November 2008: What Book from the 1001 List are You Reading?

Just about finished Survival in Auschwitz (aka If This is a Man), by Primo Levi.

I'm reading The Way of All Flesh and really enjoying it. I'm glad it is on the updated list.

I am just about to start The Day of the Triffids. I have been wanting to see this movie for a long time (I did see it years ago), but I never see it listed on tv. So now I have the book. :) Yesterday, I finally finished Bleak House.
--BJ

I am in the middle of Crash...bizarre book...not as bizarre as Ballard's precursor The Atrocity Exhibition...not as good as Cocaine Nights.

And the last volume of Remembrance of Things Past. Hoping to finish it before Thanksgiving.

-- M1001

Finished Ashes and Diamonds and The Blithedale Romance. Currently reading The Razor's Edge and Unless/

I've been reading In Search of Lost Time since mid-September, just slowly ambling my way through. It's wonderful.

I've also received some lovely Folio Society editions of the complete Bronte Sisters novels and a couple of Jane Austen novels lately, so I've been dipping in and out of some 1001 books I've already read: Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion.

I've just finished The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, which was great fun. I've never seen the movie, but you can just see it being played out before your eyes.

BTW, has anyone else seen 501 Great Writers? It's by the same guys who did the 1001 list. It looks pretty interesting (plus has poets and playwrights as well as novelists).

Finished The Razor's Edge and now into Unless by Carol Shields and The Adventures of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe.

# 7 Killeymoon - hadn't even heard of 501 Great Writers but I will definitely watch out for it!

I started The Satanic Verses last night. Not sure if I'm going to be able to follow it/like it.

I just finished Dead Souls, a surprisingly good read. I'm starting Morvern Callar tonight. I also hope to start in on The Tale of Genji later this month. Can anyone recommend a good translation? I found out when reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms that sometimes it does make a world of difference.

One flew over the cuckoo's nest - Ken Kesey. Love it!

In the last few days I finished off Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow and Don't Move. I wasn't so impressed with Miss Smilla (c'mon, that final twist was just sheer stupidity), and while the first half of Don't Move was a bit of a slog (unpleasant protagonist), the second half was unputdownable.

Taking another short break from the 1001 list to catch up on some other books that have been hanging around my house for far too long. :)

#7 Killeymoon. I hope Santa brings me that book for Christmas. It looks great. I haven't seen it in the book shops yet.

#12 SylviaO My husband has read The Tale of Genji and recommends the Seidensticker translation. Good luck on this one, it's a very large book right up there with War & Peace in length.

I'm reading The Mysteries of Udolpho and it's wonderful.

#13 - I really liked Mysteries of Udolpho as well, despite all the fainting and poetry!

I am reading Daniel Deronda by George Eliot and really enjoying it. I think I am coming to like Eliot even more than Austen.

I just finished Anna Karenina and started Jane Eyre for the first time.

I am also listening to Choke on audiobook in the car.

I'm currently enjoying Fatelessness.

Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson.

#17 - I had lots of fun with Treasure Island a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

I just finished two books on the list. Hideous Kinky was a light read about a hippy mother dragging her two young girls around Morrocco. Quite disappointing. I listened to an interview with the author who said she was influenced by Jean Rhys who wrote Wide Sargasso Sea- the book I hated last month. What a coincidence!

Also completed Cloud Atlas which was beautiful and haunting.

After a VERY lengthy absence from 1001 reading due to school work -- the only 1001 work I've successfully completed since the start of the semester was To the Lighthouse -- I'm finally on the last chapter of Orlando! I should finish it by the end of the evening.

Next week's reading is The Hours, which should be a quick read.

Maybe, at some point, I'll actually finish Howards End and Ada, or Ardor. That'd be nice! :)

Just started Dangerous Liasons.

It's official: Orlando is vanquished!

Next week is The Hours, followed the week after by Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which leads me to think that I'll need to find the time to finish Howards End before I can start that one.

Well, after saying I was taking a break from "1001" books, I grabbed a copy of The Trial and Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" at the library on the weekend. I'm several pages into The Trial already (it was listed on the library's computer as being "held" by someone, but since I found it on the shelves, I got precedence (!!!) so I'm assuming I won't be able to renew it so I'm getting it read NOW). And Miss-Owl mentioned elsewhere that it was being done as part of the Group Reads: Literature group, so I'll be hanging around there for a while now too...

Bloody libraries, always sapping my willpower. (But at least they're cheaper than bookshops! :)

I started The Hours earlier today as a break from dull academic reading. I couldn't put it down. Even if you have no familiarity at all with Woolf or Mrs. Dalloway, you owe it to yourself to pick this up as it is an incredibly moving and beautifully-written book.

Howards End and On Beauty are now in my immediate 1001 future.

Just finished Middlesex which I liked a lot. Now reading The Time Machine by email instalments

Started Wuthering Heights last night, a book I have been wanting to read for some time now, which shot up Mt. TBR when my friend told me she thought it was amazing!

I am going to read Killer inside me by Jim Thompson next and then probably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Still reading Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood.

I enjoyed The Killer inside me, especially as I was able to read it quite quickly :)

Yes The Killer inside me was a very quick read,just took me a day to finish it.

Reading The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Reading Le comte de monte-cristo by Dumas. :)

Loved A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and Timbuktu; now into Hallucinating Foucault and Moll Flanders.

I'm reading The Double by Saramago which is slow going - the author's writing style requires a lot of concentration - but quite enjoyable so far.

I just started Agnes Grey. Most recently I finished Madame Bovary.

Reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I haven't read much this month because I've been busy writing my NaNoWriMo novel. Good book so far!

#33 Hemlokgang - there's a small group reading The Mysteries of Udolpho now if you're interested. Sorry, I don't know how to post the link but the group is called: The Mysteries of Udolpho - 2008 Reading Group. Love to see you there.

I will check that right out, socialpages! Thanks for the heads up!

Kiwiflowa and socialpages: I've only seen 501 Great Writers advertised in Australia and New Zealand - last time I checked it wasn't on Amazon.com or .co.uk. Though it's about a month since I looked so that may have changed by now.

My most recent 1001 book finished was The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, which was quick and fun. Man, but there were a lot of plot twists though!

I'm in the middle of reading Riddle of the Sands and The Piano Teacher. The Piano Teacher has a much more interesting and twisted protagonist, and better writing.

-- M1001

Still working on Moll Flanders but added The Manila Rope.

About two thirds of the way through The Secrety History by Donna Tartt, which I've enjoyed alot although am still looking forward to finishing as I feel like I've been reading it for ages.

#41 I saw the book at the Auckland University bookshop (UBS) of all places. I looked in Borders and didn't see it. Strange.

I'm now reading The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

One of the great books of Dutch literature - I had it in my bookcase for years, read some fragments from it, but never finished it: Hugo Claus' The Sorrow of Belgium. Loving it so far, it sounds a lot more magical than when I first tried it. Maybe I'm mature enough now?

Whew, I was enmeshed in some eternal non-fiction and early review books this month, but now I'm finally on to a 1001 book. I am about half way through The Age of Innocence. I was really looking forward to reading it because I love Edith Wharton but this one does start out slow. She does have some amazing turns of phrase though.

About a quarter of the way through Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro which I think is really interesting so far and I hope it lives up the expectations I now have of it.

I'm reading an on-line version of Oroonoko, which isn't all that long and to my surprise kind of riveting (it was published in 1688).

Also at home I'm still reading Wuthering Heights, which I like.

I finished The Day of the Triffids, which I loved. Now, I am reading The Trial. I am enjoying this one, too.
--BJ

I am also reading The Trial and enjoying it quite a bit.

I finished Turn of the Screw and am now reading The House of the Spirits.

>44 sanddancer:

Ah ! I have just started a re-read of The Secret History x

>53 ktleyed:
I had to give up on The House of the Spirits, are you liking it ?

I'm currently enjoying The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

#54 wonderlake - I've only just started The House of the Spirits, I'm only on page 10 or something. I know I'll really be able to dig in to it over the weekend. So far I like it though.

Finished The Double and Under the Skin recently, now I'm reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Effi Briest.

I read House of the Spirits last year and LOVED it I admit the first chapter about the girl with the green hair and the guy who goes away to mine was a bit 'meh' and I could have easily given up but after that the story takes off and is really fun to read.

I am currently trying to read Absalom, Absalom! but all my time is spent on the computer playing WoW because of the new expansion pack... soon I will start to read again!

Started reading the Watchmen graphic novel. It is so popular at my library I only have a fortnight to read it !

The kingdom of this world - Alejo Carpentier

hmm... tried three times, but the touchstone doesn't work here. :(

Now reading The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford through DailyLit.

I am starting A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
--BJ

I'm about halfway through Pride and Prejudice and The Corrections.

I am almost done with Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. I found it a bit tedious at the start, but some good character development has started me thinking that it will end well.

Just started Stranger in a strange Land by Heinlein, which so far (not very far) is excellent!

Just finished Voss by Patrick White. Brilliant Australian classic but a little too vast for me.

Just started The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

Hey everyone, COME ON OVER TO THE DECEMBER THREAD . . .

http://www.librarything.com/topic/50833