My Books

This year I've read:
The AmericanHenry James
The MetamorphosisFranz Kafka
The History of LoveNicole Krauss
The Innocent ManJohn Grisham
DustMartha Grimes
Up at the Villa Somerset Maugham
The Short Reign of Pippin IVJohn Steinbeck
The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers and Two Other StoriesHenry James

jamesapt10, would love to hear what you thought about some of these, it's quite a variety.

I loved The History of Love which I read and listened to on audio (an excellent audiobook, btw); it's been a long, long time since I read the James short fiction and Kafka.

I also enjoyed The History of Love. A friend gave it to me and I was not sure I would like it but it turned out to be a wonderful story. I just started reading James and loved The American. I liked the Aspern Papers but thought Turn of the Screw was to dry; too much victorian manners and not enough ghost.

I just finished Atomic Lobster Tim Dorsey This is book number nine for me. I was happy to see Dorsey's books are not losing their edge. Atomic Lobster is as funny as his other books and has a classic twist at the end.

I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I loved it I thought it would be like Jane Eyre but it was upbeat and witty. I can't wait to read her other work.

Jasper Fforde is as funny as ever in Thursday Next First Among Sequels, I love his comments on the stupidity surplus and reality tv.

Oh, I so envy you just discovering Jane Austen! I've reread most of them so many times and while I've got more out of them the more I read them, it's never quite the same as when you don't know what's going to happen... I think Persuasion is probably my favourite, although Pride and Prejudice is a pretty close second.

I also love Somerset Maugham, but I've found the novels I've read quite bleak (not so the his short stories, some of which are fantastically bitchy and witty), so I'm going through them quite slowly. Would you recommend Up at the Villa?

flissp - me too! wish id just found em.. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are joint favourites - i could never decide which one i liked better and now i just dont want to :)
I havent tried Up at the Villa yet - has anyone else?

jamesapt10, I love the wit of Jane Austen also! As flissp and aliceacademy8 says, it's great to hear about someone reading her for the first time. . .

I read Light in August by Faulkner. It was good but not great. I kept thinking he would develope the characters like Steinbeck but they were never that compelling.
I also started reading Charles Bukowski. I love him I have finished Post Office and Ham on Rye. I have always enjoyed Kerouac but found his writing to be a bit scattered. Bukowski is all the that I love about Kerouac in a wonderful strait forward style.

Cheers to you. I have never been able to finish a Faulkner and have banned him from my library. Please, no comments about trying again. I tried several and tried them all several times. This subjective thing we call reading did not allow for any Faulkner to penetrate my thick skull. I am sure he is wonderful but he's just not for me!!!!!

Steinbeck on the other hand is a favorite for me. Do you have a favorite work by him? Mine is East of Eden though The Winter of Our Discontent is a close second.

I am surprised by your description of Bukowski. I would have thought he was scattered also.

I tried Hot Water Music by Bukowski it is all short stories. It is a bit more scattered then his full length novels but still a more compelling then Kerouac's style.

My Favorite book by Steinbeck is The Grapes of Wrath I must have read that half a dozen times. If I had to pick the greatest American novel that would be it. Its a easy read but at the same time I felt like I intimately knew the Joads.

I also finished Brave New World by Huxley. Not as good as 1984 but an amazing amount of foresight for a book written in 1932.

Can't agree more on Huxley's foresight. Sometimes I felt like I was reading something written far past the '30s. He keyed in so keenly on our modern obssession with pleasure seeking in so many forms!!

I read the Grapes of Wrath late last year and enjoyed it a great deal also but it didn't overtake my love of East of Eden.

I'll have to keep a lookout for Bukowski to peruse.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll it was a quick read and it was filled with puns I do love a good pun.

Simple Genius by David Baldacci

Read Rant by Palahniuk great book. As funny as it is dark but I thought the ending could have been better.

The Importance of Being Earnest and other Plays by Oscar Wilde My experience with plays is very limited, just the Shakespeare I read in school. That reading made me think plays should always be seen not read. Wilde's work was a pleasant surprise the plots were dialogue driven and easy to follow. He is very clever and almost all of his lines are classic.

I found a bundle of Ed McBain books for like fifty cents a book. I read the first in about three hours Vespers and I have three more. The books are fun and I should be able to read all four by the weekend. I hope I can find more books like this, the way it was looking it was going to take me two years to get to seventy-five.

I always found McBain's cops to be so much more believable and gritty and fun to read. I cared a great deal more about those guys in the precint than I have about a bunch of other cop/detectives.

Tricks Ed McBain

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen I was shocked when I read this book! It turned out to be a pale copy of Pride and Prejudice. I had such high hopes for this book but it just was not original. The plot was ridiculously close to that of Pride and Prejudice. On top of that Elizabeth is simply a more compelling not to mention funnier lead then Elinor. It would be unfair to call this a bad book. I will say though I have not been this disappointed since I read a Dan Brown book that wasn't the Da Vinci Code.

Ice Ed Mc bain

Happy Hour Is For Amateurs A Lost Decade In The World's Worst Profession By Philadelphia Lawyer. If you liked I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell you will love this.

Dolls Ed Mc bain

You are really tripping through the 87th Precinct. Looks like Doll is the oldest one of the group you've read so far. Do you like them? Some of the older ones are fun to read because McBain is really just setting up the characters.

I do like them. I like how you can follow the lives of the characters book to book. I wish I had taken the time to start at the oldest one. I am going to go back to the book store I bought these at and see if I can get the rest of the series.

Be prepared, they date back to the 1970's and there are alot of them. I would suggest looking at http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ and getting a full listing, which is always in chronological order on the site, so that you can keep them straight. I really like them for the same reason. He seems to give you a little bit of each of their lives in each book and it never feels like he is straining to come up with something.

South Sea Tales Jack London

Poison an 87th Precinct Novel by Ed McBain

Obscene in the Extreme by Rick Wartzman
The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck
The Fire By Katherine Neville
Ashenden or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham

What did you think of Ashenden? Maugham is a favorite of mine, but I have not read that one.

If you like Maugham's short stories you will like Ashenden. I liked it more because it is based on his work during World War One.

#31: Cool! I will add it to my TBR continent.

See them die by Ed Mcbain

Lady Killer by Ed Mcbain

You are on an 87th precinct tear!!!!! Makes me want ot start re-visiting these old friends

The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway

The Giverby Lois Lowry I could not put this book down. It just flowed I'm only sorry the author did not develope it more. It's only about two hundred fifty pages.

#37: The Giver is actually the first book in a trilogy (and I agree that it is very good). The other books in the trilogy are Messenger and Gathering Blue.

Thanks for the heads up.

No problem.

Hi
My daughter recommended The giver years ago and I remember it as a wonderful book!

The Taker and Other Stories by By Rubem Fonseca This collection of short stories reads like Bukowski or maybe more like American Psycho. I'm not sure but I enjoyed it.

Kiss The New 87th Precinct Novel by Ed McBain

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Edward Albee I liked this play. I have been looking for more plays to read but was not sure where to start.

James, you may want to check out amaranthic's thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/38316. He/She is reading quite a few plays this year and there are probably some there that would capture your interest.

Enjoyed your thread -- thanks for sharing.

>31 jamesapt10: James, I have read practically everything by Maugham, except Ashenden. I have it, of course, so it goes on my 2009 Reading List.

- TT

I'm working my way through Maugham and thoroughly enjoying the ride. Thanks for the new title to check out.

>44 jamesapt10: james, Have you read any of George Bernard Shaw's plays? I am planning to read more of Shaw during 2009.

- TT

Thanks for the suggestions. Someone else told me to try Shaw so I am looking to get something by him soon. I love Maugham he is one of my favorite authors. He just has such a huge body of work like seventy books. I finished Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. It started out well but it was slow at the end. I also read The Red Pony by Steinbeck. Dose anyone know if all the versions of that book have Junius Maltby at the end or did they just stick it in my printing. The last book I finished is The Book of Useless Information. I could not put it down who knew facts could be fun.

I don't know why I thought I had read everything by Maugham. I think I have only read half of his output. I will have to look out for the rest. I have about twelve novels, three volumes of short stories and four or five non-fiction titles. There must be a website somewhere.

- TT

#51 TT: This website may have the info you are searching for: http://www.iblist.com/author1025.htm.

>52 alcottacre: Thanks Stasia, According to that source I have read all his novels except one: The Magician but I am not convinced that that website is comprehensive. I think Maugham was more prolific than that. But thanks for taking the time to find it for me.

- TT

Oh yes, go for Shaw! It's as much fun to read his notes about his works as it is the plays themselves.

#53 TT: No problem. This site might be a bit more helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_works_by_W._Somerset_Maugham

>55 alcottacre: Thanks for that Stasia. I like the fact that there is a complete list of the short stories. I can compare this list with my collections and see if I have them all. The problem with the other lists is it is difficult to separate the novels from the non-fiction, and the short story collections, of which there appears to have been several in different combinations - very confusing. But that's my problem, not yours!

ETA: I have isolated 20 novels, of which I have 12. O goody, I have 8 more Maugham novels to read!