Katrina 1001 attempt

Hi, I've read 17% of the books and I'm aiming to get to 20% by the end of the year (fingerscrossed).
Yesterday I finished the okay The House of Spirits by Allende, and a few weeks ago the marvellous Fugitive Pieces, Michaels.
This weekend I'm hoping to tackle Watchmen

17%?! I'm at a measly 4.9%... I am very jealous. Nice work! Let me know how Watchmen goes. There's so much buzz about it, curiosity is certainly killing this cat.

Watchmen is taking forever, I feel like I will never finish it!

Keep at it! I know particularly the non-comic parts tend to read slowly, but it's such a worthwhile experience!

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich ticked off the list

Stealing Sara's way of listing the books - hopefully will prompt me to read some of the older ones.
I gave up doing this a year ago, too many different list numbers to work with!

These two need working on!

Pre 1700

NONE!!!!!

1700's

950. The Adventures of Caleb Williams Good read
965. The Castle of Otranto Urgh - at least it was short!
982. A Modest Proposal very short, very weird!
985. Moll Flanders

1800's

Jane Austen
932. Northanger Abbey
933. Persuasion
936. Emma
937. Mansfield Park
938. Pride and Prejudice
940. Sense and Sensibility
I love Jane Austen, probably my fav is Emma

by Charles Dickens
876. Great Expectations
883. A Tale of Two Cities
888. Hard Times
890. Bleak House
913. A Christmas Carol A must read..but not a great read
917. Nicholas Nickleby Snore...
918. Oliver Twist
Great Expectations is the best, I loved Estella and hated her all the same!

The Brontes
891. Vilette
899. Shirley
901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
902. Wuthering Heights hmm I have a love/hate relationship with this book -absolutely loved the first half, hated the second half
903. Agnes Grey
904. Jane Eyre My most fav read ever

781. The Hound of the Baskervilles
789. The Turn of the Screw Great and short
790. The War of the Worlds
792. What Maisie Knew Very good
794. Dracula Like Frankenstein not as great as I thought it'd be
797. The Time Machine
801. The Yellow Wallpaper Great - her other stories are worth checking out too
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Shudder... had to sit through this for teacher training... the poor kids!
806. New Grub Street Great, better than Dickens London
808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles Brilliant I love Tess as a teenager
809. The Picture of Dorian Gray
818. The Woodlanders
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
821. The Mayor of Casterbridge
825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
831. Treasure Island Why the hype.. yawn!
840. Anna Karenina
846. Far From the Madding Crowd
853. Middlemarch A tomb but well worth the effort
854. Through the looking Glass
862. The Moonstone
863. Little Women
875. Silas Marner
880. Woman in White
897. The Scarlett Letter
905. Vanity Fair Great
906. The Count of Monte Cristo loved it
911. 82005::The Pit and the Pendulum
921. Eugenie Grandet Vaugely remember it...
931. Frankenstein hmm... not as good as I'd built it up to be

University has helped heaps with the 1800 and 1900s

1900s

74. Fear and Trembling Why this is in there I don't know
77. Disgrace
80. Intimacy
81. Amsterdam
84. The Talk of the Town
85. Tipping the Velvet
92. The God of Small Things
93. Memoirs of a Geisha
101. Silk
104. Fugitive Pieces
111. Movern Caller Great
117. A Fine Balance
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
129. Captain Correlli's Mandolin
133. The Shipping News
134. Trainspotting
135. Birdsong
141. A Suitable Boy A great read, well worth the pain of holding it up.
142. The Stone Diaries
143. The Virgin Suicides
147. The Secret History
153. The Crow Road
156. The English Patient
157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow
167. Time’s Arrow
183. Possession
184. The Buddha of Suburbia
187. Sexing the Cherry
190. Remains of the Day
195. Like Water for Chocolate Blah
199. Cat’s Eye
205. Oscar and Lucinda
223. Beloved
236. Love in the Time of Cholera
237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
242. The Handmaid's Tale Fab
243. Perfume Bizarre but great
253. Empire of the Sun
254. The Wasp Factory
255. Nights at the Circus Great
257. Blood and Guts in High School Not one to read on the bus as I found out
259. Flaubert’s Parrot
260. Money: A Suicide Note
268. The Piano Teacher Another why?
270. If Not Now, When?
272. The Color Purple
287. Waiting for the Barbarians
288. Midnight's Children
300. If on a winter's night a traveller
302. The Cement Garden
308. The Virgin in the Garden
320. Interview With a Vampire
349. Sula
354. Surfacing
367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
375. Slaughterhouse-five
394. A Kestrel for a Knave
399. One Hundred Years of Solitude
411. Wide Sargasso Sea
431. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
437. A Clockwork Orange
445. Franny and Zooey
451. Catch-22
456. To Kill a Mockingbird
459. Cider With Rosie
450. Billy Liar
467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
472. Things Fall Apart
474. Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris
483. Doctor Zhivago, Never again!
484. On the Road Blah!
487. The Wonderful “O”
490. The Lonely Londoners
496. Lolita
508. Lord of the Flies
515. Junkie
521. The Old Man and the Sea
526. Day of the Triffids
529. The Catcher in the Rye
536. The 13 Clocks ...eh?
542. Love in a Cold Climate
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four
552. Cry, the Beloved Country
556. If This Is a Man
559. The Plague
563. Brideshead Revisited
564. Animal Farm
566. The Pursuit of Love
579. The Outsider
584. Between the Acts Boring
603. Rebecca
605. Brighton Rock
608. Of Mice and Men Teach it every year but still love it
609. Their Eyes Were Watching God
610. The Hobbit
619. Gone With the Wind Great
643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
650. Cold Comfort Farm
662. Passing
686. To The Lighthouse
690. Blindness
698. Mrs. Dalloway
699. The Great Gatsby
707. We Not sure on this one, started great then my brain turned it to drivel
708. A Passage to India
713. Amok Great short story
717. Siddatha
723. Ulysses
728. Women in Love
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
742. The Rainbow
748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Should be read by more people
749. Sons and Lovers
759. Tono-Bungay
780. Heart of Darkness Why... never got the appeal

2000's
1. 7244::Never Let Me Go
2. 6442618::Saturday
3. 968993::On Beauty
7. 10483::The Red Queen
13. 3654::Cloud Atlas I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't like this book
15. 996213::2666 A monster, loved 4 of the 5 books
16. 7325::Small Island Great
19. 2930::The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
21. 68410::Elizabeth Costello
23. 20028::Family Matters
24. 12225::Fingersmith
26. 840::Everything is Illuminated
27. 439::Unless
33. 2718::Middlesex
34. Youth
38. Gabriel’s Gift
42. 2348::Atonement
48. 6156989::Choke
49. 5197633::Life of Pi
52. 74018::The Devil and Miss Prym
54. 5183::White Teeth
56. 14044::Under the Skin
63. 409::The Blind Assassin
68. 32568::Blonde
192. 18861::Of Love and Shadows
211. 50783::Annie John One of my favourite reads of 2010
273. 5246::Clear Light of Day
356. 47700::Seasons of Migration to the North
528. 19159::The Hive
592. 187973::Chess

2008 new editions:
New entries here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/38882

The Hive
The Sound of Waves
Clear Light of Day
All the Pretty Horses
Snow
Vernon God Little Awful!
The Swarm
The Line of Beauty
The Accidental Blah...
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Supposed to be funny... apparently
Mother's Milk
Carry Me Down
The Inheritance of Loss Shouldn't have won the Booker
Half a Yellow Sun
Season of Migration to the North Excellent book about obsession
Annie John An excellent read

163 of the Old List
15 of the 2008 new editions.

707. We finished, well skimmed the end as I wasn't enjoying it

Sesaon of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih an excellent if very strange read, shame about the rubbish book cover

Reading A Suitable Boy and Les Miserables both as read-a-longs at the moment. The Les Miserables read-a-long starts on the LT 1010 challenge forum early November

Doctor Zhivago I don't get the love people! Greatest love story ever, they haven't read Jane Eyre or even The Time Traveller's wife.

Finished A Suitable Boy, whic I absolutely loved. It was huge, and I read it a section a week for 18 weeks but I could quite happily turn back to the front and start it again.
I also read Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid which was also fantastic and about a tenth of the size

I should update this for the year, maybe one day when I have spare time/am bored.

Finished Blonde long but great and The Lonely Londoners Short and good this week.

I finished Sexing the Cherry, a good read but reckon many would hate it.

July's People, I really enjoyed this book although I know that others have disliked it. The white family is brought to live in their servants village when riots strike in South Africa, this is a tale of adaption and trying to fit in. The difference between the children's acceptance into the village and their parents struggle.

That's me having completed 30 for the year by the skin of my teeth. Next year aiming for 40.

First day of the year and first book down!
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood - 93% of the book was okay, but not amazing then the ending was just bizarre and not in a good way. Liking the more modern Atwoods.

2010 Editions
1. The Children's Book
5. The White Tiger
8. The Gathering
10. The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao

Youth a relaxed and easy read but one I doubt will stay with me long.

Glad to hear how much you loved A Suitable Boy. It's my lunchtime book at work, so I'm not making progress very swiftly. I'm about 500 pages in and really do enjoy it.

It was a great read, I read it over 4 months and it worked well as a slow read.

Finished Bleak House another read-a-long. Certainly not my favourite Dickens but not the most disliked either.

The Maltese Falcon another okay average read. The main character isn't attractive yet women seem to fall at his feet. Typical 1930s presentation of womens lack of power. Even the girl who is meant to be swindling people left right and centre is always quivering and in the mens power. My fourth 1001 book of the year, as I'm aiming for 40 I need to push a little harder!

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G Wells hmmm... I wasn't impressed by this, when it got going it was ok but after loving Tono Bungay this was a disappointment.

Tender is the Night, this has sat on my bookshelves for years. I didn't enjoy it, the narration didn't work for me and everyone was just self-centred.

Katrina - I know what you mean--I bought a lovely hardcover Fitzgerald set back in the 80s, and I the self-centredness of the characters in The Great Gatsby turned me off so much, I've never been able to pick up the others. I thought I'd try Tender is the Night sometime soon and see if I thought better of it with my maturity. After your comments, I don't think I'm in any hurry to find out.

I'm glad someone else disliked The Great Gatsby too, I thought everyone else in the world loved it.

Soldiers of Salamis, Javier Cercas - blah! Far too much time is spent detailing how the story is discovered, and only about half a page on the man's escape from massacre and survival afterwards.

Pereira Maintains/ Pereira Declares (title depends on translation) a good read, which would have meant more if I had any knowledge of history!

Piping in to agree with you about Fitzgerald. I've never understood why The Great Gatsby is so revered.

no computer for a week really helped, I finally finished War and Peace, which was a great read, although hard work in some places - I'm starting my next monster Les Miserables this week.
I also read Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe which I wasn't to anamoured by - way too many references to teenage boys genitallia, and the fantastic The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid, I can't believe this book was added to the list in 2008 and then removed in 2010! Its a fantastic read.

Oh, and I forgot Jose Saramago's Balthasar and Blimunda a really good piece of magical realism, in the Marquez style

2 little ones. Rituals by Cees Nooteboom which I really didn't like. Too much sex for a middle aged man to get so easily.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a good little read.

A Town Like Alice a novel I loved! A young girl is brought up between Malaya and the UK, meaning she speaks fluent Malayan, as a young adult she goes to work in Malaya but quickly gets caught up in the war. When the Japanese swamp the country the English men are taken to a prisoner of war camp but the women are war from place-to-place across the Malayan landscape always with a promise of a camp which will take them. Meeting an Australian prisoner he provides them with some food and medicine. The book then journeys the discovery of a will leaving her a large amount of money and what she decides to do with the cash. Wish I could go back and reread it all over again now.

Re The Reluctant Fundamentalist - I agree, why was it taken off the list? Brilliant book. I also enjoyed A Town like Alice, it is a book I will reread one day.

The Temple of my Familiar by Alice Walker I really enjoyed this book full of characters whose lifes cross over, spirituality and race. Beatuifully written.

#36 -- great to hear that that's a good one. I've had it on mnt TBR for a while and because my copy is pretty ugly, I'm not inclined to pick it up.

Les Miserables and The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind both finished this week, one 1200 pages in length and the other 77.
Les Mis was great and I loved it in places but at times he did go on and on about history and his opinion of people in great lengthy essays - towards the end these just got skim read.
The Pigeon was a weird little book about one mans bad day, very random.

I'm back on librarything and eager to get lots of 1001 books read. I'm currently reading Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler My favorite 1001 book which I have read this year was What I loved by Siri Hustvedt, this has been far my worst reading year I think I've managed 15 1001 books at the most.

I just finished Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. Crime is not a genre I normally read but I picked this up as part of a group read. I really enjoyed the first 100 pages, the pace was fast, lots was happening and my brain was busy picking over connections. In the middle I lost interest, there was a few chapters of violence which lost me - I'm not sure why, I can normally handle a violent scene and have read far worse. After that I drifted along until the final three chapters when all the connections began to come clear.
I won't be attempting another Raymond Chandler for a while.

I finished Felicia's Journey by William Trevor today. The novel follows a young Irish runaway who has found herself pregnant. She is in search for her boyfriend when she meets the lonely Mr Hilditch. He pursues her, following from a distance. This is an uncomfortable read, good in many places.

Wow, super list you have! And I agree with a lot of your comments, so I am anxious now to read What I loved because I have owned it for years and still haven't read it.
At the moment I am struggling with The Lighthouse. I see you've read that one as well. What did you think?

I loved The Lighthouse, I read it whilst at university and loved the way the house reflects the war years

Thanks, glad to hear that! I'll continue my struggle, knowing that it will be worth it!

I loved To the Lighthouse too. Don't worry about understanding the significance of every little thing--as one of my English profs always said, you can't understand Woolf until you reread Woolf. The first time through her novels, I just let the art wash over me.

# 45 Thank you, Nickelini. It's good to know that I don't need to understand every detail about To the Lighthouse. And, I have to say, it's getting easier now that I am well into the book!

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This was a reread for me and I think I prefer it the second time around. I am rereading this and Jane Eyre as I am witing an essay about the voices in these two text this month.
The novel is a prequel to Jane Eyre which tells the history of Bertha/Antionette, a glimpse at her life in Jamaica, the life of a Creole family who live between the Black people who despise them for their wealth and the White people who despise them as they are of mixed race. The family live against the vivid backdrop of the Caribbean islands. The family madness, which is recounted in JE is shown developing and being provoked by this hatred of the Creole people and their treatment.
The text has mixed narratives between Antionette's memories, dreams and that of her husband. The voices of gossip, obeah and a stream of consciousness also haunt the text.
The text is split between Jamaica, Dominica and the UK, but the largest section is set in Dominica.

I've changed my bookshelves around and now have a full shelf (54 books) of 1001 novels I really want to read, hopefully now they have been unearthed from under the bed I'll start making some progress!

The Magus by John Fowles Nicholas Urfe is a fairly typical young man, fairly intelligent and attractive he drifts from job to job, meaningless relationship to meaningless relationship. When offered a job in a remote island of Greece he quickly jumps on board despite having many reservations, including his recent off-on relationship with Allison.
Once in Greece he becomes quickly board with his teaching job and explores the remote areas of the island, discovering Conchis a reclusive millionaire he quickly becomes entangled in a mind game. Meeting many figures whose identity and stories change, develop and fall back on themselves Nicholas is placed in the middle of an experiment/game.
As a reader I wanted to scream at him not to return, not to ask so many questions, just to enjoy the beautiful girls, to stop being blind etc and yet like him I would learn a new story and quickly accept this despite being aware that a few pages later all would unravel.
Well worth a read and certainly an author I will be picking up again sometime soon.

My 4th 1001 for the year. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Set in a clinical world where all children are born in a testtube, where the idea of a mother is obscene but casual sex promoted, where socialization is state controlled and regulated, where class divided it decided at the fertilization stage and clones specialise in areas of the work force there is bound to be a few unhappy embryos floating around.
I raced through the first half but after the discovery of John I got a bit bored and just wanted to get it finished.

Moon Palace by Paul Auster: I thouroughly enjoyed this book, I've been listening to this on my ipod whilst getting ready for work in the mornings as well as when zentangling and cleaning the house. Having read The New York Trilogy and The Book of Illusions I was expecting something weird and postmodern, but this was a pretty standard novel with a lot of coincidences in it. A great way to start Auster if you haven't read any of his other stuff.

Foe by Coetzee: This book is the opposite to the one above, it's very postmodern and aware of itself as a book. In the novel Foe inserts a character into Robinson Crusoe, she is then rescued and returns to England desperate to tell her tale. She meets the author Danial DeFoe and relates the tale so that her can make it into a story. This will not be everyones cup of tea, however I like it when writers play with our minds. Just 4 more of Coetzee to go and I'm hoping to read one of these tomorrow.

#51 - those both sound interesting!

>51 katrinasreads: I recently read Moon Palace and I very much enjoy Auster's writing. However, his books seem to get derailed about 3/4-9/10 of the way through. This one lost me somewhere around the summary of Barber's novel.

>53 ELiz_M: that is exactly how I felt about The Book of Illusions, I did experience at times towards the end of Moon Palace but it was just brief moments of boredom.

I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti a griping Italian novel about a child's world falling apart when he realises he cannot trust the adults around him. Scary in places and definitely haunting this was a great read, but not something I would have expected to find on the 1001 list. This was more like a holiday book for me, fast paced, simple to read etc. However. I eagerly polished it off in one afternoon and would recommend it to any one wanting an easier read.

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor on audiobook. This is a great read about the story of a yound Irish girl who's decision to run away from home one day shapes her whole future. A nice gentle Irish novel. My second novel by William Trevor from the list, I definitely won't wait long to read the third book of his which is listed.

Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende. Allende has two books on the list, The House of Spirits an amazing book and then this one. I've read loads of Allende, and whilst this was an enjoyable read she has written much which is better. Having said that I still enjoyed it (except for the very cliched sex scene around page 200), the political message is very in your face, the pace is fast, and as usual there is a strong female lead.
Just not one of the 1001 books I think you must read in my opinion.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles on audiobook. Despite having finished this three days ago I'm still not 100% sure on my feelings. I really enjoyed the beginning of the book but then couldn't believe the main relationship in the book and the second half of the novel. I much prefered The Magus, this one seemed far more bogstandard and like many stories I had read before. An enjoyable read, but not one I would consider a 'must'.

A very impressive list you have! I love your comments.

The Electric Kool Aid Test by Tom Wolfe which I started completely by mistake believing it was this months read-a-long but it wasn't. This book is a non fiction book written in a fictional style. It follows Ken Kesey and his merry LSD tripping commune during the sixties. Life onboard a bus which travels for weeks to New York where seemingly no one sleeps including the driver, and the group has sexs, drinks LSD spiked orange juice, makes a random movie and generally upsets the general public. There is also much time spent in a big house in the hills, where much of the same thing happens. I really enjoyed the first half but then I felt like I was reading the same thing again and again so I ended up skim reading the rest.

The Great Gatsby, this is a reread for me. I was supposed to read this before seeing the film but it didn't happen that way which meant I could skim read it because I had onle seen the film a few days before. I enjoyed the book more than the film but I still can't see it as this great work of literature that everyone builds it up to be.

It's been awhile since I updated this as I had a bit of a 1001 slump in my reading, though I did tick off a few, I'm back to trying to attempt every other book being a 1001 book.
So far I read The Summer Book for this month's group read. It starts off sweet but I think I got toothache after awhile and I became bored.
In sharp contrast to this, the goodreads 1001 group were reading The Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs, written in the 1960s this was a camera sliding across the city of New Mexico, poverty, drugs and homosexuality were the focus of the lens. Whole chapters seemed liked a list of sexual conquests. I failed to 'get' this book, odd moments were beautifully described, and odd chapters held you in their storytelling but the rest seemed there just to shock and provoke reaction.

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien a beautiful and brutal account of the Vietnam war.

>63 katrinasreads: Probably my favorite book of all time.

It has definitely left me with some haunting images

The Bluest Eye I read this in university when I was reading at least a book a day as I was travelling 2-3 hours a day, unfortunately this means a lot of these books blur into one. Anyway this book was certainly a haunting account of the effects of racism on children. Throughout the book extracts from those awful children's first reading books with blonde haired, blue eyed children just reinforced this 'ideal' which is forced through society and unreachable to the majority of the world's population.