've read this before in high school, but I remembered nothing about it, except the obvious 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'.
It is a wonderful book, visionary, sharp, witty, funny and also sometimes sad. Considering that it was published in 1945, George Orwell was an extremely clever man, who saw things that others at that time didn't, but what makes the book rise above a political pamflet is the way the animals are described. You get the sense that Orwell really wants them to succeed, and is saddened when they don't.

39. Middlemarch by George Elliot
It feels like a real accomplishment finishing this. It took me 15 days and it was at times hard work. George Elliot's writing is sometimes so dense I had to read a page three times to understand it. And I will probably want to read it again in a couple of years, this book is so ful that you cannot grasp it completely in one reading.
What makes it satisfying and worthwhile is the feeling that I've been on a holiday to Middlemarch, I had a chance to walk around the various estates and meet the people who live there. And they are wonderful people, they have their faults of course, but ultimately all they want, all anybody wants, is to live a good life.

40. The wanderer by Sharon Creech
I have a craving for light and short books after the tome of Middlemarch and The wanderer fit the bill. The wanderer is a sailboat and Sophie sails in it with her three uncles and two cousins across the ocean to England to visit her grandfather. One part of the book is her log, het cousin Cody keeps a log and quickly he reveals that Sophie is not really related to him. Sophie doesn't seem to know that or at least is refusing to talk about her orphan status, her dead parents or anything to do with her old life.
For me this book was too much like Walk two moons, the same basic story; a journey, storytelling, secrets, dealing with death, homecoming, but Walk two moons is much, much better. Almost like Sharon Creech wrote this as practice for the real book.

41. Addition by Toni Jordan
This is a charming, funny book about a woman, Grace, who compulsively counts everything. Her world is ordered and structured, the counting gives her a sense of security and while she cannot hold a job any longer, or drive a car she doesn't come off as stark raving mad, or even unhappy. But when she meets a man and falls in love that careful order is bound to be destroyed. Grace is the narrator of her own story and her voice is what I liked most about this book. She is smart and funny, cynical at times, and quite aware and articulate about her condition. It's this voice that keeps this novel far away from melodrama country, where it could so easily have one to. My only problem is that sometimes the novel skips too easily over moments that could have had some emotional gravitas.

42. Emil and the detectives by Erich Kaestner
Have nothing much to say about this. I'm going to Berlin this saturday and thought this book would be fun preparation. A bunch of kids running round the city trying to catch a thief. It's a little dated, but still enjoyable enough.

43. The house of paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez (no touchstone)
A charming little volume with beautiful illustrations by Peter Sis, no more than a hundred pages, this is the must-read book for all LT-ers; the story of a man's obsession for collecting and reading books which ultimately leads to his undoing. It is about the love for books and reading, how books influence our lives, how they can sometimes seem more important than our real lives and how they enrich our world.This a book to read again and again.

'It is often much harder to get rid of books than it is to acquire them. They stick to us in that pact of need and oblivion we make with them, witnesses to a moment in our lives we will never see again. While they are still there, it is part of us.'

marvas, I have added your no.43 to my list. It sounds great. I also read Addition recently. It was a wonderful story.

44. Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Liked it but didn't love it. A little bit too fragmented for me.

45. The town that forgot how to breathe by Kenneth J. Harvey
A small fishertown in Newfoundland is struck by a mysterious illness. Inexplicably the inhabitants just stop breathing and die, nothing seems to be wrong with them. Other mysterious things start happening as well, fabulous creatures are seen in the ocean and the drowned from decades, even centuries ago, resurface unchanged. The tension in the first half of this book is almost unbearable. Harvey paints a wonderful picture of a community that is lost, now that the cod fishing has been made illegal. The eeriness of what's happening covers the story like a suffocating blanket and then the tension just seeps away. It's like the writer had this wonderful setup and then forgot what he was going to do with it. In the end I was left quite dissapointed. It remains a great story, if only Stephen King had written it.

46. The giver by Lois Lowry
Like the previous a book, this is an LT-recommendation. I love the premise and the way this society is described. But I did feel the ending was a bit rushed. I was waiting for a big emotional release that didn't happen for me. It reminded me a lot of This perfect day by Ira Levin, a book that I love, but where Levin took the same basic story to its ultimate conclusion, I felt Lowry shied away from it and ended it too quickly.

47. The innocent by Ian McEwan
Having just been to Berlin I wanted to read books that are set there. The innocent takes place in 1953, the wall has not yet been built, but animosity and distrust between the allies and the Russians, who are still controlling the divided city is high. A young english man gets involved with an elaborate espionage plot involving building a tunnel underneath the russian sector to tap their telephone lines. He is 'the innocent' of the title. At the end of the novel he has lost that innocence in every way.
I enjoyed this book very much; part thriller, part romance, part coming-of-age-story it is marvelously written, fast-paced, exciting. Ultimately it is a very sad story of a life and a love beginning with high hopes and then falling horribly and gruesomely apart.

48. Straight man by Richard Russo
Wonderful, witty, humane, compassionate, Russo created a cast of great characters, petty, mean-spirited, childish, flawed, but also funny, hopeful, ambitious, loving and passionate. Al have their own story, all have their dreams and ambitions. Against the backdrop of a small-town univerity in Pennsylvania he tells the story of the fight of one middle-aged english professor with his colleages, family and friends and his personal demons. Hardly ever does a book make me laugh out loud and in public, but this one did. I must read this book againin twenty years when I'm the same age as the characters, I'm sure I will find it even more hilarious then. And one more thing, it is one thing to write a funny character, but to write not one but a cast full of them, who are not only funny, but also make you feel for them and their plight and who are completely believable while still making you laugh, requires great skill. Only Aaron Sorkin ranks in the same class as mr. Richard Russo.

49. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day by Winifred Watson
A charming little fairy tale of a book, very innocent, a little oldfashioned but in a Famous Five/Miss Marple sort of way, nostalgia is the word I'm looking for, very english. Very good to read on a rainy afternoon with a cup of milky tea.

50. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Suite Francaise was written only three years after Miss Pettigrew was published. How different is the world that Nemirovsky describes. War has broken out, France is being overrun by German soldiers. Her plan was to write a book about what was happening to her country before her eyes. She kept a notebook about the writing of her novel and parts of it have been included as an appendix to the book. It was to be a big novel, bigger than everything she had written before, War and Peace was a huge inspiration. She set it up like a symphony, five movements with different tempi, different motives but the one unifying theme of war and its concequences running through it.
Nemirovsky was jewish, she was arrested in 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz only weeks later. She had only finished the first two movements of her big novel. The story of how the book got published finally in 2004 is quite amazing, but I won't repeat that here.
The book itself is absolutely wonderful. Mrs Nemirovsky had a very sharp eye for human shortcomings. There are no good guys here, or bad guys, just people trying to live, to survive in very strange circumstances. The first part 'Storm in June' is about the defeat of France, Panic breaks out and tens of thousands of people try to flee Paris, in the second part there is a return to a kind of normalcy. The french are trying to find a way to live with the Germans. It is such a tragedy that Nemirovsky didn't get to live to finish this book, it would have been a masterpiece. Her writing is beautiful, she has a large cast of characters and each and they all come to life and the reader never gets lost among them. It is a great captivating story, that I desperately wanted to go on after I turned the last page.

51. The age of innocence by Edith Wharton
For the Group Read. Only took me a couple of days to finish. It is a great book. The story of an impossible love affair (if you can call it that, the lovers only kiss once or twice) in the suffocating environment of nineteenth century New York society, sounds cliche, but isn't because of Wharton's ironic, yet gentle and compassionate style.

52. Gathering blue by Lois Lowry
I liked this much better than it's companion The giver. Again we're in the future, but this future looks a lot more like our middle ages, again the protagonist discovers a secret, that changes her view of the world. I found this 'future' a lot more believable than the one described in The giver, but the symbolism is a bit too obvious and the ending, while better than The giver, still felt rushed.

53. Notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller
This book is just deliciously nasty, sinister, dark and creepy. Barbara is a wonderfully malicious and evil character. Loved it.

I have been enjoying your thread, marvas, and thought I would pop in for a few observations. The movie version of Notes On A Scandal with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett was delightfully creepy as well. Very memorable.

I will be putting Gathering Blue on my lengthy list of must reads. The Giver left me wanting more. Usually not my type of book, but I found the premise intriguing.

Finally, I am just getting into Wharton's The Age of Innocence. I concur with your comments on the book. I just can't believe that I have passed over reading this so many times. Oh well, better late than never, right?

Thanks for your comments, Donna. I've seen that film last year, Judi Dench is marvelous in it. Sad and scary at the same time.

54. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
This book is sweet, hopeful and sad. Teared up a little at the end. It's message is clear, yet not too obvious. I wish I could be more like Stargirl.

55. The diary of Petr Ginz
Petr Ginz is fourteen years old when he starts this diary. He likes drawing, writing, reading, he roams the streets of Prague with his friend, he visits his grandmother. He documents al his activities diligently. He is also jewish, which means nothing good in 1941. More and more of his friends and family members get the letter, to report at the trainstation. What happens to them after that? No one knows. The diary ends in 1942, two months after that Petr himself is summoned and sent to Terezin concentration camp. In 1944 he is sent to Auschwitz, where he is murdered.
Petr Ginz is just one of six million. Learning the story of one boy, who lived, had friends and made an impact on the world through his drawings, makes those six million more real. So many lives lost, so much promise destroyed.

56. Sorry by Gail Jones
This didn't grab me. The characters were abstract, the plot boring. The writing too flowery and overly poetic. This seems to me a rather academic attempt to apologize for the way the aboriginal people were treated by the whites in the form of a novel. Don't know why I finished it.

57. Foreskin's lament by Shalom Auslander
'I believe in God. It has been a problem for me.'
Shalom Auslander's memoir of growing up in a strict jewish family and community and his subsequent struggle with a God who seems to be continuously out to get him. Auslander is a comic genius. Here's a little sample to prove it:
'... when we didn't obey what he had commanded, he didn't like us. He hated us. Some days he hated us so much, he killed us; other days he let other people kill us. We call these days "holidays". On Purim, we remembered how the Persians tried to kill us. On Passover, we remembered how the Egyptians tried to kill us. On Chanukah, we remembered how the Greeks tried to kill us.
-Blessed is He, we prayed.'
But like all great comedy, this is rooted in deep tragedy. It is a testament to Auslander's talent that he manages to get such a funny book out of it. If I were God, I would let him live, despite his outragous acts of blasphemy, for entertainment value.

58. If this is a man by Primo Levi reread
What to say about this book? Even after having been at Auschwitz, after having visited the Judisches Museum in Berlin and after reading Levi's account of the atrocities and horrors commited in Auschwitz the holocaust is, to me, still incomprehensible and unimaginable.

59. The truce by Primo Levi
After the liberation of Auschwitz, all Primo Levi wants is to go home, but in a destroyed Europe that is not so easy. This is the story of his journey, an adventure novel of sorts. Most striking is his joy in the simple things, in just being alive, but underneath that is also the question of how to live after having experienced what he has experienced. We now know that he never did find the answer to that problem.

60. The Yiddish policemen's union by Michael Chabon
A marvelous book. It reads like Chabon had so much fun writing this novel. A hardboiled detective, a gritty murder in a seedy hotel, a murder mystery that is really a theological problem.
'Night is an orange smear over Sitka, a compound of fog and the light of sodium-vapor streetlamps. It has the translucense of onions cooked in chickenfat.'
I had as least as much fun reading this book as Michael Chabon had writing it.

I've reached the halfway point. Time for another re-cap.
#1 Walk two moons
#2 All quiet on the western front
#3 Cold comfort farm
#4 To kill a mocking bird
#5 Straight man
#6 The Yiddish policemen's union
#7 Any human heart
#8 Age of innocence
#9 Dark places
#10 Suite Francaise

61. The bell jar by Sylvia Plath
A chilling experience. With confidence I can now say that I have never really been depressed, the feelings that Sylvia Plath descibes, beautifully and lucid, I have never felt. You can tell she is a poet, her imagery is wonderful and original, she seems to need very few words to get a big message across, by which I mean that all her sentences are filled with meaning. Knowing that she struggled with depression her whole life and eventualy commited suicide makes this novel even more moving.

62. The uncommon reader by Alan Bennett
Charming, witty short story but not as great as I expected from the reviews.

63. Out stealing horses by Per Petterson
I find it hard to catch this novel in a couple of words. Truthfully speaking, I always find that hard, but with this novel I find it impossibly so. Maybe because this novel is about the complexities behind seemingly simple things, what is hidden, the unknowability of people, even the ones you're close to. This is a book to think about, to reread, and to think about again.

64. We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This book has left me quite shaken. I definitely look at little kids differently - searching for the warning signs of psychopathy, that innocence game doesn't fool me anymore.
I joke, but this is a really disturbing and provocative read. None of the characters is sympathetic. Eva, Kevin's mom, is arrogant and self-righteous, just out to prove that her son was rotten from birth, but if she was on to him, why didn't she do anything about it? As a narrator she is absolutely unreliable, just as masked and harnassed as her son. But as you read you start to see the cracks in that mask, and glimpses of the real Eva shine through. It is a courageous book, because it dares you not to like it, and indeed lots of people don't. It is harsh, unsympathetic, rude, too direct. It is like an assault on what good literature is supposed to be. And yet I couldn't put it down.

I just got backfrom a very relaxing holiday, two weeks in a cabin in the woods and I got a lot of reading done.
65. A short gentleman by John Canter, funny, not brilliant.
66. The grass is singing by Doris Lessing, mesmerisingly good.
67. The magician's assistent by Ann Patchett, beautiful, wonderful characters
68. Animal dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, liked it, but The poisonwood bible remains my favourite.
69. A severed head by Iris Murdoch, wonderful writing but my suspension of disbelief broke at the end.
70. Revolutionary road by Richard Yates, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, need to read more by him.
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, beautiful writing, not wild about the story.
72. Redemption falls by Richard Russo, my favourite, made me laugh, made me cry.
73. The ministry of special cases by Nathan Englander, didn't quite deliver.

74. Breaking dawn by Stephenie Meyer
This is my guilty pleasure. It is not well written, the story is cliche, the characters are not believable and two dimensional, but still when I start I cannot stop reading. I can't figure out why.

75. Small island by Andrea Levy
Struggled through this. I didn't care about the characters and I couldn't connect with the story. I really wanted to like this but I am relieved that I can move on to something else.

76. The owl service by Alan Garner
Not as good as I hoped, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

I'm on a non-fiction kick which is very unusual for me. I am reading one novel as well, am halfway through and want to finish, but I can't focus on it for more than one page, so while i'm not reading that I've read:

77. Vengeance by George Jonas picked it up after seeing Munich again, a baffling story, a peek into a murky world I never knew existed, it is hardly believable but because of that it is all the more believable, if that makes sense. I mean if it was made up it surely wouldn't be such a string of near misses, stupid mistakes, pure luck and boyscout bravado.
78. The mistress' daughter by A.M. Homes very beautiful and sad memoir.
79. Truth and beauty by Ann Patchett A haunting portrayal of a friendship. Patchett is forced to stand by as her best friend spirals down into drug abuse, depression and ultimately suicide. Made me want to read Lucy Grealy's book Autobiography of a face.
80. Darkness visible by William Styron I expected this to be more personal, instead I found the description of depression rather detached and academic. Like it didn't happen to the author himself but rather to a vague aquaintance.

81. Will Storr vs the supernatural by Will Storr. A fascinating study into the existance of ghosts. Will Storr takes a open minded approach, he reminds me lot of Louis Theroux, not ridiculing the true believers but showing both sides of the argument. I don't know if ghosts exist, but I have to agree that there is more to this than science at this point can disprove.