Better late than never - Deern tries to read 75 books in 2010

I know it's quite late to start a new thread in this 75 Books Challenge, but I just found out that I had a good start into the year and might be able to make it.

I will try to cover as many books as possible from the 1001 list, but sometimes it might be necessary to read some 'quick and easy' stuff in between.

These are the reads I completed so far this year:

1.Infinite Jest (German version)
A surprisingly enjoyable (and quick) read. I had planned to read this one over the year but found that the book accepts no 'competitors' to be read in parallel. The guy in the bookshop doubted I would ever finish it, because it was so 'weird'.

2.The Devil and Miss Prym (German version)
Luckily it was so short. I am glad there are only 2 Coelhos on the 1001 list.

3.Veronica Decides to Die (German version
Better than 2., but I felt like it was a story I had already read a hundred times before, often better.

4.The Old Man and the Sea
My first try on Hemingway. I quite liked it and will read more in the future.

5.The Quest for Christa T. (German version)
Typical 'intellectual' German stuff without a bit of fun. It wasn't too bad, but I fear that Patterns of Childhood will be a very hard read as it is much longer.

6.To Kill a Mocking Bird
I didn't know what to expect and now this is one of my favorites!

7.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (German version)
An enjoyable re-read.

8.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (German version)
like 7.

9.The Trial (German version)
Okay, I got the analogies, but this was a difficult read. I like Kafka's short stories but in novel length his writing is hard to digest.

10.Elective Affinities (German version)
Goethe's prose and I don't go well together. It is a good book, but reading was torture for me, just like Werther many years ago. I can't accept those whiny protagonists whose lives consist of unhappy love and endless sufferings.

11.Portnoy’s Complaint
Funny, but not as funny as I had expected after reading the reviews.

12.The Turn of the Screw
Not a bit frightening. But I will read more of Henry James (I liked Portrait of a Lady)

13.I hate myself and want to die
Really funny, even though I didn't know most of the songs.

14.Pale Fire
I loved Lolita and 'quite liked' Pnin. But this one was too much, so about two years ago I had put in on hold halfway through. Picked it up again now and fought my way to the end. Though I know it is a great and original book it seemed awfully pretentious to me.

15.Kafka on the Shore
I had bought this years ago and never got over the first few sentences. I guess the time for this book was finally right, because now I devoured it in just two days. New favorite!

16.Persuasion
Another one that had been on hold for a long time. It got much better though once all the endless preliminaries were finally done with.

17.Mansfield Park
This had also been on hold and it was much harder to finish than Persuasion. I just didn't like the characters and it felt lke nothing ever happened. Of all the Austens I read this is the one I like least.

18.The Reader (German version) by Bernhard Schlink
Short and popular (i.e. available in the bookshops without ordering). I didn't like it much. It seemed a constructed mix of sex, Holocaust and illiteracy just to make sure it would be a success with both the critics and the readers.

19.Measuring the World (German version) by Daniel Kehlmann
I don't know how this one made it onto the 1001 list (maybe they needed another German author). The book is okay and easy to read but nothing special.

(I added the authors for the last 2 because LT does not link the correct touchstones).

I am currently reading:
Midnight's children along with the group read
Ulysses in 2 versions - this is my big challenge for this year after having abandoned it twice in the past
The Remains of the day
The Age of Innocence

and I just used a short stay in my home town (which has a great English book shop) to buy a whole bunch of new books in English, so my tbr pile contains about 60 books now.

To succeed with the 75 books I will however have to put my focus on German authors and on shorter books this year to gain some ground.

Looking forward to your comments.

Welcome to the group!

Instead of writing reviews for all of the books read so far this year, just a quick wrap-up of my impressions:

Some of the books had been waiting on my 'on temporary hold' pile for years. Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Pale Fire had all been abandoned half-way through app. 2 years ago and now I finally finished them - which was hard work for me in case of Mansfield Park and Pale Fire, although having enjoyed the more popular Austens (Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility) and also Nabokov's Lolita. There are some more half finished books waiting, but I am not yet sure if I will ever pick them up again.

Some of my old unread books were very pleasant surprises after years of patiently waiting on the shelf for the 'right' moment, above all To Kill a Mocking Bird and Kafka on the Shore.

I had planned to read Infinite Jest at a slow pace, 200 pages a month (the German version having 1410 pages) and found that it was impossible to stop once I had started.

The 300 pages of Elective Affinities however proved to be a great challenge and once again I found that I don't find access to Goethe's prosa.

13.04.2010: Added short comments to all books now

Welcome! Nice list.

Hi! Great list! Kafka on the Shore is on my tbr list!

I was wondering do you read the texts in German and in English? My comparative literature professor is always pointing out the subtle differences between translations and what they suggest about the meaning of the text. So I was just curious because I see you've read quite a few German versions of the books on your list.

This is an interesting question. Basically I read all books by German speaking authors in German. It is my native language, so I can read those books a lot faster (and gain some ground for the challenge) and it is always much easier to get them.

Until recently I tried to read everything else in English, as this language has a vastness of expressions and shows grades of subtlety which German (and many other languages) will never reach. Unfortunately, where I live now, it is difficult to get English books (and I can't order from amazon that often), so this year my list shows more German books than usual.

German translations of English texts mostly seem a bit dull in my eyes. Often they are more approximations than translations. But there are some exceptions: in case of Ulysses and Infinite Jest, I was forced to buy and read the translations. The translation of Infinite Jest into German took 6 years (and the invention of many "new" words) and I am sure the original would have been a bit too much for me.

20. Midnight's Children

Number 20 here and number 99 on my 1001 list. Number 21/100 will most probably be The Remains of the Day, which I hope will be a enjoyable read and a worthy no 100.

Midnight's Children was hard to read at times. The historical information was new for me. Back then I was too young to watch and understand the news and the India - Pakistan war has never been discussed at my school.

But this was not the problem. I can't remember other books which demanded such concentrated reading (apart from Ulysses which seems to become my personal ordeal). I like how Rushdie used the language, although certain stilistic means became repetitive after awhile. It gave me the feeling of being in the middle of the action and always succeeded in drawing me back into the story, just when I wanted to put the book aside.

But somehow the book cannot decide whether it is a phantastic family saga or a (thrillingly written) factual report. Saleem keeps making announcements throughout the story - placing tracks for the reader. And very often those tracks lead into a corner or to a different result than expected. I am not yet sure whether this was intended (which would make the book worth 5 stars) or whether Rushdie just ran out of analogies between India and Saleem at times and had to bend Saleems story in order to adapt it to history.

21. The Remains of the Day (contains small spoilers)

And finally number 100 on the present 1001 list! I hope the new edition won't throw me back into the 70s or 80s...

It was even more brilliant than expected and I couldn't put it down last night, though I was terribly tired, I just had to read on and on..
I fell in love with the language on the first few pages and I felt so much sympathy with Stevens throughout the book. By the middle I thought I knew where it was leading and my heart was breaking for him, but thankfully it ended on a much more optimistic note than I had feared.
I think from a certain age most of us spend too much time looking back and pondering how our lives might have turned out had we taken a different road at some point. To accept what has been without sadness or bitterness and to concentrate on the present is often not an easy step to take. I had feared Stevens would turn back to Darlington Hall a broken man - that would have been the obvious way of ending the story. I am very pleased that Kazuo Ishiguro chose a different option.

So now I started reading a book which is not (yet?) on the 1001 list, The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I am now in chapter 6 and haven't decided yet whether I like it or not. It is certainly an interesting idea for a story, but whenever a book deals with describing the lives of extremely intelligent people, I ask myself how the author wants to sell this to the readers. Is it enough to make a concierge read Marx and Kant and a 12 year old girl learn Japanese and write Haikus to impress us (supposedly not as intelligent) readers, who would never notice the errors anyway? I admit I wouldn't.
Or does the author think she herself is an unrecognized genius and it is her voice/ her very own thoughts we are expected to believe?
But apart from this question I am enjoying the story so far.

#8: Congratulations on reaching 100 books on the 1001 list! That is quite an accomplishment.

Personally, I loved The Elegance of the Hedgehog, primarily I think because I very much identified with the two main characters. I hope you end up enjoying it a lot.

22. The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I enjoyed the book but I had a problem with the author throughout my reading.

First the undeniable facts: She certainly knows how to use language. The book is beautifully written as far as I can judge (I read the English translation). I liked the shortness of the chapters. And: it happens rarely that I would like to meet fictional characters in real life, but in this case I would happily make the acquaintance of Renée, Paloma, Mr Ozu, Paul Nguyen, Manuela and cute Neptune.

What I didn’t like: there are several places where I sense a slight animosity towards the readers. At times she accuses the reader directly, using Renée’s voice (in the sense of ‘would you have expected a concierge to read this or to know about that or to discuss whatsoever with her friend?’). No, but I also wouldn’t expect a concierge to have a fat cat, to watch TV all day and to fulfill all the other stereotypes. I don’t care whether she drinks coffee or tea – and I feel offended at the implication that thoughtful people have tea and the shallow ones coffee. I like both – what does this make me? And this is just one example. I agree with her that you should use friendliness and courtesy when dealing with other people (whenever possible) but I don’t have to analyze everybody I meet for their hidden talents.

While reading, it was like two voices were discussing in my head, one of them telling me I was not reading a novel but the author’s diary. And that’s why I wrote 2 different reviews. I can't decide which one I prefer.
By the way: I don't know anything about the author's background. These are just my impressions derived from the book!

The 'author's diary' version (SPOILER ALERT):
Muriel Barbery likes all things Japanese, including food, tea (sadly it seems she only ever tried Jasmine tea) and mangas. She likes watching blockbuster movies. She read Anna Karenina at least twice but not much else by Tolstoy and (pretentiously) called her 3 cats Kitty, Levin and Leo. There is a Portuguese pastry shop around the corner of her street. And she read a lot of philosophical works during university and formed some theories. Those theories she scribbled down in her diary, along with certain more or less profound observations of the everyday life. One day she wanted to see her ideas published, so she started writing a book. But, fearing the critics and in order to make the whole thing more attractive to a broader group of readers she invented the concierge and the little girl. So if there are any flaws in her story, she can always claim they are intended: in the end the concierge is an autodidact and might have gotten something wrong and the little girl is just a little girl, albeit a very intelligent one. So with those two used up her best diary entries and filled app. 150 pages. And then, just when this source was exhausted, she introduced a new character, Mr. Ozu. Mr Ozu is too good to be true (I still wonder whether he has an own personality or is just a reflection of Renée/ Paloma/ Muriel Barbery) and that’s why the story ends the way it ends. Or what did you expect? Love and marriage? Between a rich, educated, handsome man and an old, ugly, clumsy concierge? It seems like the author wrote herself into a dead end and didn't feel capable of writing a happy ending, because she herself was not convinced by the pairing. This made me sad.
Rating: 2 stars

The positive version (SPOILER ALERT):
Muriel Barbery invented the story first and developed the wonderful characters. While writing, she did a lot of research about philosophy, arts, and literature and skillfully weaved all this information into the story. She wanted to show her readers the beauty life can suddenly develop in the most unexpected places and make them curious by intending that looking behind the surface can bring the most pleasant surprises.
Even the ending, which hits us hard on the first read, is just a start to something new and good. A heartwarming book.
Rating: 4,5 stars

I ended up rating the book with 3,5 stars, because it left me with a warm and positive feeling towards life. And I would recommend it to anybody, as I admit I might have overreacted here. Can't help it...

#10: I admit I might have overreacted here

You gave your reaction to the book, just like we all do. There is no 'overreaction' as far as I can see.

I loved the book wholeheartedly. I identified with both of the main characters, which certainly helped.

> 9: Thanks for your comments. I also indentified with the two main characters and I am sorry I was not able to enjoy it as much as I had hoped and as many of the other readers (including you) did.

I never had such divided opinions in my one head about a book before. I liked it much more than it might seem from my previous posting (which was originally even longer... once I start ranting I can't stop). But somehow it stroke a certain, very sensitive chord in me which lead me to see it from a different angle, and I just couldn't stop it. *sigh*

My problem might have been the very fact that I could identify with the characters so well - and through them with the author. I guess if I ever were to write a book it would be in a similar style. Not being able to 'invent' a completely new story for lack of phantasy or whatever is needed I would also try to find a way to give voice to my very own "collected thoughts". But I'd never dare to do this with such a pretension (or claim? don't know which word hits it better) on truthfulness and absoluteness. I missed some modesty and tolerance.

And if the thoughts are hers, I'd also assume the lifestyle is hers. And that gives me more insight into her personal life than I'd normally need. I may be all wrong, but for me it was like looking through a keyhole into her life at times.

However I think she is a very gifted writer and I will certainly have a look into her next books.

23. The Age of Innocence

Beautiful book, but painful to read. Should not be recommended to people suffering from lovesickness, they might get even more depressed.

It was not easy to get into the story because it starts with a longish description of the connections between the rich and influential families of the 'old' New York society. This was a bit tiresome, but then the story develops a nice flow and quickly gains pace. I will read more books by Edith Wharton in the future.

Rating: 4 stars

I had a good reading weekend and was able to finish two more chapters of Ulysses and to start a new book, The Other Hand (wrong touchstone link here). Somehow couldn't get myself to start The Life of Pi yet.

24. The Other Hand (again wrong touchstone here)

I just noticed that some of my reviews tend to be terribly long. Sorry for that, at times it is a bit difficult for me to express my thoughts in English and to come to the point.

Until chapter 8 I would have rated this book with 4 stars, but I thought the last part was terrible, unneccessary and didn't fit in with the rest.

To start: Don't get seduced by the whole rumor around it. I didn't feel the least bit 'enchanted'. I also don't think the book is such a 'gem' as the publisher announces in the preface. This is for the most part a well written and easy-to-read book dealing with a very serious subject.

The book starts with a great first sentence, which drew me into the story at once and worked much better than the 1000 praises on the back. The story is told in two alternating voices: Little Bee is a 16 year old refugee from Nigeria, who spent the last two years in a detention centre near London, was accidentally released and is now an illegal immigrant. Sarah is in her thirties and works for a fashion magazine. She is unhappy with her professional as well as with her personal life. The fates of the two woman unexpectedly clashed for a short moment two years ago on a Nigerian beach, with very grave consequences for everyone involved. Now they are to meet again.

I loved the way the author used their different voices (and it is really convenient for us readers that Little Bee decided to learn 'the Queen's English' before giving us her side of the story) and I found both very convincing.

Their shared recollection of their first encounter - and what happened afterwards - is extremely shocking, though very well written. You can physically feel the horror creeping up slowly and you can't do anything to prevent it. If you ever spent a holiday in a country which is not 100% 'safe' (as I did) you will automatically feel involved. In a way this might have been you - so what would you have done?

Unfortunately the last third of the book was a real let-down for me. Warning – massive spoilers coming!

The encounter of Little Bee and Andrew in Kingston was not required for the story, the suicide had worked much better before that revelation. And Sarah suddenly showed a terrible shallowness and carelessness. Worst example: she lets her lover Lawrence stay overnight in her marital bed on the day after her husband Andrew’s funeral and introduces him to her 4 year old son Charlie. Lawrence is married with own children and obviously not inclined to leave this wife for Sarah (to explain his absence he had told his wife the classical lie that he was participating in a management course – that’s just the reliable person you need in Sarah’s situation). When asked why she keeps on seeing him she seriously claims a right to stability – for herself and above all for her son! I do understand that she is confused and needs consolation, but this is extremely irresponsible (and just one example of many).

At this point I didn’t wonder anymore why Charlie was so terribly spoilt and also (it seemed to me) deeply disturbed, even before his father died. The adults are constantly speaking to him as if he were one of them, telling him their problems and expecting grown-up reactions. No wonder he acts more ‘childish’ than usual at that age, doesn’t speak correctly, disguises as Batman and in the end causes all that horrible damage.

It seems to me Charlie and Lawrence have been used as catalysts to get the story to a point where it shouldn't have headed at all. With them, the book lost most of its appeal, and that’s why I rated it with 3 stars only.

The power of this book lies wholly in the stories of the two women (and what happened to Andrew) and the author should have left it with that.

Do not worry about your reviews being long. Everyone does theirs the way they want - from none at all to very long - so you fit right in!

> 15: Thanks for the encouragement! :-)

Now I am almost through Howards End and find myself in the unusual situation of not reading 4 or 5 books in parallel. So I wonder what to read next alongside Ulysses. Yesterday my order from amazon UK arrived and now my tbr pile is so high it almost frightens me. It's like the classical complaint 'I don't know what to wear' in front of a full wardrobe.

Actually, it's not a real complaint here - I really love walking up and down in front of my shelves and pondering which book to chose next. Yet presently the annoying Ulysses situation keeps me from starting another one of the big classics, so as a counterbalance I tend to go for the short and/or modern ones.

I might try Heart of Darkness next which has only 111 pages or maybe The Hours. I skipped through Money A Suicide Note yesterday, because I had heard it was quite funny and an easy read, but now I fear it is not my type of funny. Hm...

Decisions, decisions . . .

25. Howards End

What is it with the last few books I read and unsatisfying endings?

The story is often described as a clash between two very different families, the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. Yet to me, those two parties seemed not so different from the beginning. I have met a few Helens, Margaretes and also Henrys in my life and I agree that a Helen and a Henry do need some tolerance towards each other to get along. They have to reach a point of understanding where they accept the other's views as a valid option and this might take a while. Once this is applied, they can get along quite nicely.

But the story around Leonard Bast was disappointing and made me sad. It partly reminded me of Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Leonard is also an autodidact with intellectual aspirations, wishing to escape from his class, but he never achieves his goals and despairs while trying. But there is also a weakness in him which makes the character unappealing, he seems full of unrealistic desires and he is not really trying. He is the typical loser, and that's how he is disposed of in the end. A most irritating disposal for me, because it just seemed so convenient. Without him the story can steer towards an ending which might not be a happy, but certainly a harmonious one.

Rating: 3,5 stars (a very personal extra half point for the view into English-German relationships before the 2 world wars)

26. The Encyclopaedia of Guilty Pleasures

After Howards End I started with The Hours, but I felt I needed something really easy like an 'intermediate course' on a long menu, to sharpen my senses for the more demanding literature again.

On Saturday I found the Encyclopaedia of Guilty Pleasures in the last one of my removal boxes and at once I started reading...

Now I have to admit that I LOVE list books. No wonder I jumped on the 1001 books to read before you die train as soon as I heard of it (or started this thread which is just another list). I have a whole pile of list books in my storage room, there is even a book called The book of lists among them.
(though even I drew a line when I recently found a massive volume called 1001 beers you must try before you die in a bookshop).

This one here is great. It lists the things we enjoy while feeling guilty at the same time, like eating bacon sandwiches and donuts, watching reality TV (even better when celebrities are involved) or reading childrens books.

I had read the book earlier, but back then many of the TV shows mentioned had not found their way to Germany yet, so now I could finally understand most of the references.

Certainly this is not really literature, but it's an easy and entertaining diversion and it definitely counts as a book - it's even a hardcover!

#19: this is not really literature, but it's an easy and entertaining diversion and it definitely counts as a book

We all need those kinds of books every now and again!

27. The Hours

I loved this book.

I was a bit skeptical, because so far I loved whatever I read by Virginia Woolf, except from (of all things) Mrs. Dalloway. I had quite liked that, yet I was not captivated by it the way it had happened with The Waves, To the Lighthouse and even with the essay A Room of One’s Own. Maybe I was prejudiced after hearing it was an homage to Ulysses and back then I had just put that one on hold for the first time. So if Mrs Dalloway so far has not been among my favorites, what could I expect from a book about Mrs Dalloway?

I can’t give you a summary here as the 3 storylines are intertwined on so many different levels that I could never do them justice. I would always feel that I neglected some important aspect. I saw that someone tried on wikipedia and obviously gave up in the middle when the summary reached almost book length.

Let me just say that reading this book felt ‘delicious’ and I didn’t want it to end.

So instead of a summary – here are my personal impressions of the 3 separate story threads (contains spoilers).

After my experience with Mrs Dalloway I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the part about the modern Clarissa and it actually made me want to re-read the original.

The story around Laura Brown felt more intense and was my favorite. I am sure I am not the only one to feel a strange familiarity with her thoughts. How lucky I am to live in a time and situation allowing me to be myself and not - like Laura - having to escape to some anonymous hotel room to get away from the pressure and expectations of the outside world, if just for 2 hours. I was able to connect with her on a personal level. I also liked the way the ‘crossover’ in the end was handled, that we learned what became of her.

Surprisingly, the Virginia Woolf story was the part I liked least . Sure, without it the book would never have worked and I can accept that. Maybe I am a bit sensitive here because I admire her work so much. Yet something in me wanted to tell the author ‘just leave her in peace, and above all, don’t use her for the construction of your story, she is too good for that’. He obviously did a lot of research beforehand and certainly he did his best to come as close to her real personality as possible, but in the end the Virginia Woolf in this book is a fictional character whose storyline builds the perfect frame for Laura and modern Clarissa. I admit that it was done most convincingly and even lovingly.

I wonder whether I should also get the movie.

Rating: 4,5 stars

Now back to the old question 'what's next?' :-)

#21: I have heard very good things about The Hours. I really am going to have to find a copy.

I loved this book, and I love reading about other people loving it. I would recommend the film - the acting is good, and I thought it stuck pretty closely to the story. As soon as I read it, I went straight back to Mrs. Dalloway, which I had already read and enjoyed, and I liked it even better the second time. So, even though you didn't like it much, I would definitely recommend trying it again.

> 23: I am currently in Germany for the Easter weekend and yesterday I went to the place where I put most of my books into storage before my removal to Italy, just to get this book back.
I had to search through many boxes, but in the end I found it. I am looking forward to the re-read. :-)

28. Heart of Darkness

I took this with me to Germany for the Easter weekend just becaue it's short (111 pages), I didn't even know in advance what the story was about.

It was a quick read, but I fear that I somehow missed the crucial part of the story. Okay, I read the last bit when I was really tired, but even a re-read in the next morning didn't help. The story is divided into 3 chapters. In the first 2 chapters Conrad slowly builds up the tension and I could almost feel it while I was following the story along the river Congo, through the deep jungle, always wondering what the horrible secrets around Mr. Kurtz might be.
And then... nothing. (Well, almost nothing)

Maybe this book just doesn't work as well in our time as it did when it was originally published.

Rating: 3 stars.

For another holiday read I started The Count of Monte Christo (German version), which has > 900 pages in my edition. I already made it to page 460 without much effort. This really is an easy and very entertaining read, far better than I had expected.

Parallely with Heart of Darkness I started Virginia Woolf's Short Stories. I liked what I read so far but I think I prefer her novels. It always takes me some time to get into the "flow" required for Woolf's texts and some of the stories are just too short for this.

29. The Count of Monte Christo

What a surprise. This is one of the best and most intelligently written page-turners I ever read.

It starts as a classic revenge story, but then becomes much more. The main characters (all strictly good or evil) are introduced in the first pages and after a third of the story everything is set for action: the hero Edmond Dantès has been unjustly convicted on his wedding day, escaped prison after 14 years, found the treasure and rewarded his one true friend.

The second third shows us his preparations and introduces us into the lives and families of the seemingly 'evil ones'. And slowly but sure we develop sympathy for some of them as well as pity for Edmond's inability to forgive. We start suspecting that his revenge might come at a high price, not for his physical life, but for his soul.

When in the last third the revenge finally takes place, we don't feel the expected triumph of good over evil, we can't help feeling sorry for everyone involved. And still, the book has the most satisfying and positive ending.

Sure, at times you should exclude logic thinking when reading a book like this. There are just too many coincidences and you should better not ask youself how much style, education and fluent knowledge of foreign languages someone can build up in less than 10 years (though here it is much more convincing than in other books, i.e. Hannibal). And personally I found the 'Romeo and Juliet' bit in the end too long.

But I wasn't bored once. Despite its weight I took the book wherever I went, even when going shopping to read it in the check-out queue.

I could recommend this to anyone, best read on a holiday or long rainy weekend.

Oh - and it doesn't contain a single sword-fight!

Rating: 4,5 stars

#26: I am doing the group read for that one. I hope I end up enjoying it as much as you have.

#26 - I love this book too. There is definitely a reason it is a famous classic, and definitely a reason people still read it today. When I was a kid, we once had a month without television (shock, horror) - I think it might have been some punishment for something I or one of my younger siblings did, I can't remember. Anyway, to fill the time, my mother started reading this to us a little bit at a time. After the month was over, the younger kids (and my mother) went straight back to the television, but I persevered and finished the book, the first really big book I ever read, and I have loved it ever since. You make me think it's time to read it again.

30. Die Kameliendame

I am not sure about the English title here - with the author search (Alexandre Dumas (son)) I found 'Camille', but this gave me a wrong tombstone link).

I wasn't aware that there are 2 Alexandre Dumas (father and son) when I bought the book. This one is written by the son, while it seems that the father is responsible for the coat-and-sword stories.

About this book: I would say that the story is filled with more clichés than I could bear, but obviously this book is the original, the source for all those terrible and usually tragic romance books about good-hearted courtesans/ singers/ dancers suffering from tubercolosis or some other terminal illness.

But while the story was really not my cup of tea and I didn't care a bit about the characters, I liked the way it was written - starting right away with Marguerite's death, followed by the memories of her lover (forgot the name already) and in the end we see her side of the story by reading letters she wrote during her last days.

This might have been an important and probably scandalous book when originally published, but unfortunately it has now lost much of its appeal. For a classic, it was an okay read.

Rating: 3 stars

>27 alcottacre::
A group read on this book? Where can I find it?

>28 JanetinLondon::
This is a lovely story!
I have been at my parents' place for a week now and I was talking about this book so much that my father kept asking me if I could pleaseplease finish it in time before my return home. So last night I handed it over to him and he started reading right away. My mother has been waiting for 'Camille', so I really had to hurry to get through all these books in just a few days.

#30: There are 2 threads set up for the book, one spoiler and one spoiler free:

The Count of Monte Cristo (spoiler-free) - http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=82261
The Count of Monte Cristo (discussion) - http://www.librarything.com/topic/84328

31. All Quiet on the Western Front

No, I had not read this one until now. I has never been on the reading lists at school, and I think it wasn't even mentioned. Sure, I knew it existed and was some kind of anti-war book, but only when I almost stumbled over it last week in my bookshop and remembered it was on the 1001 list, I thought I should read it.

Honestly, I think this book should be on the reading list in every school everywhere. As it is based on the author's own experiences during the first world war, it is extremely realistic without being too graphic.
The most important thing is that this book makes you understand. And apart from the descriptions of the front action, Remarque also asks the right questions. And none of them has lost their relevance.

After finishing this book I wondered why we had not read it at school - in Germany of all places. And I guess the answer is that it doesn't fit into any syllabus. In German literature classes it is always about style and intention, I don't remember that we ever discussed contents. We were tortured with the first Brecht and Frisch at the age of 11, later we got our fair share of Goethe and Schiller and Kafka. 'All Quiet' however is a book which needs no literary discussions, there is no need for lengthy interpretations of 'what the author really wanted to say'. It is very clear here, no hidden messages.
So maybe it would fit better into a history or social sciences class. But for those there was no reading list.

I don't know... maybe the book is also avoided because after reading it even more boys might refuse to do their military service and opt for a social year instead.

Rated with 5 stars for its importance.

#32: I had never read that one until last year and I agree with you - 5 stars for its importance.

32. Never let me go (contains spoilers)

Hm... a difficult one. I loved The Remains of the Day, but this one was a slight disappointment. I like Ishiguro's style and I read the book in one day. I also felt touched by the atmosphere, but I didn't really like it. It is a terribly sad book.

I had read in a review that there was a secret at that school Hailsham, so I expected some kind of typical border school story, maybe dealing with abuse in some way. I was surprised at how quickly it became clear what that secret was. It was not hard to guess. And yes, I was grossed out.

There are so many issues in this book, so much that could be discussed and I could easily fill 10 pages or more with my views on everything Ishiguro touches in his story, from loneliness to the question what makes a person 'human', from group pressure to the willingness to liberate yourself from the expectations from the outside world... It is such a vast field he tries to cover in just 200+ pages.

The problem is that all those important things are hidden under the monstrous construction of the donation system which overshadows everything else. And cynically I kept thinking all the time 'wouldn't work, wouldn't work, wouldn't work'.

The using of people which the public doesn't want to regard as humans for medical purposes reminded me of the Nazi regime and their medical experiments. I mean - we had that situation already, it's not that fictional. And from this experience we know that a society would rather hide "the evidence" from their own eyes and use a more "efficient" way to deal with "donors". Never would they give them an education and let them walk freely, never would they let so much time pass between donations or give them carers. I know this is a terrible question, but why should they?

So instead of looking at the real issues I kept asking useless questions like 'if there were only 3 schools where the children got a real education, were all carers taken from those schools? And where will new carers come from after those schools were closed?'

I know what Ishiguro wanted to say but for me he missed the point. There were too many logical flaws and only when I moved the donation system to the background of my thoughts (which was not easy) was I able to identify the real issues of the story and also to detect the beauty and subtlety in Ishiguro's writing. How heartbreaking is it that the greatest dream for the future donors is not freedom, but a 3 year deferral? And to see that the wish not to be alone anymore, to finally belong somewhere, to be part of a group, makes a carer a willing donor in the end?

In some review a reader said that she would normally have given a higher rating, but knowing how much better Ishiguro can do she rated this book with 3 stars. I fully agree with this argument and rate the book with 3,5 stars.

Rating: 3,5 stars

#34: I know what Ishiguro wanted to say but for me he missed the point.

I think several people here in the group feel the same way about that one.

#32 - I'm very sorry to know that All Quiet on the Western Front isn't read in school anymore. I read it in 9th or 10th grade English around 40 years ago, and at the time it was the best book I had ever read - in fact, it was the first book besides kiddy books that I ever read twice. It was part of a module on "responses to war" - WWI poets, Red Badge of Courage, etc., etc. - which was very topical at the time since it was during the Vietnam conflict. Good to know, though, that it's still powerful for those who read it.

# 36: It wasn't read at my school, maybe it is still read elsewhere. But in my opinion, given our history, it should be a must-read in my country. I remember that in our history classes we have been discussing the Holocaust and WWII about once per year from the age of 12, but WWI was neglected.

And in the German classes we only ever read 'serious' literature (maybe 'exigent' is the better word here?). We didn't even read Thomas Mann. Hesse was too 'trivial'. We read 'Werther', just because the teachers could not avoid Goethe's prose completely.

It was mostly plays, poems and short stories. Many so-called intellectuals in Germany (and literature teachers believe to be among them) think fiction is too 'easy' and if fiction is read at all it should at least be somehow cryptic. So what we read was then usually analysed word by word. I can't remember a single book from my German classes that I found enjoyable or captivating.

Looks like I won't finish any books this week. I am having a hard fight with Tristram Shandy. I started book 3 today and he is still not born. I should have read the reviews before buying it. I wish I had known it was something like the prototype of digressive writing. I hate digressions in books when they keep interrupting the action (which if I remember correctly is often the case in Allende's books - you're in the middle of some story, then enters a new character whose history is then recounted in minute detail before the story continues). I find this extremely annoying.

In this book here hoewever there hasn't been any action yet to be interrupted on 145 pages. It's like listening to some old guy ranting on and on for hours without saying much. The humour is completely lost on me. Maybe I should really get the movie version.

Today I will reach half-time on Ulysses by reading page 535 of 1070. Finished chapter 12 yesterday and found it much better than Tristram Shandy which means a lot. Reading both books in parallel kills me...

I think I might re-read some Agatha Christie during the weekend to relax my brain.

#38: I think I might re-read some Agatha Christie during the weekend to relax my brain.

That sounds like a good plan!

#38 I loved Tristam Shandy, though it was a bit of a challenge at times - I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're not a fan of digressions, it's only going to get worse from where you're at now!
The movie is good fun though, and worth watching.
And I'm impressed that you're taking on Tristram at the same time as Ulysses - you've really set the bar high, good luck!

#40 Thanks, but I didn't set the bar that high intentionally...
I had just read a bunch of more modern fiction dealing with depressing topics and felt a bit down, so I thought it might be a good idea to turn to a classic for a change, also to get some distraction from Ulysses. I checked the 'oldest' unread classics on my shelf, decided against Don Quixote (tiny print) and Tom Jones (just too many pages for now) and started with Tristram Shandy, simply because it was next. :-)

I find the reading a bit easier now that I am trying to accept there won't be much of a story. I'll put the movie on my 'to be ordered soon' list at amazon.

This is the first time that my approach to the foreign classics (just reading them without any preparation like information about author and when and why they were written) was not immediately rewarded. Since I started using the 1001 list I had so many pleasant surprises.

33. Tristram Shandy

I feel like my brain is in knots. Can't say how relieved I am that this is finally over. Weird "ending" though.

I haven't yet decided about the rating. What do you do if you know a book is great, but can't help hating it?

For comparison I checked the classics I had rated with 3 stars (my lowest rating for 'renowned classics' so far) and tried to remember my feelings towards those books. In all cases the reading had clearly been more enjoyable. On the other hand I'd say the literary value of Tristram Shandy is much higher than for example Camille's. The style is original, and at the time it was written ist must have been revolutionary.

But the reading was no fun at all for me. Most of the time I really hated the book and I felt extremely annoyed by all characters. It was like watching a group of old men, each of them trying to tell a story but not wanting to listen to the others and just waiting for an opportunity to chime in.

The best bits were the missing chapter in volume 4, the pages in black or in marble pattern and the texts in French and Latin. I concede that even I was able to find some funny bits, but they never managed to outweigh the annoying parts.

I didn't think I'd ever say this but I am having more fun with Ulysses!

#42: I didn't think I'd ever say this but I am having more fun with Ulysses!

LOL!

As far as rating Tristram Shandy, rate it however you like. The ratings are after all, opinions, and you are entitled to give it 1/2 star if that is how you felt about the book! (even if it is a 'classic')

34. Nineteen-Eighty-Four

Like All Quiet on the Western Front this should be a must-read. I finished it yesterday in the morning, then went hiking for some hours and all the time kept thinking about it.

Not so much about the principle of Big Brother and the comparison with our internet world where we happily share everything with everyone without feeling watched or even oppressed, this is obvious and has been discussed exhaustively.

From the beginning I was reflecting the question about our perception of reality. In the end, most of us just learn reality out of books or other media. At a certain age we stop asking why and swallow whatever is spoon-fed to us by teachers, parents, politicians, scientists... A few pictures and documentaries will convince us that a country which seemed an ally is suddenly an opponent and has always been. Manipulation is safely in place in our daily life and for the major part we accept it.

I found the last bit most worrying: I knew the book's ending long before reading it because I had seen the last sentence in The Book of Lists (best last sentences in literature) and it is clear enough. I just wondered how this would be achieved and now I am halfway convinced it would work.

I found it alarming how much it reminded me of the whole concept of positive thinking. Whoever (like me) has read some of those books and applied the techniques, knows how comparatively easy it can be to reprogram a brain, to change your focus on things. It is possible to say 'thanks for the lesson' with a smile when something bad happens to you, maybe not in that moment, but some time later. A negative memory can be changed into a positive one and you will feel better about it. You might even learn to send loving thoughts to your personal "enemies". It is terrifying to see how much is (could be) possible.

Again a 5 star rating for importance.

I am reading Half of a Yellow Sun next.

35. Half of a Yellow Sun

When I first opened this book and saw the 433 pages in tiny print I thought 'I will never read this'. Now I finished it in just two days. This is an amazing and really captivating book and I can recommend it to anyone. The story is hard to bear at times (but so is the history of Biafra), and still it is a great read.

Born after the Biafran war, I wasn't familiar with the history of Nigeria until reading The Other Hand earlier this year, but I remember that 'Biafra' has been a synonyme for starvation all through the 70s (until its place was - sadly - taken by Ethiopia in the early 80s).

There are some time jumps in the story, but the division is clear and leaves no room for confusion. It starts in the 'early 60s' for the introduction of the characters during peacetime, jumps to the 'late 60s' and the time of the first military coups and massacres, back to the 'early 60s' for some more background on the relationships between the characters and then once more to the 'late 60s' when war breaks out. The intermediate bit placed in the early 60s is also required to give the reader the opportunity to catch some air and to allow the hard stuff to settle.

The story is told from the viewpoints of 3 completely different characters, a stylistic device I usually hate (it reminds me too much of a movie), but in this case it really works and often the transition from one person to the next is so smooth that it is merely noticed, especially between Ugwu and Olanna. All characters are believable. I liked some of the side-characters most (Kainene!) and I loved the way the author shows the contrasts between the modern townpeople and the traditional people from the villages, without judging and with a deep understanding for both sides.

Rated with 4,5 stars and marked as a favorite.

Edit 29.04.2010: I just noticed that not once the author describes the feeling of hunger in one of the characters. They are merely observing and arranging themselves with the situation without personal complaints - the food is changing and kwashiorkor is mentioned as an illness others are suffering and dying from. Just in the end there is a remark that Baby also starts showing the signs (losing hair which lost its original black color). And also a comment that Olanna looks bony. Starvation is what people automatically connect with Biafra, but the author manages not to make it the main protagonist in the story.

Half of a Yellow sun is yet another one of your books that I have also read and enjoyed. Have you read her other book Purple Hibiscus yet?

Also, sorry you didn't like Tristram Shandy more - it is definitely hard work to read it. I did like it a lot - it was the first book I ever read with a "strange" approach to chapters, etc., and I was really excited by it.

You are really working your way through a great list of classics. I have read quite a few of them, and often agree with your judgment, so when you read one I haven't read, I am going to trust your views and read the ones you really like. Please keep up the good work!

Thank you - I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the classics. I have avoided them too long.

I probably shouldn't have read Tristram Shandy along with Ulysses, I might have liked it more.

I am taking a short break from the bigger classics now until Ulysses is (hopefully!) finished by the middle of May. After that I would like to read some more Dickens. And I'd really like to read War and Peace, but I haven't decided yet which edition to buy. The print shouldn't be too small, unfortunately they don't show that on amazon.

I just ordered Things fall apart which is also dealing with Nigeria, concentrating on the period of colonization. I'll put Purple Hibiscus on my amazon wish list for the next order.

Something's wrong with me. I fear I'm falling in love with "Ulysses". Have caught myself laughing while reading several times during the last days. Must be the spring.

Started reading 'The Leopard' Il Gattopardo in German after I had failed last year with the Italian version. Now I know why. There are many old fashioned terms used in the text, although the book has been published in 1958. I had seen the Visconti movie and the book seems to be just as beautiful. It exudes both melancholy and contentedness. I can almost feel the heat in the patio of the Sicilian palazzo and smell the orange blossoms...

#48: Something's wrong with me. I fear I'm falling in love with "Ulysses". Have caught myself laughing while reading several times during the last days. Must be the spring.

I cannot think that anything is wrong with you. You simply found a book you really like! Nothing wrong with that.

I really need to get to The Leopard too. I bought it last year, just have not managed to get it read yet.

36. Ulysses (English version and German annotated version)

Warning: very long text following...

I can’t say I wasn’t warned, but when it comes to books I am always up for the challenge. And I am obviously not learning, as I have lately started looking longingly towards Finnegans Wake, even read the first few pages of an online edition (not understanding more than 3 words in a row yet feeling good about it). FW might even be the easier read, because I'd know from the start not to expect a story.

I guess the search for the story was my major problem with “Ulysses”. It is always described as ‘fiction’, and that mislead me. This book is not comparable to anything I have ever read in my life. I’d also say that it is on a very different level from Infinite Jest which was longer and also played with different styles, but was much easier to read. Each chapter of Ulysses has its very own literary style, and not all of those are readable in the ‘classic’ way. The interior monologues (stream of consciousness) and narratives are the ‘easy’ ones, but there are pseudo-plays with stage directions, newspaper style writing with headlines, medieval English, and others where it is almost impossible to follow the text, at least it was for me. However, the more I accepted that I was not meant to read this book in the traditional way, the easier it was to put up with and sometimes there even was enjoyment!

“The Reading of Ulysses” was in itself an odyssey and I want to give you an impression of my experience (sorry for the length!).

In 2008 I started reading it for the first time, then using a cheap English edition which consisted of the plain text. There weren’t even introductions into the chapters. Somewhere around chapter 6 I realized that I had lost the ‘story’ completely and put the book on hold, planning to buy a German edition, hoping my problems were just a kind of language issue.

Early this year I decided to finally get this reading done. So I bought a beautiful and expensive hardback edition in German with vast annotations on every page, with maps for each chapter and with extensive introductions, explaining the parallels between Homer’s episodes of the Odyssey and Joyce’s next chapter. So well prepared I eagerly started reading – still believing there was a story to catch. The first few chapters again were comparatively easy to read, though it was hard for me getting into the flow – there were just too many annotations on each page and in the beginning I read them all. Around chapter 7 the hard bit started. Often there were more footnotes than text which I found extremely annoying. Many footnotes were also useless. After chapter 7 I realized that I had only finished 210 pages out of 1077 and almost despaired. After chapter 9 (and just 360 pages in) I took a short break. Then I started reading Tristram Shandy and everything seemed to get even worse. So I set myself reading goals for every day: one volume of TS (app. 60 pages) and 20 pages of Ulysses. After a few days I noticed in wonder that I was looking forward to my daily dose of Ulysses and that at times I was able to enjoy it. The first laugh happened in chapter 13 which is written like an abstruse parody of Victorian chick-lit.

At this point I accepted that there was not much of a story to follow. I accepted being too stupid and uneducated to get even a small part of the hints, but I didn’t feel angry about it anymore. And I accepted that I had to change my method of reading, often simply ignoring the annotations and even parts of the text (in the end I returned to the handier English version and used the German edition just for the introductions and maps). I finally started appreciating the style of each chapter. Often I was shaking my head about the pure vastness of the text. In chapter 15 for example I did enjoy the play-like writing – for about 30 of the 150 pages, then it lost its appeal and the sheer number of characters, some of them switching their shape and even their sex, confused me completely. But I couldn’t stop admiring the genius behind it all. And the wits. There is a great humor hidden in the book, or better several layers of humor. There is the vulgar sort which shows in the numerous disgusting bits, there is the pretentious and snobbery sort, there is the purely sadistic “Nanana - now I am just going to list 1000 unimportant names and events to make my future readers do some useless research for clues” sort of humor and there are certainly x other sorts I didn’t even notice. Chapter 17 where a style called ‘catechism’ is used, is among the funniest bits of literature I ever read (well… at least the first 40 of the 100 pages of that chapter). And the Molly monologue is hilarious! As a woman I could easily fill hundreds of pages with my daily ‘stream of consciousness’, also without applying punctuation.

One practical warning: you should better not eat during or shortly before reading, as the text can get really revolting at times when certain bodily functions or smells or illnesses are described in more detail than you ever needed. If you are a sensitive person, you might actually feel sick and/or dirty afterwards.

In the end I am glad I read it, I am proud I finished it and I can’t even say that I will never touch it again. The reason that it gets 4 stars is that I didn’t enjoy it enough for 5 stars. 5 stars books are my absolute favorites, the ones I couldn’t put down while reading. And with the putting down I had zero issues with Ulysses. Often enough I wanted to put it down (or throw it against the next wall had it not been too heavy) as soon as I had picked it up.

However, I am not able to give a recommendation for this book. If you are not absolutely convinced that you are ready for this experience you should keep your hands off it. Once you started it you will feel compelled to finish it. At times you will really really really (!!!) hate it (and all those people who rated it with 4 or 5 stars and claimed to having enjoyed it). By the middle of the book I was ready to swear any oath that Joyce was among the worst misanthropes in history and actually started preparing an evil review. Now I feel brain-washed, but no worries my review will not end with the words “She loved James Joyce”.

You should never start it just because it is on some list (as I did) or because you’ve seen that picture of Marilyn Monroe and thought ‘Now, if she could read it…’. If you want to give it a try, start without any expectations, plan plenty of time for finishing and don’t put it on hold for too long. It’s better to be read in regular small portions.

Two additional remarks about my German edition:

1. How can such an overall well-made and costly book contain such terrible and easily avoidable bugs? In the later chapters there are often references to earlier annotations, giving page and line. Well, the page number is wrong. Always. In the beginning there was a deviation of 8 pages, in the end there were more than 60 pages. The reason is either that they didn’t count the chapter introductions when they did the referencing or that they got a problem when the annotations required an additional page. This is more than annoying, this is a reason to return the book to the editing house. I wrote a warning on amazon Germany where so far this book had a straight 5star rating. For me this is a sure sign that all the other reviewers never got over the first half.
   
2. This time the problem is the translation: In chapter 14 Joyce uses old English to draw a parallel between the evolution of language and the development of a foetus. As the foetus grows, the language gets more modern. I understand that the translation had to use some sort of medieval German and I know that we are always extra ambitious when it comes to authenticity. But was it really necessary to print the ‘v’ whenever ‘u’, ‘v’ and ‘w’ are needed and thus making the whole text unreadable? I, the German reader, had to get back to my cheap English edition for this chapter. This is not authentic, this is ridiculous!
   

37. The Plague

I remember that I had read parts of it as a teenager and that the existentialist writing style had impressed me much more then. And I also remembered it as a difficult read. Maybe it is among those books which should better be read at an older age, with some more experience of life. Actually I was astonished at how quickly I went through it now, 20 years later, and how obvious the allegories seemed to me (and how easily they could be applied to more recent events).

I am not sure but the version back in 1990 might have been the French original, which would explain why I never finished it.

Rating: 4 stars (couldn't put it down, but don't feel 'moved'. It must be the detached style)

38. The Leopard/The Gattopardo

This is an interesting book in so many aspects. It delivers credible explanations to the differences between North and South Italy (it is always hard to define where the North ends and the South starts, but Sicily is clearly South). It looks deeply into the soul of the Sicilian people, without mercy, but also without reservation and leads you if not to an understanding certainly to more clarity.

Then there is the inner conflict of the main protagonist, Don Fabrizio, caught between the old times and the new united Italy where his role and influence are slowly fading just like his physical strength is leaving his body as he grows old.

This conflict is also expressed in the language. The language is beautiful and in the beginning I couldn't believe the book was actually published in 1958. But the lenghty and flowery 'classic' reflections are often interrupted by ironic and clearly modern insertions. There is a steady alternation beween an almost lyrical style which might put you into a quite romantic mood and a strangely detached style (which in a few sentences takes all the illusions away).

Somehow Visconti succeeded in capturing all this and putting it into beautiful pictures. I love the movie and now I found that I also love the book.

Rating: 4,5 stars.

I have been meaning to read The Leopard for ages - I will move it up the list now!

Yep, definitely must get to The Leopard soon!

39. Steppenwolf (German version)

As I wrote in my 1001 thread I avoided Hesse for many years for very snobbish reasons. When I found his books on the 1001 list I decided it was finally time to lift that ban, so I read Siddharta.

Since I left school I had not once marked anything in a book or taken notes, but Siddharta forced me to pick up a pencil and to start underlining whole paragraphes almost feverishly. And now the same thing happened again with Steppenwolf. It's not that I find new and inspiring thoughts, it's more like I keep thinking 'hey - this is MY theory' half of the time and this worries me a bit.

I don't read real philosophical works, they have always bored me and I prefer doing my own thinking and reach my very own conclusions. At least that's what I thought until I started reading Hesse. All those theories about religion (Siddharta) or about the individual (Steppenwolf) took me years to form in my head - and now I just find them in print in the books of an author whose works were devoured by dozens of teenagers in my class. Am I really such an average mainstream thinker? Or is it a success that I have arrived there on my very own?

Anyway, this shouldn't get as long as my Ulysses review. Steppenwolf is a very special book, not that easy to read, with a slightly depressing and surreal atmosphere. It reminded me of Kafka and for some unexplainable reason also of Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers.

Rating 4,5 stars

Congratulations on finishing Ulysses! I read it a few years ago, as the first installment of my I'm-not-getting-any-younger-so-if-I-really-want-to-read-these-classics-I'd-better-start-now program.

I know what you mean about a lack of story. After I'd finished it, I shared with my sister what I'd accomplished. "Oh, I've always heard about that book," she said, "what's it about?"

"Well there's these people in Dublin," I began. (Long pause.) "You really have to read it," I finished.

Though I want to give Ulysses a reread sometime, Finnegan's Wake holds no allure for me. If you decide to tackle it, though, I'll happily read your reaction.

When I saw on amazon that Finnegans Wake has almost 700 pages, it lost some of its appeal. I don't know if I should read it just for the challenge.

I still have A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on my shelf, and after that I might take a very long break from reading James Joyce. There are so many other important classics tbr, above all those innumerable Dickens books. I wish the day had (many) more hours...

40. Norwegian Wood

I know I know... I was meant to read it slooowly, 100 pages a week, but I just couldn't stop.

I will add my review once the group read is finished.

Rating: 4 stars

#58: I was meant to read it slooowly, 100 pages a week, but I just couldn't stop.

Some books are just like that, aren't they? I am glad you enjoyed it!

41. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

Really hard stuff, as must be expected from a book about Auschwitz. I have read a few Holocaust accounts, and this one is quite different in some ways.

About the author: Borowski was a Polish writer, sent to Auschwitz as political prisoner, classified as ‘Aryan’. He was not in immediate danger to be killed in the gas chambers, but he was forced to work in those commandoes who participated in the killing. Physically he survived the concentration camps, but was never able to recover mentally, having experienced what people (including himself) were able to do to others. He killed himself with gas in 1951, a few days after the birth of his child.

Borowski was a very talented writer and this book is not the typical autobiographical account of events but a collection of accomplished and very different short stories. They draw you in, and I can’t say how disturbing that is.

In the title story you don’t just feel the thirst and the exhaustion of the commando worker Tadek whose (highly privileged) job is the evacuation of the wagons full of people arriving at the concentration camp and sending them straight away to the gas chambers. You also feel his annoyance and impatience towards this never-ending stream of people and at the same time his self-contempt and the repulsion against that work he is forced to do.

In another short story which is written in the form of letters to his girlfriend he describes the "comforts" his life as a privileged prisoner offers him in Auschwitz –the orchestra, sports events, medical education, … it sounds almost normal and you have to constantly remind yourself what place it is he is writing about.

Some of the stories are set after the liberation, but they are even darker and there’s not a spark of hope for humankind in his writing.

Rating: 5 stars, if it is at all possible to rate a book like this one

What an incredible description of a book that I am now adding to be to be read list.

I recently finished Kindertransport by Olga Levy Drucker You might be interested in reading this:

http://www.librarything.com/work/487251/book/59388232

Welcome to our wonderful group of chatty, friendly, well read folk.

42. Life of Pi

I read this for the May TIOLI ('can't believe I haven't read that yet' challenge). I felt drawn to the book since I saw it for the first time in a bookshop, but it took me a while to buy it and even longer until I finally started reading it. I had heard that this was a typical love-it-or-hate-it book, and I feared I might find myself among the haters.

Now, I am far from hating, but it was not really what I had hoped. I loved the introduction and the first part, but found the second part really disturbing. I knew there was a twist coming in the third part (though I had no idea what it would be) and I found the conclusion not satisfying. I had expected something more positive, more heartwarming. I had expected I would close this book with a happy smile, but instead I felt empty.

In the introduction the claim is made that 'this story will make you believe in God'. Yes, it could work. But I am not happy with the reason it gives.

Rating: 4 stars, because it was a good read and I liked it and yes - the twist in part three makes it special. But for me something is missing.

#61: Whisper1 - thank you very much. Writing this was very hard for me - also limiting myself to the book and keeping it short. So much has been said and written, yet it will never be enough. And there are no words to really express the feelings that came up with this book as with others I read earlier.
I added Kindertransport to my wish list.

Looking back through my entries here I find that during the last weeks I read several books dealing with similar issues in very different ways - individualism, humanity, the will to survive - coming to quite different conclusions. Most of them have touched me very deeply and I feel I need some time to let it all settle.

I didn't select those books intentionally, some were recommendations, others just fit into some challenge/ group reading. Coincidence? Or maybe not? I'll never know...

#60: I definitely need to find that one. The Holocaust has been one of my areas of interest for over 30 years now. Thank you fro the recommendation.

I just found your thread (actually found your 1001 first) and you are reading some great books!

Really interesting to read that All Quiet isn't taught in German schools. I only read it last year for the first time and loved it - mind you, now that I think about it we did no war reading in the New Zealand curriculum either. Lots of Shakespeare though... a play a year in minute detail for 4 of the 5 high school years.

I read 1984 earlier this year and I too kept thinking about it for ages after I'd finished it.

I am in awe at your English reading, considering it's your second language. I'm reading my first German novel at the moment - Ich bin dann mal weg - and I am so unbelievably slow!!

#65 cmt: I am always impressed when people tell me they are learning German. I would have hated to learn it, with all those illogical cases and the loooong words, I'm glad it is my native language.

I loved Ich bin dann mal weg, but I've always seen it as a very 'German' book and never thought it could be enjoyed by foreign readers.
So what are your impressions so far?

Hape Kerkeling is extremely popular here as a comedian and nobody would have expected such a 'half-serious' book from him, this was certainly part of the appeal. And then, we Germans are a people of hikers. If you find a mountain hiker anywhere in the world, there is a good probability he will be German (usually wearing the perfect practical hiking gear and carrying the latest maps and guidebooks). In us there is always this longing for a life in harmony with nature... That's why so many of us dream of moving to your country. :-)
So no wonder the book was a roaring success here and has been leading the bestseller lists for over a year. Since its publishing, Germans have been 'storming' the Jakobsweg as never before.

I am glad that we didn't do Shakespeare at school. It would certainly have spoilt him for me forever. I only discovered him (and the beautiful language) a few years ago, and it makes such a difference to read his plays voluntarily, without over-analyzing them.

I loved Shakespeare at school! And at uni... and now... I really enjoyed studying it - I never found taking them apart ruined them. I was really really lucky in my English teachers throughout though.

I'm reading All Quiet at the moment - v interesting. Coming from where I do we always studied the war at school as well, mainly becasue the occupation is such a big part of the islands recent history.

Oh and I have to agree - learning German is far too daunting for me! I have several German and Austrian clients and have to review docs in dual langauges - the German side of the page is scary with immensly long words!

My English teacher during the last two years of High School hated Shakespeare and always claimed that we should be happy, because he wouldn't torture us with all the 'thee' and 'thou'. Instead we read The Third Life of Grange Copeland which I found both disgusting and shocking and during the last year we discussed the Northern Ireland conflict and read Cal.

When I started reading Shakespeare I immediately fell in love with his language. I am not yet through the Complete Works, but I have read many plays and I bought several versions of the sonnets (handbag-sized, English-German, annotated version...).

I didn't have many problems with the 'old-fashioned' English, as it is much closer to German than modern English. 'Thou dost' for example is in German 'Du tust', which is basically easier to understand for me than the modern 'you do'.

LOL - lucky in that sense!

My favourite play is still Othello - I really love it.

Re: #68: I once had a German teacher who told me that I hadn't really read Shakespeare until I'd read the great translation by Schlegel & Tieck. So maybe "Du tust" was exactly what old Bill had in mind.

On Friday I accidentally left 'Walden' in the office, so I couldn't follow my plan and finish it. Still 160 pages to go... *sigh*

Instead I went and bought three new books, The lost honor of Katharina Blum, South of the Border and The Comfort of Strangers, all of them in German (I have already bought whatever was interesting from the small English section of my local bookshop).

As I had already read two McEwans in English ( Enduring Love and On Chesil Beach) I was wondering how he would 'sound' in translation. I have finished it on Sunday, the review will follow soon.

The same goes for Murakami - I loved the English translations and wanted to see whether I'd find the special atmosphere which is always present in Murakami books also in this translation.

The Böll however is a bit of a challenge. I have to overcome some prejudice here. Sure he is great and acknowledged and I guess he won the Nobel Prize, but I fear he is among those ever-so-serious left-wing German writers. Well, let's see..

43. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

I am a bit under stress presently, so there's just a short review.
Okay, the story was no surprise, everyone basically knows what it is about. The revelation of the murderer must have been a great surprise back when the book was published first. With just 88 pages it was a very quick read, and for a change it was a book that didn't make me think too much - although it certainly has the potential.

If you read this book nowadays you will find a lot of involuntary humor - it is a bit outdated and that made me smile a lot.

Rating: 3,5 stars

44. The Comfort of Strangers

A very quick read. Actually, I read it yesterday in the gym during a one-hour cross-trainer session.

I am not a McEwan fan. I feel that his books are good from a literary point of view, but I don't like reading them, they always leave me with a weird feeling of repulsion. Reading McEwan is like being forced to watch something you'd rather not have seen, and this book was no exception.

Rating: 3,5 stars

I hope your stress lets up soon!

#73 - I know what you mean about McEwan. But I have to say, his opening chapters are usually amazing. The endings are invariably disappointing, in my opinion, as well as that feeling of repulsion. Have not yet decided if I will read any more or not.

45. Walden

Finishing this was almost as hard as getting through Tristram Shandy. I read Walden for the one-word title TIOLI May challenge and without this extra bit of pressure I might never have finished it.

I thought it started okay and I loved the chapter about reading and some of the 'nature observations' are really brilliant. I also understand that the author's philosophical thoughts must have been 'revolutionary' in the 1800s, whereas nowadays they are shared by many people.

What I didn't like and what spoilt the book for me was the total lack of humor and the arrogance against the people who didn't share his beliefs. All through the book he is looking down on everyone else and this lack of tolerance and goodwill is in sharp contradiction with the Buddhist credos he proclaims.

One thing I obviously missed (and I didn't want to go back and re-read the last chapters): what was the reason that he left the woods again so quickly? And how did he live after this experience? I will check on wikipedia.

Rating: 2,5 stars

46. The lost honor of Katharina Blum

I have always avoided Böll as he seemed to be yet another one of those left-wing German authors, whose works spoilt my literature classes at school with their lack of humor and their important political messages.

Now I finally got over those 'mental barriers' and read my first Böll book, and I must say that it was a really interesting read. I liked the style and I felt a connection with the story.

I was only five years old when the book was first published in the mid-70s, but I remember the atmosphere in Germany during this period. There had been several terrorist attacks by radical left-wing groups who had connections with the government of Eastern Germany. Posters with the ugly black and white pictures of suspected terrorists were everywhere, in the shops, in the post offices, on every public wall and everyone was scared of the next attack. I now know that there also was a deep mistrust against everything that could be connected to communism as every communist was suddenly a suspected terrorist.

This book can be seen as a Zeitdokument (leo gives me 'comtemporary document' here?) but at the same time it contains a warning against the power of the media. And this aspect is now - 35 years later - as fresh as ever. We know how quickly the media is able to build up or to destroy the image of people, and this novel shows the beginnings of this development and leads us to the ever-actual question how far the freedom of the press should go.

Rating: 4 stars - and I will definitely read another Böll novel soon

Boll is one of the authors I hope to get to some time this year, having never read any of his books before. It sounds as if The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum might be a good place to start.

Yes, I think it is a good starting point for Boell and the book is comparatively short (136 pages in German ==> probably 115 in English). I also liked the style which is a bit outdated and adds to the 70s atmosphere.

Thanks for the additional info!

>76 Deern:: Hello. I'm delurking to tell you how much I enjoy your comments on the books you've read. I appreciate your honesty in telling exactly why you like or dislike a particular book. I "discovered" your thread after reading your thoughts on Norwegian Wood.

Re: Walden. It sounds like this was a tough read for you. I'm just guessing here, but it was written in the 1800's in a very different time, and that may have been part of the problem. Henry was a complainer and it did get tiresome reading about how the world was all wrong when, in fact, he was the one who was out of step with the world. He did indeed hear a different drummer!

It has been many years since I read the book, but as one who loves to read about what makes people unique, I found this a great character study and enjoyed the irony of his retreat to the "wilds" while he depended on the nearby town and its people so much. I'm not as good as you at pinpointing my feelings. Let's just say you've made me want to revisit the book to see if it still resonates with me.

As to why he left the woods...I think he probably had examined his life to his satisfaction. After all, it was an experiment of sorts and a way to search for inner peace. Besides that, winter was coming on!

I liked The Lost Honor of Katerina Blum when I read it (25 years ago), and I agree that its theme could be very relevant today. I had been wondering if it held up. My favorite Boll is Group Portrait with Lady.

Sorry it took me so long to answer your posts - I am terribly busy at the moment. Which is a good thing basically as I started my own business some months ago and now things are finally taking up speed.

On the other hand it means I have less time to read (and post), but I am sure I will make it through the 75 books till the end of the year.

Donna: welcome to my thread and thanks for your comments. I think I might re-read Walden some day, as I really liked some of the chapters. Maybe the book just needs to be read at a slower pace with breaks in between. There is no 'story', so breaks shouldn't be a problem plot-wise.

arubabookwoman: Group Portrait with Lady might be my next Boell, if just for the interesting title.

Congratulations on starting your own business! It sounds exciting.

47. Hideous Kinky

This book really grew on me. At first I didn't care much about it but in the end I didn't want to let it go. It deals with the author's memory of her early childhood when she and her older sister travelled the world with their hippie mother.

'Typical dropout story' was what I thought first, but I was wrong here. We see the story develop through the eyes of the younger daughter who is four years old in the first part of the book (if I remember correctly) and ca. 1,5 years older at the end. We get to know a child who dearly loves her mother and her older sister Bea and who has never known a "normal" stable life. Being poor, wearing dirty clothes, living in a small room with others is nothing special for her. So at first she just watches, accepts and enjoys. But as she grows older she slowly starts to see her situation and especially her mother's behaviour with different eyes.

Desperate for a bit of stability in the family she suffers through the never-ending chain of potential 'dads' and through her mother's various embarrassing searches for enlightenment (yoga, sufism, etc.), all the time trying to be a "good child".

In her older sister Bea we see where she might be in a few years. Bea wants to go to school to get a regular education, something her mother doesn't understand and tries to undermine. It gets worse when Bea - who at this point can't be older than 8 - wishes to stay behind in Marrakesh not to miss school when her mother wants to go on yet another trip to some Sufi master - and the mother just leaves her without any money in a foreign country with people she hardly knows. At that point you just want to grab the two little girls and get them out of this situation.

This book is both heartwarming and heartbreaking and I would really like to see how the story continues. Does anyone know if one of Esther Freud's other books is a sequel to this one?

Rating: 4 stars

#85: I checked the book page on Hideous Kinky and do not see any indication there that the book is part of a series, although I cannot say for sure, having never read anything by Freud.

#84: Thanks! Yes, exciting it certainly is - and to add to the excitement I thought it might be a great idea to do this in a different country and so I moved to Italy.

But I don't want to exaggerate: at least I chose a place where they also speak my language and I had so much of support both here and from home... it was a comparatively 'soft' transition.

So far it has been a great experience and I hope my business will prosper and I will be able to build my life in this beautiful place.

#87: Italy? Wow! I think it is terrific that you have a good support network. I am sure it is very important for you. Best of luck with the business!

Speaking as a small business owner, I know how difficult those first months can be. My husband is the brains and brawn of the business (in that he makes the decisions and carries the weight), but I am the supportive one in the background. What kind of business do you have? I wish you continued good luck and a prosperous future.

Oh wow, a new small business in Italy! All the best to you! My husband is a small business owner, and as a freelance writer I suppose I am as well, so we well understand the trials (and joys) that come along with small businesses. How great that you have a good support network in a new country!

Good Luck to you in your small business endeavor!

Wow - thank you everyone for the good wishes!!

Getting everything set up here was certainly not easy (I always thought bureaucracy in Germany must be a nightmare for foreigners, but Italy is worse..), but thanks to my network of business contacts and my slightly pessimistic approach (always prepare for the worst) it went well.
Since May 15th I have my first employee to do the main office work while I am away to meet clients.

The excessive reading this year helped me a lot to get through this stressful first phase and also through the loneliness I experienced during the first few months. I moved to Italy all alone and as I was also working alone in my office all day, making new friends here was not an easy thing.
But now I have gained ground in this new place and I am really happy about my decision.

48. South of the Border

My third Murakami and the first one I read in a German translation. Although the translator managed to capture the typical Murakami atmosphere, somehow (can't say why) I think I prefer the English versions.

Of the Murakami books I've read so far I'd say this one was the weakest, but I still liked it. He has now definitely become one of my favorite authors. This book reminded me a lot of Norwegian Wood. Again the plot was somehow influenced by a song title and seemed to be partly autobiographical. But this time the author allows his main character to grow up, the main part of the story takes place in Hajime's late thirties.

In all Murakami books I can feel a relation to the main characters and in this book here he even delivers an explanation for the isolation and feeling of being 'different' Hajime experiences: he is a single child, which was unusual in the early 50s. I was a single child as well and it was still the same in the early 70s in my small German village. Everyone else had brothers and/or sisters and being a single child made you a bit of an outsider. Hajime even shares my birthday and is exactly 20 years my senior. :-)
I liked the insights into his loneliness and into the restless search for 'something' he cannot name.

However the relationships confused me and didn't convince me. I was not able to connect the Shimamoto of his childhood with the later Shimamoto and I didn't understand her motives. As for Izumi (name?)... I couldn't believe that he really destroyed her with what he did to her.

Obviously this book caused massive discords in German literature circles. The so-called literature 'pope' praised the book as highly erotical while another renowned critic called it superficial and vulgar. Well... like in Norwegian Wood there are some sex scenes, but fewer and I'd also say less graphic, almost detached and clinical. Nothing to get agitated about.

Rating: 3,5 stars

#3: I have not yet read that one by Murakami and doubt I will run around looking for it. Too many other very good ones of his to get to yet.

After Norwegian Wood I felt like reading more of Murakami and this one was the only one available in my bookshop. In German it has a stupid title ('Gefährliche Geliebte' = 'Dangerous Lover'). Not very inviting.

I just ordered The Wind-up Bird Chronicle which I think was much better received and is also on the 1001 list.

I read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle earlier this year and really enjoyed it. I hope you do too.

I don't think there's a sequel to Hideous Kinky but several of her other novels feature children and teenagers. I like Esther Freud's books and always buy them.

at times it is a bit difficult for me to express my thoughts in English

Uh...I don't think so! *said with utter amazement and puzzlement as to why you would say such a thing* Loving your reviews. Just sorry it's taken me so long to discover your thread. Still laughing over version #1 of your Elegance of the Hedgehog review--which I totally agree with, by the way. Now that I've found you, I hope your new business doesn't prevent you from continuing to review the books you're reading.

#96: I got my copy on Saturday and am planning to start reading it this week. Can't wait! :-)

#97: Thank you - I will certainly read more of her books.

#98: Thank you so much! My business doesn't prevent me from writing reviews, it just prevents me a bit from the reading. :-(

Presently I am reading The Woman in White on my Nintendo DS - which is a bit hard going, I am not making much progress there. Maybe I should buy a 'real' copy.

I am planning to read Things fall Apart for the June TIOLI and last weekend I bought the Aeneid for the group read, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for my new Murakami addiction and Group Portrait with Lady which was recommended by arubabookwoman. So there should be new reviews soon.

Great that you're in for the Aeneid group read. I'm just catching up on your thread and am embarrassed to report that I've read about 2 pages of Ich bin dann mal weg in 3 weeks. It keeps getting bumped by books in English! It's silly, because I am really enjoying it when I can get an uninterrupted stretch of reading time (not often). New Zealand is a land of hikers too, but I'm not one of them. Kerkeling sounds like a lovely guy and I'm enjoying the mix of description of the landscape, the ardours of walking a long long way, and the stories about the people he's meeting.

Ich soll mein Deutsch ueben, aber es ist so einfach auf Englisch zu schreiben, weil Dein Englisch so prima ist! (Hoffe, dass es ok ist, Du zu schreiben?) Ich wusste auch nicht, dass man auf ein Nintendo lesen kann!

Hi cmt, I saw that you are currently living in Switzerland, so that explains probably how you found the book (I guess it must be popular in Switzerland as well).

Dein Deutsch ist sehr gut, und natürlich kannst Du 'Du' schreiben. :-)

I bought something called '100 classical books' for the Nintendo DS. It's a great collection with several Shakespeares, many Dickens books, almost all Austens and Brontes... It also gives suggestions what to read in your present mood. There is an introduction into each book and also information about the author. I always take it with me on train rides or hiking trips. But for the normal daily reading I do prefer the good old traditional book.

They have also published a German version recently which I bought as well, but it contains too many plays for my liking.

Ja, im Moment wohnen wir in Basel (mein Mann arbeitet hier bis zum Ende 2011). Fuer uns ist es wirklich ein Traum, mitten in Europa zu sein (auch mit zwei kleinen Kindern... es ist ein bisschen schwierig, weit zu fahren!).

Ich bin dann mal weg scheint ganz beliebt hier. Meine Lehrerin hat mir vorgeschlagt, es zu kaufen, und ich konnte mich den Titel nicht erinnern. Ich bin in Bider und Tanner (eine tolle Buchhandlung hier) gegangen, und sagt es war etwas mit "Weg" ueber Spanien - und die Frau erkennte es davon!!

Wenn Du Zeit hast, bitte bitte bitte korrigiere meine Fehler - sonst werde ich sie wiederholen.)

49. Things fall Apart

I just noticed it has been 12 days since I finished a book... Thanks to the TIOLI I was forced to finally do some non-business reading during the last weekend and found some time for this one.

This is the third book about Nigeria/the Ibo I've read this year after 'The Other Hand' and Half of a Yellow Sun. Things Fall Apart deals with the time before/ during colonisation of the Niger delta region.

The first 2/3 of the book can be seen as an introduction. We meet a clan, we get familiar with their rites (some of which naturally seem violent to our understanding). I liked the first few chapters, but then came a point where I got a bit bored. There were too many similar names, too many families and no 'real' action. If a book has just 197 pages and almost 120 of them seem to be an introduction you start wondering when the main plot (the one that was promised on the book's back) will finally unfold.

In the second part the main protagonist Okonkwo and his family are banned from their clan for 7 years. During their absence the clan undergoes massive changes due to the arrival of missionaries, changes about which Okonkwo is informed very occasionally by visitors.

After his return (on page 161) he is finally confronted with the new rulers and can't cope with the situation. He aims to lead his clan back to the old order. This last part takes up less than 40 pages in the book and seems incomplete with quite an abrupt ending.

What I liked:
- the non-judgemental insights into the clan life of the Ibo people
- the last paragraph which adds sadness and bitterness to a book which is otherwise almost neutral

What I didn't like: the imbalance between part 1 and 3.

Rating: 3,5 stars

And now back to The Woman in White, which I am now reading online. The DS is okay for travelling but not for home reading (too much paging required).

#102: Ich musste sehr genau lesen, um Fehler zu finden: es heißt 'meine Lehrerin hat mir vorgeschlagen' und 'ich konnte mich an den Titel nicht erinnern'.

Ich bin wirklich froh, dass ich Deutsch nicht mehr lernen muss. :-)
Ich kämpfe zur Zeit mit Italienisch. Lesen ist einfach, aber Sprechen fällt mir sehr schwer. Dein Deutsch ist wirklich sehr gut - weiter so! :-)

I really liked Things Fall Apart but can't remember why exactly, other than being interested in the lives of women and children versus men in their culture. I'll have to read it again. Eventually I'm going to read Women in White. I should read it online too. I'm sure I can read it for free.

P.S. I hope you and Cushla keep speaking German, because it gives me some good practice in trying to remember my high school German. I only had to translate a few words--Yay!

50. The Woman in White

I had several problems with this book and it is a bit difficult for me to give it a fair review. I tried not to let the first 2 points influence my rating, as they are unrelated to the story.

Reading medium:
As I posted before, I started this on the Nintendo DS. This was a good thing for the first chapters which I read during a long train ride, but useless at home. Due to the continuous paging I simply fell asleep almost as soon as I resumed reading in the evenings. As the book was not available in my bookshop the next thing I tried was reading it online, which was not too great for my eyes either. So after about 2/3s I printed the remaining chapters and read them like a 'normal' book just to get it finished.

Spoilers:
When I started reading, the story caught me immediately. Fearing spoilers I avoided the reviews here and instead checked the entry in 1001 books you must read before you die to get an idea about the significance of the book in the 1800s and also some information about the author. What I found instead was the complete plot - so there I was, just 100 pages into the story and knowing all the twists in advance. :-(

Storyline:
Spoilers aside - the story was good. Nothing outstanding, but more than okay. From today's perspective there certainly are too many side plots and coincidences, and it seems almost unbelievable that no-one seems to care about calendar dates, but I guess that's how it was back then.
And I kept wondering how the marriage could be organized, did they use the correct name of the bride?

Style:
Using the narratives of several people to bring the story forward was an amazing idea and for me this was the best bit about the book. I especially liked the bits written by the lawyer and by the uncle, Mr. Fairlie.
For my liking though, the book was much too long. Especially the Marian and Hartright chapters just didn't seem to end.

Characters:
I found the good characters quite dull and one-dimensional, most of all Laura. I would concede that this was the normal description of a desirable young woman in the 1800s, but I have read too much Austen and Eliot to believe this. Okay, Wilkie Collins was a man, so he might have seen things differently. I didn't like the idea that beauty and intelligence can't go together as shown in Laura (blonde and pretty, dull, forever fainting) and Marian ("ugly" - which seems to mean "dark" and "smart for a woman"!). I also dind't like Hartright (what a name!) too much and must say the same for Marian. I preferred Uncle Fairlie, evil Count Fosco and Pesca.

Rating: 3 stars (maybe I'll add another 0,5 star later)

#105: Yes, The Woman in White is a classic and can be read for free on the internet. I read some plain HTML version which I wouldn't recommend.

About Things fall Apart: I guess the text on the back of my edition is a bit misleading, as it concentrates on the confrontation of Okonkwo with the colonialists - and that happens in the last thirtysomething pages.
Of the three books about Nigeria I've read this year I'd say TfA takes a good second position, Half of a Yellow Sun remaining my favorite.

it concentrates on the confrontation of Okonkwo with the colonialists I don't remember that, though that makes sense. Isn't it funny/curious how a person's gender and previous experiences can impact their reading/memories of a book?

51. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Just before my week closes internet-wise (my phone and internet at home are currently not working and the nice neighbour with the free WLAN has just moved away...) I am able to add one more book to my list here.

June has been a good month for my business, but unfortunately a bad month for my reading - only four books finished so far. I might be able to finish Group Portrait with Lady before June ends, but that will be it.

I feel I need some time for the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to settle in my mind before I am able to write a longer review - so here's just the short review from my 1001 thread:

What a weird and wonderful book!
I am so glad I discovered Hurakami. When I finally read Kafka on the Shore early this year -after it had been sitting on my shelf for almost two years- it was like new worlds were opening up to me. Since then I have read Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, so Wind-up Bird has already been my fourth Murakami in 2010.

This one didn't leave as many open story threads as the Kafka book, but left me feeling a bit dejected. I might have preferred a different ending - with the well and the 'hanging house' and the 'mark' remaining in place. But that's just me.

Like Kafka this was once again a brilliant book. Although currently I don't have that much time for reading I managed more than 100 pages daily (or nightly I should say).

I am now taking a Murakami break - otherwise I might have read them all by the end of the year - and what then?

Rating: 4,5 stars

Sorry to hear about your Internet woes! I hope you get your service up some time soon.

52. Group Portrait with Lady

After reading this book I am wondering if David Foster Wallace was familiar with Boell's work, much of Boell's style reminds me of passages of Infinite Jest.

Here's an example: first we learn about the death of some characters 'which result in the secretion of tears'. So in the next paragraph we get some information about tears (taken from an encyclopedia). There's a reference to 'crying', so we get information about this as well. In the end we know a lot more about tears (German 'Tränen'), crying (Weinen), laughing (Lachen), happiness, bliss/blessedness (same word in German = Seligkeit), pain (Schmerz) and suffering (Leiden). As all of these will be used a lot during the story, they are replaced by their initials: T for Tränen, G for Glück, etc. As both Lachen and Leiden start with L, the author uses L1 and L2. And throughout the book these abbreviations are applied.

Group Portrait was written in 1971, so this must have been really progressive. It is the book that earned Boell his nobel prize.

At times I found the style hilarious, at times it became a bit tiring. But just in those moments the 'story' progressed and became interesting again.

So now to the 'story': it tells the life of Leni Pfeiffer, a middle-aged woman, who had a secret relationship with a Russion prisoner of war during WWII. This sounds like nothing, but her life is told in letters, personal interviews and comments from other people - friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues, teachers, etc., commented by an anonymous 'author'. We don't know anything about the author himself or his motives and in the course of the book he loses his distance to the story and becomes part of it.

With the help of all those statements, the reader gets an overview of the third reich, the war, the bombing of the German cities, the months following the surrender, and what it meant for the population. It is like a complex puzzle, extremely insightful and personal.

The part covering the present (i.e. the early seventies) is mainly concerned with the way post-war Germany deals with its past. From today's point of view I can say that much has changed since then for the better. It was a strange world in the 70s - so many things were unmentionable. Oh - and everyone was smoking - always. I've never read a book with so many references to cigarettes.

I can very much recommend this book - I hope it works just as well in the English translation.

Rating: 4,5 stars

Sounds interesting! I will have to look for it. Thanks for the review and recommendation.

53. The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

I read this little book this morning in an online version. It is really short and yet it counts as a full book on the 1001 list.

Ivan Ilych is a man in his 40s, well established in his bourgeois life. Unexpectedly he finds himself terminally ill, facing a slow and painful death caused by an undefined desease. The reader accompanies him on his way to acceptance and is forced to reflect on her/his own attitude towards mortality.

I myself am in the lucky situation that all of my close relatives and friends are healthy and alive. My grandparents died at old age looking back on fulfilled lives.

Maybe this is the reason why I think about death a lot - I feel I have to get prepared for the case that fate suddenly strucks. And though I know very well that nothing can ever prepare me for the pain and grief such a situation will bring, I still try to accept death as part of life and to be aware that it could happen to anyone anytime - myself included.

So this book didn't make me sad (as it did others) and especially the last chapter filled me with hope.

I'd recommend the book, but only to readers who are willing to confront this subject.

Rating: 4 stars

#113: I will have to look for that one. Thanks for the recommendation!

Thanks for the review Deern - the text is easily available on line so it's now been copied into my online reading box and is waiting to go (and it really is very short!).

>53 JanetinLondon:: The Death of Ivan Ilych was a short book that packed a real punch. It made a good case for examining one's life before it's too late. You never know when you're going to fall off a chair!

Deern, since you raise the topic of death, I would recommend Being Dead by Jim Crace. I've never read such a lyrical account of what happens after death.

54. The Shadow of the Wind (German version 'Der Schatten des Windes')

This book was a great bestseller on the German book market and usually I have learned to take a closer look before buying one of those (remembering the Dan Brown hysteria), but it was also highly recommended by a friend, so I got it and now I finally found the time to read it for the July TIOLI (books about books challenge).

The book comes with a lot of praise, among others from former foreign minister Joschka Fischer: "You will read all night". Well... no, I didn't.

It took more than half of the book before I felt a bit of a grip in the story, and that was exactly the point where, unexpectedly, all the secrets were suddenly resolved. And the outcome had not been too hard to guess.

One thing really annoyed me and that was the writing style. I am sure one problem is the translation. I find that novels in Spanish/Italian/Portuguese often don't translate well into German. It always sounds "wooden". But here was such a gap between dialogue and narrative. The narrative was usually okay and fluent. But the dialogues... who talks like that? And normally I don't have a problem with vulgarity in texts if it fits into the context (i.e. Ulysses...). But here the vulgarity seemed like an artificial element, completely unconvincing.

The story (spoiler alert): the story starts with too many threads and it takes a while before the reader starts seeing a connection. And just at the point where it all finally gets quite thrilling, a letter arrives 'revealing everything'.
What I never really got was the motivation behind Daniel's search for Julián. It was a bit like the author had the main plot ready but didn't know how to get the story rolling and so invented this mysterious library of forgotten books and the small boy. So it starts like a book for children with a bit of a Harry Potter atmosphere, but this is abondoned after just a few pages when the main plot begins.

I don't want to be too harsh - this isn't a bad book. It's an okay book and I'd even say quite a perfect read for a summer holiday. It's enjoyable, doesn't make you think too much and doesn't have any lasting effects (at least not on me).

What I liked were the insights into Spanish history in the first half of the 1900s and the loving description of many places in Barcelona (and the food - now I am craving tapas and Spanish sweets and there isn't a single Spanish restaurant in my region!). I've been to Barcelona just once on one of those typical overnight business trips, but now I'd like to see more.

Rating: 3 stars and I am not going to read the prequel

55. Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

I have a special relationship to Adrian. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole were the first English books I ever read, I was about 15 or 16 then. I translated them to my mother and we shared so many laughs about all his mishaps, yet we loved him dearly from the first instant.

Years later, during a longer stay in London in 1996 I found two sequels which hadn't been published in Germany. It was like catching up with an old friend, although I was not alltogether happy with the way he had developped - from an affectionate, not ungifted child to a nerdy loser who had failed on his A-levels, lived in the closet room in his ex-girlfriend's flat and didn't have a single friend.

I suffered with Adrian through the loss of his job as a celebrity chef, the separation from his first wife and the years as single father of two sons in The Cappuccino Years and then through his loss of capital in The Weapons of Mass destruction, still hoping he would finally have some success in life.

And now here we are and there's more suffering to come. Adrian turns 40, once again loses his job, once again loses a wife and worst of all is diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was really scared that this book would put me off Adrian forever and it took me months to pick it up and read it, but there's good news. Finally, in all this distress, the old Adrian is back. He has regained his place in his family and among his old friends and copes better with his fate than anyone could have expected. For once, he seems really grown up.

I am looking forward to the next book very much - I hope there will be another one, because there is one thing which I would always have loved to see - and there's hope we will finally get there. And yes, it might actually work.

Rating: 3,5 stars

>118 Deern:: That's funny! I only ever read the first 2 books you mentioned about Adrian's teen years, so didn't realize that the later books had him growing up.

56. La Bete Humaine/ The Beast in Man

This was a spontanous read after I was reminded that I had not read any Zola so far. This one is comparatively short (I got through the online version in 2 days - during work - , I guess the book has less than 300 pages).

I started completely unprepared, so I was shocked and put off by all the violence and bloodthirst, especially in the first two chapters. Actually after chapter one, which ends with the act of a man almost beating his wife to death, I hesitated before reading on. But then the story really gained speed and I started seeing behind the violence.

All characters are mean - either they are brutal or scheming or both. Justice doesn't exist. Violence is widely accepted (a brother regularly beats his sister, a husband poisons his wife and those are just small side plots) and often described in detail. If the blood for once is not flowing, at least someone is fantasizing about it - and not about some drops but about streams of blood. This is nothing for the sensitive reader.
The only 'character' seeming human was the train, the Lison.
Very strong ending!

In summary: horrible(!) and violent story, but a great and powerful book.

Rating: 4 stars

#119: That's just what I thought when I found the sequels: 'yay - he's grown up!'. Unfortunately most of the time he had been more receding than growing.

Yet those books are funny, at times sad and certainly worth reading, also as comtemporary documents (the death of Princess Diana, the election of New Labour, the Gulf wars...). I have been rereading the whole series several times and I really hope Adrian will be with us for many more years.

I loved the latest one I have to say - the ending was just brilliant! The thing about the Mole books is that I never seem to know when they come out so I just immeasurably excited and happy when I suddenly spot the new one in a bookshop or at the library.

I reread the first few books and read the last 3 of them for the first time, earlier this year.

I wonder if Pandora kept her seat in Parliament?

#123: the book ends before the elections, so we don't know about that. I guess this will be dealt with in the next sequel. But her character is changing a bit, like Adrian she is reverting to her 'old self' from the first books, being more understanding and also showing vulnerability.

A short update on my current reading activities: I finished Don't Move, but didn't find the time to write my review yet. Then I couldn't decide what to read next and started several books in parallel: The Crow Road, Once on a Moonless Night and Germinal, but none of them feels 'right' and so far I didn't make much progress on any of them. Maybe it's the heat.

Then last week got quite busy with business guests from Germany, England and Italy and when the weekend came I got ill and didn't feel like reading at all. Instead I watched action movies on DVD which was quite nice and relaxing for a change.

This week I got some new books from amazon and of those I am planning to read Zorba the Greek soon, it should fit nicely into the summer mood. And I am still reading The Aeneid along with the group read.

Congratulations on getting some new business! Sounds like you needed the downtime after all of them. I hope you are feeling better now.

Yeah, maybe this was just my body's way of saying 'stop - you need a rest'. Yes, I am feeling better again, the fever is gone, and I am back to reading (and working). :-)

57. Don't Move/ Non ti muovere

I got this book after reading BekkaJo’s review on her 75 thread. I read it in the original version, it was my first ‘real’ Italian novel (not translated from other languages) and I am so proud that I was able to finish it. :-)

The story deals with Timoteo, a successful surgeon, whose 15 year old daughter Angela is brought into his hospital after a grave accident with her scooter. She falls into a coma and has to undergo some very difficult and risky surgery. Timoteo can’t do anything but wait for the results of the surgery and for the return of his wife Elsa from London, hoping Angela will still be alive when she arrives. Struggling to keep up a mental connection to Angela , he confesses a secret to her he has been keeping for more than 15 years.

Now this is where the review becomes difficult. Margret Mazzantini is a very gifted writer and I don’t understand why the book was removed from the 1001 list in the 2008 version. There aren’t that many Italian writers on the list anyway, and in my opinion this book well deserved its place there. The language is absolutely beautiful and so intense that I was often close to tears. All the bits where Timoteo describes his family life and directly addresses Angela are just brilliant.

Spoilers coming:
But then there are the other bits. And they are just as well written and just as intense, but they crept me out. Timoteo’s relationship with Italia is just so wrong, so sick. There is a rape scene early in the book and then a few pages later he calls that an ‘amorous adventure’. The scary thing is that he is introduced as a ‘normal guy’, so what does all this say about ‘normal guys’?
I felt sorry for Italia throughout the book. She has been a victim of sexual assaults from a very early age, she is such a sad person that she confuses the attentiveness of a rapist with love.
For some readers it might be difficult to understand the character of Elsa, Timeoteo’s wife. But for me she seemed quite normal. I know many women like her who’d never question their marriages if they felt their husbands were having an affair, as long as he came back. Not because they love him so much, but out of a delusion about the character of men. Why leave a cheating guy just to end up with another cheating guy?

So I’d say this is a good book, but not a nice ‘feel-good’ kind of book. It makes you think a lot and if you are sensitive it also makes you suffer a bit.

Rating: 4,5 stars

#126: Bodies have a way of doing that I have found. I am glad to see that you are feeling better.

#127 I totally agree with your last comment - it is not a feel good book. I read this for book group, but we have decided to not discuss it - the husband of one of our members came off his bike in June and is still trying to recover from serious head injuries and brain surgery... not the best time we thought.

edited to add - Crow Road is brilliant - it's totally in my top 5 for the year so far. Maybe the top two...

Nothing finished, but more started... and I can't even blame the heat anymore as it has finally cooled down a bit here in South Tyrol.

I am now also reading Zorba the Greek (I needed a title starting with 'Z'), If on a winter's night a traveller (I couldn't resist the title) and The Seventh Cross. This means I now have 7 or 8 books on my 'currently reading' pile and I am losing track.

Chances are good that I will finish Zorba this week. I will also try and finish the Aeneid within the next days.

I put Once on a Moonless Night on 'temporary hold'. It has just 200 pages and the story is promising, but I can't get into it. The narrative is so tiresome that I managed only 40 pages in 10 days and still feel that I missed half of the information.

#130: The narrative is so tiresome that I managed only 40 pages in 10 days and still feel that I missed half of the information.

You were probably wise to put that one aside, even if just temporarily, and try and concentrate on your other books.

I hope you are completely better now!

Greetings Deern! I've just discovered your thread and I have to admit I'm sorry I haven't been watching more closely. Your pictures from Italy look soooo inviting and your reviews are topnotch. Looks like you'll be having no problem reaching 75!

#131: Hi alcottacre, this is the first time since I started posting here that I put a book on hold, so I feel a bit bad about it, but it was just hopeless.
Yes, I am fine again - I felt a bit weak for a few days, but now I am back to "full-time-reading", no more action DVDs. :-)

#132: Welcome to my thread, Carmenere (is that an Italian name?). I had some friends here over the weekend, we went hiking to some beautiful mountain lakes and they took loads of pictures, so I'll add some of those soon. I've been living here for almost a year now and I still get excited just looking out of the window.

58. The Aeneid

I bought this for the group read. I couldn’t order the Fagles translation from my local bookshop, so I got the Oxfords World's Classics version with Frederick Ahl’s translation.

I was very happy with my edition. Ahl went long ways to keep his hexameters and I really enjoyed reading the texts aloud. This edition also provided a map which came in handy with book 3 and there were extensive annotations.

Unfortunately then came a period when I was forced to work long hours and so I switched to an online version which didn't require loud and 'rhythmic' reading. That version was not too great and I am now thinking about buying the Fagles from amazon for a reread. I read the first few pages on amazon and it seems more accessible, almost fresh and modern. I would like to read that edition along with the Ahl, one for the plot, one for the style.

I liked books 1-6 more than 7-12, but I’ll always prefer some love drama over extensive descriptions of battles, including unexpected graphic details. I don't really need to know whose brains are scattered where and whose head hangs on its sinews only, even if it sounds good in hexameters... :-(

My favorite books were:
Book 2: Great roundup on the final battle of Troy from Aeneas’ point of view. It was almost like watching a movie. Very exciting and dramatic
Book 4: After the action movie in book 2 now comes the full love drama. I could feel Dido’s pain and obsession. Almost modern, and again extremely gripping, and we have to keep in mind that this was written > 2000 years ago.
Book 5: This felt a bit like comic relief after book 4. Aeneas has escaped Carthage and the Dido drama and is organizing games for the boys. As usual it’s the women who spoil all the fun.
Book 6: Aeneas visits the underworld. I found the first half really thrilling (was almost gnawing my nails during the scene with the ferryman Charon) Book 11: Starts with too much pathos for my liking, but then comes an interesting political war-discussion on the Italian side and then again we get the full battle, this time even with female participation.
Book 12: The battle reaches its climax in the very last lines of the book which then apruptly ends. Couldn't be more dramatic.

Rating: 5 stars - what else could I give here?

Now back to Zorba the Greek - I need to finish at least one more book in July.

Really enjoyed reading your Aeneid write-up - I am back on the wagon and about to start book 6! (Very late). I got through all of Book 5 today so feel like I'm getting somewhere. I really liked Book 5, too. Am loving the Fagles translation, but kind of curious about how much it alters the feel of the poem so {one day} might look for another version. Eek, 3 yo waking up yelling, back later!

59. Zorba the Greek

I loved this book (and at the same time disliked it a bit). Zorba is an incredibly likeable character and now that I finished the book I am already missing him. His liveliness successfully gilds all the flaws the book has, and there are some.

As for the rest of the story: the permanent comparison of 'life philosophies' seemed quite constructed and a bit heavy-handed and it is obvious that the author has a strong love-hate relationship with his home country Greece. At times I wished the narrator would disappear and leave us alone with Zorba.

Something I didn't like at all (but had to accept) was the way women are seen and treated in the story. However I think this is a realistic description of the situation in the first half of the 1900s (before WWII) in this very rural community on a Greek island and this can't make me hate the book.

Rating: 4 stars

#136: I have been meaning to read that one for years. I really need to get to it!

I finished two more books ("Ethan Frome" and "The Cement Garden"), reviews will follow early next week, because I am too stupid to find those touchstone brackets on my Mac keyboard...
Both were quick reads with app. 120 pages each.

I just went through my tbr pile for the new TIOLI and there are just too many books fitting the challenges. Don't know how to start, I wish I could read a bit faster.

And again there are so many new books on my wishlist. Unfortunately the local library has no English books and there's just one place for used books (and it concentrates on Alpine stuff), so I have to buy all my books new. I moved here 10 months ago with just a small selection of tbrs and now all my new shelves are crammed again. So as a 'first aid' I went to IKEA yesterday and ordered new shelves.

I started thinking about getting an e-reader now, but I have to get more information first. They are not very popular here, personally I don't know anyone who owns one.

I guess it must be either a Sony or a Kindle, the Nook seems to be an option for the US only?

#138: I am certainly no expert on e-readers, but I just got a Nook and am very satisfied with it although I think that the Kindle has more books available for it. As far as the Nook being only for the US, I could not find that restriction in the online info available: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp

As I am writing, there is a brass band playing oompah music outside and people wearing lederhosen / dirndls are passing my house (there is a 'Musik-Fest' in the neighbourhood and this is day three). The band's singer is even yodeling (spelling?).
This is all still new for me and it feels like an Alpine cliché, but I love it.

And later when I go into the 'city' (it's more like a big village) I'll be surrounded by 'real' Italians again. This region is so full of contradictions and all groups are constantly complaining, but in the end it all works well. I'd say they have the best of two worlds here.

Sounds like it!

#139: thanks for the link, I will check this. I read about your Nook (what a great present!!) and I followed the discussion on the July TIOLI, and I must say that the Nook sounds good. I just thought it wasn't an option for me.

There are a couple of Kindle users in the group that I know of Suzanne (Chatterbox) and Linda (Lindapanzo), so you might talk to them to see what they like best about their e-readers.

60. Ethan Frome

My second Edith Wharton book after The Age of Innocence, and also a very short book with just 130 pages.

Spoilers:
I got it following the discussions on Nickelini's thread and somewhere else, where it was mentioned as 'the book with the stupidest suicide method ever'.

At first I was pleasantly surprised, I even liked it more than AoI, but then came this really impossible (though not too surprising) ending.

The utter hopelessness of Ethan's situation reminded me a lot of Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. You see the main character rushing towards ruin and can't do anything to prevent it. At the same time I thought the story was not so different from AoI, with the indecisive husband and the manipulating wife.

I like Wharton's writing and I'll put House of Mirth to my wishlist for one of the next book orders.

Rating: 3 stars

61. The Cement Garden

I got this one because the title sounded interesting and because it had just 120 pages. It's a typical McEwan - people leading a seemingly normal life take an unfortunate decision and slowly lose control over their situation.

Spoilers coming:
This book is about four children losing first their father and some months later also their mother. Fearing to be separated by the authorities they decide to hide the mother's body in the basement in a trunk they fill up with cement. They try to keep up their daily routine, which is easy as it all happens during the summer holidays and the family has always been quite isolated anyway.
There is the 'neverending summer heat' (in England?), there is disorder, there are hormones stirring and there are incestuous activities, though I found the latter less disturbing than the relationship between the 23yrs old billard player with the eldest sister.
Spoilers ended

McEwan is an amazing writer, he is able to address directly to the reader's senses. You feel the heat, the passivity and laziness it creates. You can hear the flies in the dirty kitchen, and you can almost smell the stench of the garbage (and other stuff).

So in the end, as much as I admire his writing, I can't help feeling slightly disgusted by each and every McEwan book I've read so far.

Rating: 3,5 stars

I have not read the McEwan book although I imagine I will get to it eventually.

I hope your next couple of reads are better for you, Deern! Those last two seem to be down ones for you.

62. Sartre's Sink

I read this for the August TIOLI challenge 'books with less than 25 copies on LT'. I got many of those, mostly less popular German books, but this one here was published in the UK and even recommended by the 'Times' as one of the best humorous books of 2008 and still has only 14 copies on LT, so I thought it might fit better.

This is a pseudo DIY manual with each piece written in the style of a famous writer.

By now I've learned to be careful when the 'Times' do recommend a book as 'humorous'. They already let me down with Me, Cheeta and this one here is not too great either. There are funny bits with unexpected twists ('Boarding an Attic' with Edgar Allan Poe or 'Tiling a Bathroom' with Fyodor Dostoevsky), but some are completely uninspired ('Putting up a Shelf' with Julius Caesar) or just too simple ('Bleeding a Radiator' with Emily Bronte).
I didn't laugh once (just smiled weakly a few times) and I don't believe this is just because once again a German didn't get the British humour.

The book is short (135 pages in a small page format) and there are some great and very fitting illustrations by famous artists. And I was able to get at least some DIY information out of it, so it ends up with 2,5 stars.

Rating: 2,5 stars

#143: I'll probably go for the new Kindle as soon as it's available again in the UK (there is no release date yet for Germany). It has some nice new features.
The Nook is sold officially only within the US and Canada and if you get it some other way there is no warranty. It's a pity because it looks so much better than the Kindle and I don't like the idea of being restricted to amazon books only (or their special format).

I just finished Everything is Illuminated and this was a great read! I don't know whether I can post the review today, am sooo tired, I was up reading most of the night, couldn't put it down.

#148: I liked Everything is Illuminated too, but I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, so if you have not read that one, I would recommend it to you.

Good luck with the Kindle!

#149: Added to the wishlist! :-)
Hmmm... the new IKEA shelves will be delivered on Wednesday, so if I send out an amazon order today chances are good that the shelves will be up and in place when the books arrive...

Smart thinking! Get the shelves up before the books come in.

Oh dear... I just went on a shopping spree at amazon UK and ordered 12(!) books, among them War and Peace and a collection of works called The Dream of the Red Mansion which has more than 1000 pages (I needed an author starting with 'X' from the 1001 list). My only excuse is that I have to bundle my orders to pay just one shipping fee to Italy.

How much worse will it be once I got that Kindle?

#152: Worse. I can already tell you from my limited experience with the Nook.

Re the e-reader debate, my hubby bought me the Sony reader for my birthday (not the touch screen version). Love it. Plus unlike the Kindle (I think?) you can download word versions for this one. Another plus is that there are loads of downloadable book torrents - for example hubby downloaded me the top 100 downloadable novels for free (this includes loads of the normal classics and some odd ones!) which is v cool to have despite having read about 65 of them!

63. Everything is Illuminated (this is the same review as on the 1001 thread)

It is difficult to describe what this book is about, so I'm not even trying it. You can check other reviews for that.

I bought it quite spontaneously because I liked the cover, and when I read the plot description in the 1001 book I was terribly bored after just a few lines. But many people seemed to like it and what convinced me to read it was maryjanemanolos' recommendation on her blog (thanks for that!!). And it fit nicely into the August TIOLI. So I started it and couldn't put it down. I even got up at night just to finish it because I couldn't sleep without knowing the ending.

The first few chapters might be a bit confusing until you see the connection between the story threads and time levels, but then it all works very well.
Jonathan Safran Foer is quite creative with the language and the styles he is using, but I didn't once get the feeling of reading one of those overly 'constructed' works (which is currently the case with If on a winter's night a traveller.

The book made me laugh (especially the first half), it made me sad, but it didn't depress me. I'd say this is one of those books which leave the reader with a feeling of 'quiet contentedness'.

Rating: 4,5 stars, but maybe I'll change that to 5 once it has settled a bit.

64. Germinal

After reading La Bete Humaine I decided to finally reread (and this time finish) Germinal. The first time I had pretentiously tried to read it in French many years ago and gave up after the first third. I had read the ending though, so at least I didn't get any surprises there this time.

While LBH was short and powerful and packed with violence, this here felt more like a long and slow walk through a valley of utter hopelessness. I am really feeling down now. If I was forced to read all Zolas in a row I'd probably feel like killing myself. Nonetheless the books are great, but it seems I can only have them in small bits with longer breaks in between. Zola certainly didn't sugarcoat anything and that made his books so important.

I really like how he humanizes inanimate things. In LBH it was the train 'Lison', this time it is the greedy mine, swallowing the workers, their health and sometimes their lives. It certainly swallows their souls, because life in the miners community seems to be completely soulless. There is no love, no caring, just envy and much violence as a part of the daily life. It seems that the animals are the only innocent ones in a world where even the small children are already corrupted.

Rating: 4 stars (but not an enjoyable read)

I found that the books I am reading clearly have an impact on my current mood. Sunday (Everything is Illuminated) was a great day, but I have been feeling utterly miserable for the last two days while struggling with Germinal. This morning I continued with A Tramp Abroad which made me laugh and I started the day with a positive feeling.

Got bad news from IKEA yesterday: the delivery of my new shelves will be delayed for one week. So my new books will arrive before I can build their 'home' and they will have to live in their amazon box for a while.

12 books from Amazon - yep, that's a spree!! Is it the Pevear and Volkonsky translation of W&P? If so, and it's a grey hardback, it is such a beautiful book to hold, let alone read. One of my 2010 goals is to finish W&P and it's August... oops! I got through 200 pages last year, loved it, but lost momentum.

Cross-posting... does IKEA deliver? Very cool! You'll just have to stack the books around the house.

I'm the same with books affecting my mood - but mostly if the book is a bit boring. I just finished One Fine Day, about England just after WW2, and it dragged a bit - a lot - in the middle. It made me antsy for 1 1/2 days. Now that I'm onto Love in a Cold Climate, the school holidays are going much faster and a lot less housework is getting done.

Hi Cushla, yes it is the Pevear and Volkonsky - I am glad I read the recommendation for this translation somewhere (your thread?) here before ordering. But I didn't order the hardback, as I usually drag my books along with me, take them to the gym, etc..
I also set W&P as a 2010 goal, but more importantly I want to enjoy it. So maybe I'll start it as book no 76 when there's no more pressure. And I guess it requires wintery weather as well.

There is no IKEA in South Tyrole, the next is in Innsbruck/Austria, which is a 2 hour drive away from my place. Surprisingly they do deliver to the North of Italy and take just 89 EUR per delivery - no matter how many pieces. I wish I had known that earlier when I moved here, it would have prevented me from spending too much money on furniture in the local shops and I wouldn't have had to wait 8 weeks for my bed and wardrobe. All that money I could have spent on books.... :-)

You're lucky! IKEA won't delievr to us :( Not that many places do really... bless Amazon.

Oh and 12 books? Sigh. That's a happy box to arrive!

#159 Oooh - let me know what you think about the end of Love when you get to it - big surprise to me.

#160: The P&V translation of War and Peace is fantastic, IMHO. I read it last year. I read their translation of The Idiot this year and I am also reading their translation of Anna Karenina for the group read.

#159 / 161 Meh - ignore me. Suddenly, whilst sitting on the sofa realised that I was talking about The Pursuit of Love. Actually have Love in a Cold Climate sitting in my TBR - may pick it up for TIOLI as well.

BekkaJo, The Pursuit of Love is the first in a 3 volume set in the edition that I have, but it doesn't fit the TIOLI categories! Am **really** enjoying LIACC - going to bed now to read more. And now you've got me curious about The Pursuit of Love too!

Pursuit is a bit slow to start I found, but the second half is great. I must pick up LIACC - I borrowed it off a firend and it keeps looking at me accusingly. Plus more TIOLI points if we're both reading it!

The box from amazon has not yet arrived and already I got two new titles on my wishlist. :-)

# 164 which one is book no 3?

#160: I've got The Idiot on my tbr, but in a different translation and also my Anna Karenina (which I loved) was not the P&V. Did they also translate Crime and Punishment? I've got a very old copy of that (in German) and I just realised that it's all in gothic print. Don't know yet if I can manage that.

#166: Yes, there is a P/V translation of Crime and Punishment. I have not read that one yet, but will probably get to it some time in the near future.

65. A Tramp Abroad

I've had this one for ages, and now it fit perfectly into the August TIOLI 'Book title/ author without an 'e'' challenge. Mark Twain describes his travels through parts of Europe, mainly Germany and Switzerland. On the last pages there are some short chapters about Italy (Torino, Venice, Milano) and on the cover France is mentioned as well, but I must have missed that.

The part about Germany (mainly Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Neckar region) is great and I would give 4 stars for that. Most of Twain's observations are true and I learned a lot, mainly about student life in the 1800s and the student corps which still exist and whose customs always seemed very strange to me (at least now I know they have already been that strange more than 150 years ago). He also writes at length about his difficulties with the German language - this piece in itself is a bit of a classic, I guess.

The second part about Switzerland (Interlaken, Luzern, Geneva, Chamonix) is quite different. He puts more emphasis on the landscape and sometimes the language is beautiful. I live in the Italian Alps, but now I would like to travel to Switzerland immediately to see their mountains. However some of the events he describes in this second part are too obviously fictional or grossly exaggerated which became a bit tiresome.

It's an entertaining read, but I'd say the reader needs a connection with at least one of the countries described, otherwise the humour might not work.

Rating: 3,5 stars

66. The God of Small Things

Rahel, a young woman, returns from the US to her home town in India to take care of her twin bother Estha. Estha has not been speaking for many years and is obviously trapped in a world of his own that no-one else can enter. With backflashes we learn that the twins were separated at a young age after some terrible events had taken place in the family.

The story is at the same time terribly sad and beautiful. From a very early point the reader knows what is going to happen, but is drawn into the story very slowly, in ever smaller circles, up to the point where he can‘t escape anymore and is forced to watch ‚The Terror‘ (as it is called in the book) unfold.

Arundhati Roy shows great sensitivity and empathy describing the destructive and lasting effects even a casual remark (or later a cruel manipulation) can have on the minds of innocent children.

Rating: 4 stars

67. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There is not much I can write about a book which has probably been reviewed thousands of times. When I started reading it I feard I might be too old already to get the humor, and I was relieved when I found I was actually able to really enjoy it. Certainly it will never be a cult book for me as it might have been had I read it 20 years earlier. But it was fun and I will probably read the other books of the series as well.

Rating: 4 stars

#169: I am going to be reading that one for the TIOLI challenge this month as well. I hope I like it as much as you did, Deern.

Looking at the books I am currently reading and at those on my tbr pile for the August TIOLI I can say that I have my reading planned up to book 75.

Right now I am reading Cloud Atlas (which I love), If on a winter's Night a traveller (which I hate) and I'll soon be through Virginia Woolf's "Selected Short Stories" (which I'd love if I didn't hate short stories).

The Crow Road and The Seventh Cross don't fit any TIOLI challenges, but will be picked up again soon.

(Edited to fix touchstones)

#172: I loved Cloud Atlas and gave up on If a Winter's Night a Traveller, so I understand completely.

I am looking forward to seeing what book you have chosen for number 75.

This is just to remind myself that I have to write reviews for Cloud Atlas and Virginia Woolf's "Selected Short Stories" within the next days. :-)

(I am becoming TIOLI obsessed like Cushla - I can't even take a break from reading to write a review).

#173: I have two options, but one of them would also fit into the August TIOLI. First now I'll have to finish the Calvino to make sure that one won't accidentally end up as number 75!

68. Cloud Atlas

I got this book because so many people on the August TIOLI were reading it. It has 530 pages in small print, but it took me less than 4 days to finish it - and I would have been faster had it not been for the middle part being written in a slang/ dialect that slowed down my reading and took me a whole day (shouldn’t be any problem for the native speakers).

I took notes during the reading and if I put all of my observations into this review it might need an own thread. So the very long text you are seeing here is the short version.

The book consists of 6 stories. The first 5 stories are interrupted at some point and then next story starts. Story #6 is told entirely, followed by the second halves of stories #5 to #1. It’s tempting to read the 2nd halves immediately - but don’t do it, you will miss a lot.

The stories are in chronological order, the first being placed somewhere around 1850, the 5th and 6th in some (hopefully) far-away future. They are loosely connected (the main character in story #2 mentions story #1 in one of his letters which is later read by the main character in story #3, etc.). Logically story #1 has no predecessor and story #6 has no direct successor, but somehow those two are related as well, as some predictions from #1 are proven true in #6 and #6 seems to be a bit ‘back to start’. This might sound confusing, but surprisingly it works very well.

Each story is gripping (though some start slower than others) and each has an appropriate ending. I liked them all equally, though #5 (an Orison of Sonmi 451) was probably the most touching one. In story #3 (Half-Lives – The first Luisa Rey Mystery) I noted that I enjoyed the plot, though it felt a bit like something I had read a few times already (typical crime/thriller). A similar notion I found in #4 where the main character reads the manuscript of #3 and almost guiltily enjoys it, saying that ‘stuff like that was written a thousand times before’. So there is a bit of the reader in each of the main characters, and this works so subtly.

The book has often been compared to Calvino's If on a Winter's night a traveler. Maybe David Mitchell used that one as an example 'how not to do it'. Mitchell shows it is possible to interrupt stories and keep the reader interested, to touch innumerable important issues but trust the reader to develop her/his own thoughts on them, to use different styles without seeming pretentious, to involve the reader without addressing her/him directly (and thus distancing him). It is a coincidence that I was reading both books in parallel, and the more I fell in love with this one the more I hated the other. This one here feels natural and effortless (though it must have been an incredible effort writing it). It simply works.

I rarely give 5 stars right away. I have to let the book settle a bit and often do the ‘upgrade’ only after a second reading. So Cloud Atlas gets 4,5 stars for now, but for me it clearly has 5-star-potential.

Rating: 5 stars

Edited 18.10.2010: Upgrade to 5 stars without a second reading. The book still occupies my thoughts.

#175: I really enjoyed Cloud Atlas when I read it last year too. I was a bit wary after hearing the comparisons to the Calvino book too, since I could not finish that one. I am very glad I went ahead and read Cloud Atlas. It was so much better than the Calvino book!

# 176: 'Touching' is a word too often used in reviews, but Cloud Atlas really touched me deeply. There's so much in it, it's one of the few books that should be read more than once. I am sure the second time you'd find many new aspects in the first halves of the stories.

I will probably finish the Calvino book today, the review is already written. The best thing about that book is that it made me appreciate Cloud Atlas even more.

69. "Selected Short Stories" by Virginia Woolf (Penguin Classics Edition)

This was a challenge for me as normally I am not at all into short stories. I can’t even say why, it’s not the ‘lack of pages’, but they tend to leave me with negative feelings. I never read a ‘happy’ short story – do they exist? On the other hand I love Virginia Woolf’s writing, so I gave this one a chance. And yes, I liked it. It’s the first book of short stories I ever finished, that means a lot.

I have to explain that for me reading Woolf’s novels has always been a very special experience. It feels almost like it activates other, rarely used parts of my brain and it usually takes me a few pages to get settled into her writing. It’s like having to give up resistance (switching off parts of my ‘everyday’ brain) before being able to let this beautiful language wash over me, letting myself drift away in it.
It’s obvious that this is difficult with a short story.

Still I liked most of the stories in this book. Some were unexpectedly funny (in a sarcastic way). I loved the ending in ‘Lapping and Lapinova’. Reading these stories was like discovering a new side of Woolf’s writing, although I slightly prefer the novels and essays I have read so far.
Now I feel ready for Orlando.

Rating 4 stars

70. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler/ Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore

I got this for two reasons: I liked the title and Calvino is an Italian author, so this was another opportunity to read a 1001 book in Italian. I must admit that I did have some language issues, it is possible that I missed some important point and for this I will give an extra star in my rating. But most of it I did understand, and I am sorry to say that so far this has been my worst read in 2010.

The idea is brilliant and after reading 2 or 3 reviews I was really looking forward to starting this book. I loved the first chapter (I’d give 5 stars for that one), but from that point it just went way down. First of all there are the 10 interrupted stories. While I didn’t hate all of them (I’d say maybe 3 of them were tolerable), I found none of them captivating enough to care about their ending. In most cases the best bit of those stories was their interruption. And when it comes to the main story and this suspense thriller thing and the freedom of opinion and the book industry – I am sure Calvino had the best of intentions, but for me it just didn’t work.

The direct addressing of the reader went entirely against me. I declare that I want to distance myself clearly from Calvino’s readers – both male and female: I am not them! May they live happily ever after, they certainly are a perfect match and deserve each other. I don’t want to have anything to do with them again. Ever!

Even the humor in this book didn’t work for me at all. I never liked stories about fictitious eastern European countries (I hated that fake travel guide Molvania ). I was counting the pages to the end of each chapter and that's not how reading should be. I will however try and read another Calvino book, as there aren’t too many Italian authors on the 1001 list.

Rating: 2 stars (this means 1 star + language issue star)

71. Exercises in Style

After finishing Zorba the Greek and so completing my personal “1001 books A-Z title challenge”, the next logic step was the “1001 books A-Z author challenge”. I found I had not read anything by authors whose last name started with Q, U, X or Y. For the ‘Q’ there is just one option and that’s Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau.

This is a strange little book and I can’t say I am sharing the opinions of the reviews I read. It’s what the title says – exercises in writing styles. You get a very short non-story (it’s more an observation of a non-event taking place in a bus) and this non-story is then ‘translated’ into 99 different styles. Some of those are not readable, at least not for me, but some are quite funny. It is certainly an original concept and I might have loved it had I read it at a younger age. But it’s not what I like to read now.

But it didn’t annoy me, it won’t leave negative lasting effects and I might even pick it up in the future when I need an example for a writing style mentioned elsewhere. So it gets 3 stars. And I can recommend it as one of the short and easy books on the 1001 list.

Rating: 3 stars

After the last two, I hope your next read is a 5 star one!

Did I read that you've just finished Mr Pip?? I've just mooched it so want to see what you thought! I must be the only New Zealander not to have read it already...

Yeah, I finished it, but today I am quite busy, so there was no time yet for the review. It will be a difficult one, because there were (many) bits I liked, but also some that didn't convince me. So far it's a 3 - 3,5 stars read for me. I love Great Expectations and that made it easy for me to like Mr Pip. The way the Dickens story is used here to ignite the phantasy of the children on that small island is amazing.

I was warned that there's a 'difficult' scene at the end of the book. The problem is not so much the violence, it's more that you feel it is not written from first hand experience. It's a bit 'over the top' to get a certain effect, and I think the book could have lived without that bit, maybe even better.

Okay - this is already half a review. I'll write more about it later.

All right, time to blush with shame (just kidding) - do I need to read Great Expectations first?

I've been away on vacation so I'm a bit behind on your thread but I do see that you're really chugging along and oh so close to 75! I also see several books which you've recently read to add to my wishlist.

BTW: Carmenere is actually the name of a Chilean wine which I absolutely love!!!! People in the real world just know my as Lynda.

#184 Cushla: hmmm, I don't think you have to read it before Mr Pip (though it might help), but you will probably want to read it afterwards anyway.

Slight spoilers coming: Basically it's about a teacher who reads it to his class, chapter by chapter, and the children are integrating the story into their own lives. Later we learn that the teacher did the same. So there is much comparing going on between 'real life' events and events from GE and also people are described as 'he is like this person from GE', 'she acts like that person', etc.

#185 Lynda: yeah, so far August has been my best reading month ever. Maybe just because it's raining so much. Did you have a good vacation?

#179 - nice comments on the Calvino. I have several times thought about reading this, and several times decided not to. You are helping me decide to leave it on the shelf yet again (a good thing, so I can read something else instead!).

#187: The Calvino really was my big disappointment so far this year. I've never given a non-trash book such a bad rating.

Just a quick update on my reading: I finished The Crow Road and I am almost through The seventh cross. I really liked and enjoyed the first one. The other one touches me deeply in a very personal way, it is terribly painful to read and it will be hard for me to get that 'on paper' or better 'on internet'. So that's almost 74 books finished.

Either The Great Gatsby or Orlando will end up as #75.

And I haven't found the time to write a review for Mr Pip yet, as I am having mixed feelings about this book which I have difficulty to express (even in German)

Edited to remove copy/paste error

72. Mister Pip

During the civil war on the island Bougainville the only white man, ‘Pop-Eye’ Watts, teaches the schoolchildren of a small village by reading Great Expectations to them, opening their eyes to the treasures that can be hidden in a book. Later in the story the book is destroyed and the class tries to rebuild the story from memory. And even later on, Mr Watts tells the story of his own life, intermingling it with bits of Great Expectations – both from the original and the rebuilt story.

I loved this aspect of the book and I loved the idea that the search for story fragments distracted the children from the horrible events happening around them. And I also found it convincing that the children were better able to connect with the voice of Pip speaking to them directly through the book than with the abstract ideas of God and the devil.

Now to my problems. I’ve read quite a few books this year dealing with political conflicts, often being told from a child's perspective. I'd say in most cases a reader can feel the difference between a book that is complete fiction and one that is ‘real’ in the sense that the author either witnessed the events or has some deep personal connection to it. This one here, just like ‘The Other Hand’/ Little Bee felt like pure fiction. The author read (and cared!) about that conflict, doubtlessly gathered as much information as possible and then developed this story. This is not a bad concept and this is not a bad book.

It’s just that some bits don’t ‘feel right’, a bit bumpy, probably whenever Jones left the area he knew well – which is mainly Great Expectations. I didn't buy the whole mother-daughter-Mr Watts conflict. It's like there was a good idea and a good story, but then Lloyd Jones felt the need to add drama where it wasn't really required. And then there’s a horrid scene at the end of the book. I assume it was thought necessary to show the atrocities of the civil war, but for me it clashed terribly with the rest of the book, with the overall atmosphere. I do believe that those things did happen, but maybe this book needed a less drastic scene – or that scene needed a different book.

Rating: 3,5 stars (because it was better than 'The Other Hand'/Little Bee and because I really like Great Expectations)

73. The Crow Road

I can’t really say what it was I liked about this book. It doesn’t have much of a plot and that only starts showing after more than 100 pages (before that you might be asking yourself what the point of the book is).

This is a bit of a family saga, touching the lives of 3 generations of a Scottish clan (they have their own kilt, so I guess I can call them a ‘clan’?). The main character is Prentice, a young man in his early twenties, who seems a bit lost, not knowing yet what direction to take in his life.

The story is written in small bits with many time jumps and ever-changing perspectives. Once or twice I got really confused by this, almost lost my orientation. It’s like a puzzle and it takes a while until you are able to recognize the pattern. I didn’t care too much about the main plot, about the ‘family secret’, but there are so many likeable characters in this book and they kept me going, even though I could have done with fewer time jumps (and there’s so much alcohol consumed in this book that I felt slightly hung over at the end, it's a good thing I really like Scotch whisky) .

Overall really an enjoyable read, and I wish there was a sequel.

Rating: 4 stars

#190: I already have that one in the BlackHole. Hopefully, my local library will get a copy in soon!

74. The Seventh Cross

The story is set in Nazi Germany, pre-War, pre-Holocaust. Seven men have been escaping from a concentration camp for political prisoners. Six of them are caught and returned within hours, but then day after day goes by and the seventh man, Georg, is still not found.

This is a book about normal German people, about how they were affected by the Nazi regime, how their lives gradually changed, very slowly, almost imperceptibly into a situation where you couldn’t trust your neighbors, your friends, even your closest relations. How they ‘grew into it’, tolerated it, even though most of them didn’t actively support it. First out of necessity (so many of them had been unemployed and merely able to feed their families before 1933) and then out of fear. This is also 1984 come true in many aspects. We read about parents fearing there will be a dividing line of ‘nothingness’ between generations as they are no longer able to transfer their own values into the next generation.

And this book shows what an enormous decision it is to face that fear, to ‘do the right thing’, risking everything that makes your life worth living, just to help someone you don’t even know, out of a feeling for justice.

From a literary point of view this is not a great book. I don’t know how the English translation reads, but the German is the simple literary style of that time, almost sounding naïve, as if taken from an old school book. It sounds as if my grandma had written this book.

And this is exactly one if the reasons why it touched me so deeply. I saw my grandma everywhere in this book, in all the depictions of village life in the 1930s. Because (and I didn't know that when I got the book) the story is set in the region where my Dad’s family comes from and where I myself grew up. And there’s Frankfurt, the city where I have been living for seven years before moving to Italy in 2009. In this book I found the food I ate as a child, the dialect I still speak when I meet my family. Those people in the book are my people - basically this could have been me, had I not been lucky enough to be born many years later.

For many other readers this book might not be special, but for me it means a lot, and I have to rate it with 5 very personal stars.

Rating: 5 stars - without that special connection it would be 3,5 stars

#192: I think all of us have books that may not resonate with everyone, but manage to touch us deeply. I am glad you found that one.

I finished my 75th book today, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, a 5 star read! I counted twice before posting this, but it looks like I didn't miss any numbers.

I'll post the review later, now I am going to check my tbrs for more TIOLI books.

75. Orlando

I wasn't sure whether to make this book #75 or The Great Gatsby. Orlando seemed to be the safer bet for a great read, as so far I had loved all of Virginia Woolf's books. It was the right decision. Just now I feel how terribly I have missed her writing since having finished The Waves last year. (I don't count the short stories, which were enjoyable, but just too short for the 'real' Woolf experience).

It's difficult to describe what effect her writing has on me. It's like some lazy chord inside me is suddenly activated and keeps humming as long as I'm reading, sometimes longer. Something I don't feel when reading any other prose authors. Whatever it is, it's not in the plot, it's in the flow of the language. I can only compare it to reading some great poetry. And I am terribly glad I am able to read her works in English. I once leafed through a German translation of To the Lighthouse, and whatever it is that makes her work so special doesn't translate well.

About Orlando: I had this book on my shelf for some time but didn't dare reading it, because the plot sounded so strange - I was scared I might love it less than her other works. It is certainly different, I'd even say it's more accessible than "The Waves" or "To the Lighthouse". My Penguin Classics edition had some interesting annotations to offer. The book contains critical thoughts about the gender roles, about writing and publishing, but all this is embedded into this fantastic story about the man Orlando who was turned into a woman, who is over 400 years old but is only 36. It is strange and beautiful at the same time.

Rating: 5 stars

#195: I have never read Orlando although I loved To The Lighthouse when I read it earlier this year. I will have to give this one a try too. Thanks for the recommendation, Deern.

Something I have to add concerning Orlando:

There is one short (and not too important scene) which is my greatest dream come true: Orlando walks into a book shop and orders 'one of all important books' to be sent to her home.

I've always thought if I should ever win the lottery, that's just what I would do - walk into my big bookshop (that was back in Frankfurt) and order from the German and English sections 'one of whatever is good literature' (leaving out chick lit and Dan Brown stuff, but including childrens books and YA) and having sent them all home to my very own spacious library.

76. 1000 Orte, die man knicken kann translates to '1000 places to forget'

I needed a non-fiction book about some foreign country for the TIOLI and this was the only one I found in my small bookshop. It's an anti-travelling guide, and it was just what could be expected. Some funny bits (yes, I laughed a few times), but not many of them and alltogether quite dull.

It lists places like Paris, London, New York, Rome, Venice, Australia, the Maldives, Egypt, Kenya and so on. It doesn't really say 'Don't go there', the message is more like 'don't do all that sightseeing - if you're not really interested in those sights, you will just get terribly bored' - which is kind of true. What can you expect from those tourist sites? Great surprise: you will be ripped off your money and the food is dubious. And the book offers also completely unwitty suggestions 'how to get rid of annoying co-travellers'.

It qualified for the TIOLI because it doesn't mention Germany. I wonder if that's good or not.

Rating: 1,5 stars (for of the few laughs and because it was short and because it's a TIOLI)

#197: What a wonderful dream for any book lover!

Congrats on passing the 75 mark Deern!

I'm also reading a Virginia Woolf - partly for TIOLI and partly cos there are so many on the 1,001 list. I just can't get on with her though. I completely understand what you mean by your review, but unfortunately she really doesn't hit that chord with me - I appear to be one of the only ones though! Ah well - I'll just have to keep wading through them and hope that at some point her writing clicks with me and I can go back and re-read and enjoy them.

Congratulations on passing 75!

Congrats!

Thank you everyone - I am really touched! :-)

Time for a confession: I am 'slightly' paranoid when it comes to the internet, and opening this thread (and posting on other threads as well) was much more of a challenge for me than reading those 75 books.
I am so glad I did it, and I want to thank you all for your comments and all the encouragement.

#200 BekkaJo: The first book I read was Mrs Dalloway which seemed to be the 'easiest' one. I couldn't really connect and those 200 pages took awfully long to finish. I rated it with 4 stars because I thought 'I had to' (I need to reread it soon!).
I had already bought To the lighthouse then, so I took that with me on a holiday to Sylt, which is the most northern of the German North Sea islands. It was November, the weather was rough, I took long walks along the beach, staring into the waves (I was kind of stressed at that time), and from my bedroom window I was able to see the lighthouse. (really!)
So obviously that was the right place for the book and also the right time, as I had just fallen terribly in love with Shakespeare's sonnets and the use of the English language in poetry in general.
Woolf got me with the 'Time passes' interlude and with this sentence: "She rammed a little hole in the sand and covered it up, by way of burying in it the perfection of the moment"
(which I did literally on the next day during my beach walk and have been doing 'virtually' very often since).

So don't force it, I think Virginia Woolf is one of those authors who really need the right moment. Before that connection is built reading her books can be torture.
I am still waiting for my special moment with Goethe - I can't get through his prose!

77. The Great Gatsby

This book should have been longer, at least 100 pages more. Not because it was so great, but I think it would have worked better (at least for me).

I hated the first part. It was quite different from what I had expected. All those shallow people (Myrtle buying that puppy and then not caring for it), the violence (Tom casually breaking Myrtle‘s nose), all the cheating, and then the narrator who claims to be a honest man, but just keeps watching?
Then there‘s the first night at Gatsby‘s - that was nice, but from the first moment it is obvious that something is wrong with him. I would have preferred a slower development. I wanted to admire Gatsby, to be blinded by this glittering world, before seeing the other side of him, before having doubts about his background. And I have no words for Daisy. In the end Gatsby is the only slightly likeable character in a story that‘s filled with callous and superficial people. This is a sad book.

Is this really the greatest American novel? I understand that it hit the nerve of the time, but is this still a valid label? I must have missed something.

Rating: 3,5 stars

Edited to correct touchstone

Yesterday I read two very short online books for the TIOLI - both were awful:

78. Walking by Henry David Thoreau (wrong touchstone)

I didn‘t like Walden and I would never have touched this if not for its ridiculous shortness and for the TIOLI. But those 27 pages felt like 200. What can I say? It‘s not so much about walking. It‘s about nature in general, about God and about the seemingly obvious fact that the American continent is far better than Europe which will undoubtedly lead to the superiority of the Americans in all aspects. Why? Because the sky is higher, the moon is brighter and the air is clearer and among other things this will result in better literature. And there are more types of forest trees than in France (he doesn‘t mention how much smaller France is than the American continent). The Mississippi is the new Rhine, just better, because the castles around the Rhine are old and the bridges were all built by the Romans. And you don‘t need to be scared in the American woods because there are no dangerous beasts like in Africa.
If all this is meant to be funny, I‘ll change my rating. But I fear he was quite serious when he wrote this.

Rating: 2 stars

79. Half a Lifetime Ago

I found this on the Gutenberg website, its title starts with ‚H‘ and it is a book on LT, so it qualifies for the TIOLI although it is really short. It was my second book by Elizabeth Gaskell. I didn‘t like Cranford much, found it too sweet and nothing ever happened, but this here is much worse.

Plot (this is the complete plot - so should you want to read it, don‘t go on): Susan Dixon lives with her parents and brother Willie on a farm. She is engaged to be married to Michael Hurst. Then her mother dies and Susan promises her to always take good care of Willie. Then her father gets typhoid fever. Then she gets it as well and when she recovers, she finds that her father has died and her brother is mentally disabled. Then Michael leaves her because she doesn‘t want to put Willie into an asylum. Then he marries another woman. Then she lives alone with her brother who gets more and more violent. And then he dies. And then there‘s a snowstorm and she finds Michael out there who is dead. Then she goes to tell his wife and there she has a stroke. But luckily the widow looks after her, so Susan lets her and her children move into her farmhouse and there they all live happily ever after. All of this happens on 44 pages. I‘d rather read another 200 pages about Miss Mattie.
Honestly - no-one needs to read this.

Rating: 1,5 stars

#207: If The Great Gatsby is the great American novel, then I missed something as well. I do not care for the book at all.

Friday was a terrible day. I had taken the day off and wanted to go hiking, but then I received some bad news from home (concerning my Dad's work, so everyone is in good health, no worries here) and there was nothing to do than to sit by the phone. But I was so tense that I went to the gym instead and spent all day there, working out while reading (cell phone always by my side), with some breaks in between which I spent again reading in the gym's courtyard. The staff there must have been a bit worried about me, I guess I was behaving quite unusual. Later in the evening I received my expected phone call, and it looks like everything might be settled positively, what a relief!

This book wasn't on my 'soon to be read' focus so far, but somehow it 'wanted to be taken' that day. And it was a good choice, because it really managed to distract me a bit and it helped me through the day.

80. Slaughterhouse Five

This book deals with the second world war, mainly with the Dresden air raid. But it's not your normal novel. The protagonist Billy has the ability to time-travel, so he knows everything in advance. He is also abducted by aliens in the 60s and displayed in a kind of zoo on their planet. The interesting idea he brings back from there is that there exists no free will. Whatever happens has to happen and has been fixed in history a long time ago. During his time in Dresden he is always aware that he will survive (and many others will die). So what else can he do but simply accept it? This clearly is an anti-war book, but an entertaining one. I liked it more than Catch-22.

Something about Dresden: I'm from the western part of Germany, and the Dresden air raid was sometimes mentioned as a truly cruel event which might not have been necessary from a military point of view. But we grew up with the awareness that somehow we had "deserved" it, not just Dresden, but the destruction of all our big cities. It was never questioned in my generation.
Some discussions came up after the re-unification when it was decided to restore the Frauenkirche, but it was always admitted tat those bombings accelerated the surrender of the German troops.

Rating: 4 stars

#210: I am sorry to hear that Friday was such a terrible day for you, Deern, but glad everything turned out OK for your dad in the end.

I still need to read Slaughterhouse-Five. *sigh*

Congratulations on reading 75 (ok, 80 now) books and writing such great reviews about them! I'm just catching up here after 4 days in Germany (Legoland again - near Guenzburg/Muenchen). It sounds like things with your Dad are sorting themselves out - hope you have had a better weekend and got hiking in the end. We have stunning weather over here, going to be 32 today!

I still haven't read Slaughterhouse Five either, but I have a non-fiction book on Dresden that I want to read while we're here, Dresden: Tuesday February 13, 1945 by Frederick Taylor.

Did you read The Seventh Cross in German or English? It sounds like I would like it too. I spend most of Every Man Dies Alone wondering about what I'd have done, and can imagine it'd be a much stronger feeling if I were German. If it's been translated I'll look for it, but the books I read in German are usually travelogues...(well, usually is overstating it - the 2 I've bought are travel books!)

As usual, interrupted by kids wanting things...

#212: Hi Cushla, I hope you enjoyed Legoland. I have never been to one myself - when I was little the next one was located in Denmark - too far away for a short trip. The weather here is (finally!) fantastic again as well, summer has returned. But I didn't do the hiking today, I went swimming instead, which was sooo relaxing.

I read The Seventh Cross in German, but I am not sure if I can recommend it in the original. It's really old style, there were many expressions I hadn't heard from anyone but my grandmother.

By the way, I called her last week and talked to her about the book. She told me so many things I hadn't known so far, and now she wants to read it as well.

Thanks for reminding me that I DO want to read Slaughterhouse-Five someday.

Glad to hear that Friday seemed to end on a positive note. Exercise does relieve tension a bit during times of distress, so the day wasn't a complete lose waiting by the phone.

#214: I guess the book helped as much as the exercise, because it was both captivating and required concentrated reading, so it got me through the day.

I think that often it's not me who selects the books, but it's the books that select the best time when to be read. On Friday I was staring at my shelves, trying to decide which one to take and suddenly this one seemed to say 'Hey - take ME - I'm perfect for today!'.

Another example: I finally read A Tramp Abroad for the August TIOLI, and it taught me much about student life in Heidelberg in the late 1800s. And 'suddenly' (after it had been on my tbr forever) I felt like reading Of Human Bondage. And what a surprise - the protagonist goes to Heidelberg to study German and there are many references to the things I learned from the Twain book.

I hope you enjoy Of Human Bondage. I just finished it.

81. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

On my personal 'A-Z author challenge' within the 1001 list, this author represents 'Y'. "Kitchen" is a short book (150 pages) with a nice and simple pink cover, containing the two short stories, 'Kitchen' (app. 100 pages in 2 chapters) and 'Moonlight Shadow'. The style reminded me of Murakami, though I'd say it's not as accomplished.

In both stories the main character is a young woman who has to deal with death/ loss and loneliness. Especially the second story is quite sad and I can't help guessing that the author herself went through such a phase. The stories center around the question what it is that keeps us going when life no longer seems worth living. Interwoven in these stories are small 'mystic' events and there is always an emphasis on the importance of good and tasty food (which is even better if shared with a person who understands the feeling of loneliness).

This is not a great book, the style is a bit juvenile. But both stories are quiet and heartfelt and I just feel charmed. I wishlisted some of Banana Yoshimoto's other books at amazon, as I'd like to know how her writing has developed over the years.

Rating: 3,5 stars

82. Kim

I added a new category to my library especially for 'Kim': 'to be reread' . I feel that presently I can't do justice to this book. I'd lie if I said I enjoyed it, but I feel sure the reason is mainly that I used an online version.

It took me a whole week to read. I struggled with the English and I would have needed annotations for the endless Hindi expressions as well as for the whole cultural background (or at least an introductory text).

This book was certainly addressed to English readers at a time when there was a certain basic knowledge about 'old' India, about the various religions and the caste system. I was unprepared and quite often didn't know what was going on.

As for the English: I have read enough Shakespeare to be able to cope with most of the 'thou art' and 'thou goest' forms, but not when they are mixed with slang forms like 'veerree' for 'very' and such stuff. Reading this was really difficult for me, and for the reread I guess I'll have to fall back on the German translation.

But even though the story never really got to me I was able to recognize the charm of the characters. I liked Kim and the lama a lot, and I am sure this is a wonderful book. So for now it gets 3 stars with the option of an upgrade.

Rating: 3 stars

#219: So for now it gets 3 stars with the option of an upgrade.

I love that! Very honest.

Hi there, Deern, I'm getting caught up with threads after being on a short vacation. It's so easy to get behind here!

>192 Deern:: I love those few books that tug at my heart and for which I have a special connection.

Belated Congratulations on reaching the magic 75 number! I'm happy to have done the same with my last book. We all know it's not about the numbers here, but it's still a good feeling to reach a goal. And you did it with a wonderful book. I haven't read Orlando yet, but I am a big fan of Virginia Woolf so I'll definitely read this one of these days.

I too like the "option of an upgrade" although I recently downgraded a few of my ratings by half a star.

83. The Yellow Wallpaper

I can't believe this one counts as a book. I read it online on project Gutenberg, but as a paper book it can't have more than 15 pages. Well, it's a short story about a woman and a yellow wall paper, and that's about as much as I can write without spoiling everything.
I liked it, but found it also a little disturbing. It's certainly not a 'happy' story.

Rating: 3 stars

18.10.2010: Edited to downgrade half a star (from 3,5)

I have this one as a Virago Modern Classic and haven't read it yet - it looks too disturbing!

I finished Of Human Bondage, but I need to collect my thoughts on it before I can post the review. It is an incredibly rich book and I'd say it's among the few that really deserve to be called 'great'. I rated it with 5 stars.

#221: I also downgraded several books this year. I am definitely reading 'better' literature since I started my threads here and when I look over my collections I am constantly comparing.

I might have to review my whole rating system. Sometimes I wish there were different rating categories. Looking at 1984 for example - reading that one was certainly no enjoyable experience. But it is an extremely important book and in that sense a must-read, so it got 5 stars. However, I can't really compare it to a book like Of Human Bondage which (for me) is close to perfection.

#224: I am glad to know that you enjoyed Of Human Bondage, Deern. I think it is terrific too!

Good news today - my brand new Kindle is on its way from the US to Italy!!
And those clever guys at amazon have already established my Kindle account and offer me to start 'collecting' (i.e. buying) right now. I hope I can wait...

#226: Great! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have my Nook!

I've done it - I bought my first e-books and loaded them to my mac. So I can start reading right now, no matter how long it takes to get that Kindle to Italy (and I remembered last night that I still need to buy a power adapter anyway). I realized that amazon is now a very dangerous place for me with this 1-click-buying. So far I used to organize my orders to save shipping fees. Now I can just buy whenever I'd like to.

Which would be nice if those e-books didn't cost so much. That was the negative surprise yesterday. It seems that books in the US cost more than in the UK and e-books are often more expensive than the paperback version. And I think I pay more than US citizens, they added some 'shipping fees for wireless transport'. Sure there are some free versions of the classics but you have to search for them and often the more popular classic books are only available for money.

Another bad surprise was that I am not allowed to shop for e-books on amazon UK (where I always order my normal books) because I don't live there. Maybe they haven't got those virtual shipping fees implemented in their software and so they have to exclude all the foreigners. Not so great.

Sorry to hear about all the hidden costs you are getting hit with, Deern. I hope everything works out in the end for you though.

I am basically using my Nook as a 'fill in' - to fill in the gaps between my personal library and what the public library offers.

I'd probably get those hidden costs with other e-book readers as well. They are most popular in the US, and I guess if I bought from other places they would always add a little 'something'. I got some cheap complete works on my mac last night and when it comes to modern literature I'll have to compare prices.

I'll have to check my public library here one day. But it's really small and certainly has no English section. And as for second hand books... not so good either. Generally reading is not that popular here in Italy compared to some other countries. Only few and small book shops where you have to order most books anyway (i.e. "better" books = non-crime, non-vampire...). So far it has been the cheapest and often quickest option to get my books from the UK.

Too bad about the public library. I use mine extensively. I tend to take it forgranted, unfortunately.

#224 I'm gald you enjoyed Of Human Bondage too Deern - I remember having to take a big pause before commenting on it when I read it earlier this year. Still one of my best reads this year and I agree - a worthy 5 star...

Great that you've got the e-reader, less great about the costs. Have you investigated Bookmooch? I **love** it. I went through a crazy phase with it in NZ in the first year I was on there, then stopped while we were moving, but now I'm back and have found some lovely books in the last few months. I don't know how the costs would work out from Italy, and you do need time to ship things when you say you will, but it might be worth a look.

Thanks to both you and BekkaJo I'm adding Of Human Bondage to my wishlist and mabye even my open BookDepository shopping basket...

The interesting thing about ebooks (on the Kindle, at least) is that it's very much a middle path in terms of cost. If there's a book that you're willing to wait for mass market paperback to read, the Kindle version is likely to cost you more. If you want to read it now, or if it's only in trade paperback, the Kindle version is likely to cost you less (though not always).

One advantage I hadn't considered when I bought it was space saving. I'm starting to have space issues with books, despite having a room dedicated as a library in the house, and the Kindle doesn't add to that problem if it's a book I'll never re-read.

#232: I remember your review - actually that was the reason that I ordered the book (along with The Crow Road and The God of Small Things which were both great as well).
Of Human Bondage is definitely among my top reads this year (and ever), along with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Remains of the Day.

#233: Isn't Bookmooch about swapping books? I don't know if I can do that - I mean I have no problem buying second hand books, or borrowing and returning books, but I don't like to give my own books away forever.

I put many books in storage when I moved here and after just a few weeks I missed them so much that I started transporting them to Italy, box by box, whenever I returned from a visit to Germany.

But certainly there are some I could give away (there is a terrible collection of English chick lit in storage from my times before LT) . Isn't there a website?

#234: How wonderful - you have your own library! That was my great dream when I moved here... and then I realized that the rents in this picturesque small town are higher than in Frankfurt. So no extra room for my books, just the usual 'place shelves wherever there is some free wall left'.

For this reason I ordered the Kindle. I liked its looks and the promise of its new features and the fact that I don't have to deal with memory cards (which tend to get lost). Just the thought of carrying up to 3500 books with me wherever I go was too tempting and I must admit I never really thought about the costs of those 3500 books. :-)

83. Of Human Bondage

For days and days I have been struggling with this review and I have to admit defeat. If a book is as close to perfection as this one here, I am not able to deliver anything close to a useful analysis. At least nothing of a length anyone would like to read.

I forced myself to post this today because the reviews for several other books I’ve finished are queuing up already.
Most of the people who read this book will know how I feel about it. And the ones who haven’t read it should see it for themselves. But take your time – this is a long book, a quiet book with amazing character development, it shouldn’t be rushed.

Rating: 5 stars, will certainly become one of my all-time favorites and definitely one of the best books in a year with many phantastic reads.

84. Io non ho paura/ I'm not scared by Niccolo Ammaniti

Another book I read in Italian. This time it was quite easy and I needed only 2 days, so I guess it must be a very quick read in English, stylistically undemanding. The narrator is a nine-year old boy, the location is a small village in the deep south of Italy, the time is the summer of 1978.
In this setting, the protagonist Michele discovers a secret that will change his world forever. And I can’t spoil the secret here, but it becomes clear quite early in the book and on the remaining pages we see how Michele copes with it.

I found the characterization of Michele very convincing. Some readers might say that his reactions were immature, that he should have taken the “obviously necessary” steps much earlier, but we should consider the following points: this is 1978, not 2008. There was no internet, there were no videogames (at least not in that place), at 9 years children were much more children than they are now. It was normal to go on long bike tours on your own, parents didn’t worry, as long as you were back in time for the meals.
At nine years you knew how to read, you could read the paper, sometimes watched the news. You were on the way to become a young adult, but still there were the remains of the time when you believed in monsters, fairies, ghosts. You knew in your head they didn’t really exist, but in your heart you wished you could still believe in the same way the younger children did.
And in one moment you might act all grown up, but in the next minute you might fall back to childish behavior, not considering the damage this might bring to others.

I quite liked this book, I just wish I knew what happened after the abrupt ending.

Rating: 3,5 stars

85. The writing on my forehead (my first book completed on the Kindle)

On August 20th, the day when I was so worried about my Dad and spent the whole day in the gym, working out, reading and staring at the phone, the nice receptionist obviously noticed my distress and after a short talk about books in general she recommended this one here. So this is a book I was determined to like and I almost succeeded. But I remember now that she herself had not finished her copy when we were talking, I'll have to ask her what she thought about the ending.

It is a nice addition to the many books about India/Pakistan I read this year, but as a stand-alone book it doesn’t deliver the necessary background, it is a bit shallow. The main character is Saira, an American woman of Indian-Pakistani heritage and we see her growing up in a Western country in a family with deeply rooted traditions. Saira - as much as she loves and respects her family - doesn’t want an arranged marriage, she wants an education and to become a journalist. This all sounds like a cliché, but the author manages to write this part quite convincingly, I assume most of it being autobiographical. I especially liked the descriptions of Saira’s visits to Pakistan and her relationship with her sister Ameena.

After 4/5 I would have rated the book with 3,5 stars as a feel-good summer read. But then the pace changed and became almost hectic (big time jumps, short chapters) and the story took a turn I didn’t like at all.

Angry spoilers coming:
With a ‘many years later’ time jump the author makes Saira a war and crisis journalist, but we never learn anything about her work, except that it is ‘successful and dangerous’ and her family is proud of her.
A few days after September 11th 2001 Ameena is shot to death home in the US–because as a Muslim she is wearing a headscarf !!! And the worst thing is that her family had expected that to happen! No comments here, they would be quite unfriendly.
Saira returns to the US to her brother-in-law and her niece. And then we learn the niece is in reality Saira’s unwanted illegitimate child, adopted by Ameena and her husband. And in the end there’s foreshadowing that Saira will give up her freedom as an oh so successful war journalist and marry her brother-in-law and stay at home, because it’s tradition and a man needs a woman by his side.
I don’t know if it was the editor’s idea to give the story an extra-boost by adding 9/11 (instead of making Ameena just die of some illness) and by this niece/daughter twist. In any case both were unwise decisions which quite spoilt the book for me.
In fact it would have been interesting to see how 9/11 influenced the life of the family in both countries, but this was much too drastic to be half convincing.
Spoiler end.

So if you read this book, better stop after the 9/11 episode.

Rating: 3 stars because otherwise I’d feel guilty

It's less than 250 postings, but this thread is getting slow, so here's #2:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/97981