fundevogel's fraction of 1001

I'm just looking to read 1001 selected from the books that have been included any version of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" or "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up".

1000 Books to Read Before You Die List (1001 Books to Read Before You Die only).
Group Totals

1-50
from 1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J. K. Rowling *
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling
4. The Giver - Lois Lowry
5. Number the Stars - Lois Lowry
6. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
7. The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary
8. Charlotte's Web - E. B. White
9. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
10. My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead George
11. Julie of the Wolves - Jean Craighead George
12. Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh
13. Redwall - Brian Jacques
14. The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
15. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
16. Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls
17. Watership Down - Richard Adams
18. The Indian in the Cupboard - Lynne Reid Banks
19. The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
20. Hatchet - Gary Paulson
21. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
22. The Island of the Blue Dolphin - Scott O'Dell
23. The Fellowship of the Ring - J. R. R. Tolkien
24. The Neverending Story - Michael Ende
25. The Witch of Blackbird Pond- Elizabeth George Speare
26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
27. Prince Caspian - C. S. Lewis
28. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C. S. Lewis
29. Der Struwwelpeter - Heinrich Hoffman
30. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs - Jon Scieszka
31. The Stinky Cheese Man - Jon Scieszka
32. Animalia - Graeme Base
33. The Wolves in the Walls - Neil Gaiman *
34. Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
35. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie - Laura Joffe Numeroff
36. Blueberries For Sal - Robert McCloskey
37. The Borrowers - Mary Norton
38. D'aulaires' Norse Gods And Giants - Ingri D'Aulaire
39. The Dark Is Rising - Susan Cooper
40. The Emperor's New Clothes - Hans Christian Anderson
41. The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein
42. Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
43. Green Eggs and Ham - Dr. Seuss
44. Half Magic - Edward Eager
45. Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes
46. The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Anderson
47. Misty Of Chincoteague - Marguerite Henry
48. Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Mildred D. Taylor
49. The Secret Of The Old Clock - Carolyn Keene
50. Stone Soup - Marcia Brown

For the sake of touchstones I guess my next update will get a new post.

51-100
from 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

51. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
52. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams *
53. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
54. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
55. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
56. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
57. The Shining - Stephen King
58. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
59. Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion
60. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
61. Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
62. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
63. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
64. Once and Future King - T. H. White *
65. The Hunchback of Notredame - Victor Hugo
66. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
67. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
68. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
69. The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe
70. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson *
71. Cancer Ward - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn *
72. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James *
73. Story of O - Pauline Reage *
74. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller *
75. Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille *
76. House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski *
77. Candide - Voltaire *
78. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut *
79. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks *
80. At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft *
81. A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh *
82. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon *
83. Animal Farm - George Orwell *
84. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon *
85. A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift *
86. Dracula - Bram Stoker *
87. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco *
88. The Stranger - Albert Camus *
89. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs *
90. The Monk - Matthew G. Lewis *
91. The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett *
92. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
93. The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
94. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
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101-150
books appearing on multiple lists

101. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
102. Gulliver's Travelers - Jonathan Swift
103. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
104. Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
105. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
106. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
107. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
108. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
109. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
110. The Three Musketeers - Alexander Dumas
111. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Conan Doyle *
112. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens *
113. The Arrival - Shaun Tan
114. Aesop's Fables - Aesop *
115. Watchmen - Alan Moore
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151-200
more from 1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up

151. The Story Of Doctor Doolittle - Hugh Lofting
152. The Story Of Babar - Jean De Brunhoff
153. The Tale Of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
154. Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
155. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
156. Where The Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
157. Northern Lights - Philip Pullman...................................................30
158. Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne...............................................................35
159. Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling.......................................................39
160. The Sword in the Stone - T. H. White............................................46
161. The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss
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from 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die

201. 30 Days of Night - Steve Niles
202. Amphigorey - Edward Gorey
203. Black Hole - Charles Burns
204. Hellboy, Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction - Mike Mignola
205. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 - Alan Moore
206. Sandman, Vol. 1 : Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman
207. Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1 : Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life - Bryan Lee O'Malley
208. Batman: The Killing Joke - Alan Moore
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling 8/24/10
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"*

Clearly this book doesn't need another review. However, enjoyable as it is, I was disappointed to realize that the text had indeed been Americanized since I first read it ages ago. It doesn't hurt the story of course, but it seems like a supreme act of over-editing to tailor editions to specific dialectical regions. Aside from the Harry Potter series no one ever felt the need to "translate" an English, or Scottish or Australian book for American audiences.

Give us some credit. I've read tons of English language books from other countries, no Americanization necessary or desired.
4.5/5 stars

*I'm looking to read 1001 selected from the books that have been included any version of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" or "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up".

Progress
children's: 42
Boxall's: 29
shared: 10
total: 61/1001

The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Conan Doyle 9/5/10
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up" and
"1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

I finished this one up earlier but wasn't really sure what to say about it. It's a pretty easy read compared to a lot of Victorian fiction, but I wasn't really impressed with the plot (I swear, after three chapters I wondered if the whole story would take place within the warmth of Holmes' study). On the other hand I really loved some of the characters and their interactions. Holmes and Watson were priceless together, and it made it easy to see why the two of them have lasted so long as characters. Stapleton the Naturalist and the doctor were also pretty fantastic characters what with Stapleton being introduced as a grown man bounding across the moor with his butterfly net and the doctor proclaiming to Holmes upon his introduction that he just loved Holmes' skull. They were certainly hyperbolic characters, but honestly, that's why I liked them so much.

I wish the whole book had been as amusing as this but much of it dragged and as a mystery I felt like I was only being given enough information so that at the end when Holmes declared the mystery solved it would be. There really wasn't enough going on for any other conclusion to be drawn so you didn't really have much to ponder while reading. It's a mystery that leads you, not one that puzzles.
3/5 stars

Progress
children's: 43
Boxall's: 30
shared: 11
total: 62/1001

Love the placeholders! Great idea.

Thanks. I don't know that I'll ever get through them all but they're there if I need them.

The Wolves in the Walls - Neil Gaiman 10/9/10
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

Quick little picture book. I haven't been impressed by the graphic novels I've read by Gaiman (I'm not into quests) but I was completely charmed by this. I wish this one had been around when I was little, though it is hard to imagine I would have enjoyed it more than I did as an adult. The story is clever, creative and bold and I was even more impressed by the illustrations which are gorgeous. At some point I'm going to have to get a copy of this for my library.
5/5 stars

Progress
children's: 44
Boxall's: 30
shared: 11
total: 63/1001

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 11/22/10
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

The story has a good premise but it isn't really realized, possibly due to the irregular format. The book doesn't read like a typical novel. Instead it is broken into several small, greatly overlapping parts each narrating the course of events as they were percieved by a character. The first section is told by the lawyer Utterson, who suspects his friend the doctor is being blackmailed by Mr. Hyde, then the reader is presented with the account of Dr. Lanyon to whom Mr. Hyde's identity is revealed near the end of the events of the story and finally you get the story according to Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde is of course uninterested in recording his experiences.

The problem is that though the idea of building a complete narrative from various points of view is a good one in this case its done rather sloppily. The accounts are more repetitive than complementary and it isn't until the last one that the idea of the duality of man is introduced in a last minute hamfisted sort of way. It reminds me of the last chapter of Brave New World where Huxley decided to spell out what his book was all about as if it wasn't already obvious to the most disinterested of readers. The only difference is Huxley didn't need that chapter to explain his intent, where as the ideas Stevenson invoked weren't at all hinted at in the rest of his book.

I've heard this book was written very quickly and surmise that it's parts are akin to the scraps of writing a writer produces in the early stages of writing to flesh out their thoughts and possibly rework to actually use in the story. But Stevenson never got any further in developing his novel he just strung together the bits of writing he whipped out and called it a novella. It a real shame since it's a good story and even with the horribly bad structure and organization you can tell that Stevenson knew how to put words on the page, even if he didn't bothered to put his words to unified purpose.

The edition I read also included the short stories "The Body Snatcher", "Markheim" and "The Bottle Imp". These also had a tendency to ramble on longer than necessary. Perhaps he was paid by the inch? However they were better told and were fairly sophisticated horror stories with interesting premises. Markheim in particular is the sort of story that would be an interesting piece to analyze for a literature class. It touches on similar themes to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but is exponentially better at communicating them.
3/5 stars

Progress
children's: 44
Boxall's: 31
shared: 11
total: 64/1001

Cancer Ward - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1/5/11
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

This book had been sitting my shelf for years mocking me. No more.

I feel a little bad saying I enjoyed reading this book. It seems kinda wrong to enjoy a book about sick people living under an oppressive government. But it is very well written and has a wry sort of humor to it. Honestly it reminded me of Catch-22, but wryer, much wryer.

The book's strength is in it's characters. It's an ensemble cast and the characters come from all sorts of backgrounds with various perspectives. The story is written from the point of view of it's characters and Solzhenitsyn is able to shift gracefully from the draconic mind of the dedicated party-man to the studious young liberal without hitch.

With his diverse characters Solzhenitsyn is able to address a range of issues greater than any one of his characters could. Through the hospital staff we learn about the critical shortage of supplies, overtaxed equipment and the entrenchment of bad workers that do none of their own work leaving the dedicated workers with double workloads. We learn about the doctors' naive insensitivity to a patient's right to know what his condition and treatment is let alone his right to approve or refuse treatment. But some of the most rousing issues are raised and debated aggressively by the characters themselves, usually with the primary protagonist, Oleg Kostoglotov, spitting fire across the ward.

Ultimately it was a captivating read though the ending turned my perspective of the protagonist on its head. For all his intellect and fiery political opinions Kostoglotov was a prisoner that needed his prison. He was institutionalized, not it in the dependent, helpless way we usually think of it, but he had come to define himself with the bars he beat himself against and without them he didn't know who he was.
4.5/5 stars

Progress
children's: 44
Boxall's: 32
shared: 11
total: 65/1001

The Arrival - Shaun Tan 3/31/11
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

I checked this out on a recommendation not knowing it was on the 1001 Children's Books list. It's a wonderful little graphic novel told in pictures alone, quite adult in my opinion. The story follows a man as he immigrates to a strange new land and the experiences and difficulties he faces adjusting to his new home. The illustrations are a wonderful combination of highly rendered and sumptuously surreal and the story traces its way through dark histories, new wonders and general confusion until the man becomes a part of his new country. Highly Recommended.
5/5 stars

I also went back through the 1001 Books to Read Before You Grow Up and found an awful lot I managed to read before I grew up that I had forgotten to put on this list. So now they are.

Progress
children's: 67
Boxall's: 32
shared: 11
total: 88/1001

Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass) - Philip Pullman 5/16/11
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

A bit uneven. Some parts were unnecessarily long for what was essentially an adventure story and others were obviously information dumps. Oddly my favorite part of the book was an information dump. What sets this book apart from other fantasy is the interesting correlations to our world's religious and philosophical issues the author has woven into this other world. The problems of prophesy are acknowledged in the context of determinism and freewill and the power and threat of the church is illustrated in the people they sacrifice.

This one is definitely better than the movie, which, if I remember correctly omitted the most fascinating conundrums and changed the outcome beyond recognition. Movie adaption fail.
3.5/5 stars

Progress
children's: 68
Boxall's: 32
shared: 11
total: 89/1001

I enjoyed His Dark Materials, but the third book does drag it out a bit. The film was just such a waste of good actors and actually good filming techniques. It was cut beyond all recognition.

While I am concentrating on the grown-up book, your thread is making me curious about some of the books on the children's list. I might have to crack and add that one to my wishlist!

I was trying to restrain myself, but I've got the omnibus which gave me about two days before I broke down and started the second book. So far I like it better than the first.

I merged the two lists because though I am a completionist and would very much like to eventually read 1001 books, I can't handle the 1001 books I read being set in stone. Merging the two gives me a bit of play rather than having to choose between completing 1001 or sparing myself from the books on the list that really have no appeal for me.

That's a good idea, there are quite a few books (on both lists) that I doubt I'll ever read. 1001 overall is a much more realistic target.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 12/20/11
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up" and
"1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006)

It's sentimental 19th century pap. But it's pretty well written pap, even if it is terribly padded at just 120 pages.
3/5 stars

Progress
children's: 69
Boxall's: 33
shared: 12
total: 90/1001

Woo! I managed to add four books to my list this year!

Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne 3/8/12
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

I never read this as a child, but I quite enjoyed it as an adult. It is charmingly written with a gentle, affectionate humor. I loved the drawings and if I ever did have a child (which I won't) I would definitely read this to them. As it is I'm thinking about tracking this down in Russian as my vocabulary improves.
4/5 stars

Progress
children's: 70
Boxall's: 33
shared: 12
total: 91/1001

The Turn of the Screw - Henry James 4/5/12
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006)

It's been I while since I hated a classic. But this I hated. Hated the convoluted sentences. Hated the stupid characters who couldn't seem to help wildly vacillating between eye-gougingly saccharine and comicly sinister. Hated the innocent sexism James demonstrated in concocting such brick-headed women and serpentine children.

Hate myself a little for granting it that if you look at it in social terms regarding the uneven power distribution between upper class children and the adult help that's meant to be looking after them it is kinda creepy and thoughtful despite it's overbearing condescension towards and ignorance of childcare and caregivers.

I give a hardy "and how!" to the folks responsible for removing it from subsequent editions.
2/5 stars

Progress
children's: 70
Boxall's: 34
shared: 12
total: 92/1001

Story of O - Pauline Reage 5/27/12
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

This book is brutal.

It is purported to be a work of erotic fiction focused on BDSM…but from what I know of the the BDSM community it doesn't represent them at all. Maybe things were different in the scene when this was written but it's my understanding that people in the scene today regard it as play. They layout their rules beforehand, respect eachother's limits and know there's a right way and a wrong way to use a riding crop. It's my understanding that modern members of the BDSM community enjoy playing with power dynamics, the characters in Story of O are destroyed by them.

The story is about a woman known only as O, a designation that simultaneously denies her personhood and mirrors her various orifices and thus identifies her as a thing to be penetrated. At the start of the book she is taken without explanation by her lover to a mysterious chateau where she is taught to be a sex slave. She is denied any control over her body or her actions, abused physically, mentally and sexually all in the name of training her, of making her into something else. Training that she knows her lover wants her to suffer and be transformed by. And because he wants it, because he loves her when she is debased and she loves him (god knows why) she eventually loses her own will and becomes a slave to his will and to anyone one that can recognize the signs of her enslavement.

The most graphic violence and disturbing sex is mostly in the first half of the book, but I honestly find her complete loss of self and fierce compliance with anything her "master" asked of her the most disturbing thing. She was literally stripped of any of her own feelings or thoughts and became and empty vessel to be filled with whatever most pleased her master. Occasionally a character in the book made mention that she was a slave by choice and she could end it whenever she wanted...except that she didn't choose to be a slave and she was never offered a choice about it until after her brains were scraped out of her skull, scrambled and returned to her skull a substance suitable only to be an ingredient for the sort of culinary delights we can't stomach in America. I have never been more repulsed by a book in my life. And yet, I didn't hate it.

For me at least it was a rewarding read. Horrifying yes, but also well crafted and thought provoking. I think that was what made it so worthwhile for me. Because I could not identify with any of the characters (they were all bats as far as I was concerned) and the point of view presented (O's) was so twisted I couldn't accept O's interpretation of and justification for her situation. As such none of the explanation of character motivation or behavior given within in the book was trustworthy. I mean, would you trust the word of a woman that thinks that the thing to do is help her master force a young woman into the same sex-slave boot camp she was brain-raped at so that this other young girl can be pleasing to her master? I think not. Chick's got chowder in her head. That sort of nuts puts an unbridgeable distance between me and the story that meant this wasn't a passive read. I read this book with my brains turning like I was reading mostly backward but still noteworthy classical philosophy. If classical philosophy was rife with anal sex and caning.

Whatever. It's a repulsive story but it's well written and it made me think. Whether or not I came even remotely close to getting what the author intended out of this (I really don't know about the author, I'm afraid she might've drunk the kool-aid) I'm glad I read it and it was still vastly more readable than the The Turn of the Screw.
3/5 stars

Progress
children's: 70
Boxall's: 35
shared: 12
total: 93/1001

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller 6/4/12
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

Book number whatever on the "fundevogel can't resist a banned book" binge. It's good! It was banned in the US until the 60's for it's sexual content (though it's not erotica) and was the book responsible for changing censorship laws in America. Yay! Personally I loved it. There's no real plot, just a roughly chronological collection of stories and musings from the author's time slumming in Paris. The writing is absolutely beautiful, with a flow and nuance I found sensual which is a wonderful contrast to the crazy shit going down.

Seriously. Miller doesn't exactly portray himself and his comrades in a favorable light. Miller floats from one borrowed bunk to another, mooching off his friends, casual acquaintances and people he only tolerates for the meals or francs he knows he can get out of them. In fact the book basically breaks down into just a few things:

• Chasing tail (mostly prostitutes)


• getting by (mooching food, money and a place to crash)


• Listening to other people talk long enough to get food, money or a place to crash out of them


• pining over women


• musing/ranting about art and the world

It seems pretty superficial, and in a way it is, but that's sorta what's great about it. Miller doesn't present a clean sparkling face to the world. He lays it all out and that's that. And while he and his friends do plenty of shitty things, apparently without remorse, I do admire that as difficult and amoral the life depicted was it was a conscious and enthusiastic choice to live that way. He faced down how the world would have him live, and rejected it. Rejected the morality others would impose on him and the steady job and reliable pay so that he could live life outside of the mold. That's really what it was about to me, being the author of your own destiny and damn the consequences.
4.5/5 stars

Progress:
children's: 70
Boxall's: 36
shared: 12
total: 94

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling 6/5/12
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

I'd heard this in audiobook form as a kid but never read it. Honestly, I liked it better as a kid. The stories aren't bad, but they just weren't as good as I remember them. I guess that's why you're supposed to read it before you grow up. Oh well. I suppose it didn't help that I was reading it against a backdrop of British imperialism and knowledge of Kipling's bigoted tendencies. In all fairness it was mostly free of racial or cultural bias, though there was a flippant use of the N-word at one point. The only story that outright bothered me was a the one about King Solomon and the butterfly which a pretty infuriating fable about how to use deceit and fear-mongering to keep your wife (or wives) appropriately cowed.
3/5 stars

Winnie the Pooh was sooooo much better.

Progress:
children's: 71
Boxall's: 36
shared: 12
total: 95

Well, I guess keeping your wife appropriately cowed is a very important lesson for a child to learn 8/

Yeah...I'd be pretty uncomfortable with children reading that one.

Story of the Eye - Georges Bastaille 10/3/12
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

So after I finished this I was looking through my bookshelves trying to figure out what to read. I just couldn't settle on the next one and I got to thinking about my reading this year. Often as a year progresses I find certain commonalities in a chunk of the books I've been reading. Let's be real. This year it's been sex. Weird Freudian sexuality in The Uses of Enchantment, horrifying sex in Story of O, sexy debauchery in Tropic of Cancer, healthy sexperts in The Ethical Slut and now I can add Story of the Eye to that list.

Honestly, you might want to strike me from your contacts list after I say this but I thought this book was ridiculous. It is essentially a collection of increasingly twisted and violent sexual exploits of two teenage lovers narrated with restrained enthusiasm by the male of the pair. They piss and cum with abandon all over each other and most of the pages of the book as they engage in exhibitionism and violent sex. Their overwhelming sexual aggression drives a pious girl they have fetishized to madness and suicide, gains them the support of an older pervert that likes to watch them fuck shit up and masturbate from a discreet distance and ultimately concludes in a brilliantly fucked up scene with a priest. It's not pretty...

It is literally a collection of the most horrifying and disgusting sexual scenarios the author could imagine. It's the Aristocrats played straight. And that's why rather than being emotionally beat like I was after reading Story of O I found this amusing and ridiculous. This isn't about believable characters exacting their terrible fantasies on hapless bystanders. This is the porn equivalent of a child banging two dolls together to simulate a bloodthirsty battle. It's enthusiastic, and satisfying to the child, but one thing it will never be mistaken for is the real thing.

Now, you could certainly get upset about what fantasies these represent, and that's valid, but unlike Story of O I think the sexual appeal here is less about the actions of the characters and more about the appeal of dreaming up the extreme and shocking. Bastaille would have grown up with all the Victorian sexual oppression we're told about, and frankly, this book is strike back. Is it so odd that in a culture that demonized sex the embrace of sexuality could result in a kink that conflates sex and other socially maligned activities?

Also there is some surrealistic/Freudian thing with the fetishization of eggs and eyeballs. It made me imagine what it would be like if this story was filmed with the style and technology of Un Chien Andalou. I really think that would be the way to go if you were to adapt it to screen.

PS This is also notable for being the third book I read this year to use the word "lugubrious". Seriously, I'd never encountered this word before in my life, now it's everywhere.

Progress:
children's: 71
Boxall's: 37
shared: 12
total: 96

Great review! If you want to stick with sex as your theme, Before Night Falls has a fairly consistent sexual theme as well...

Thanks! And thanks for the recommendation.

So does The Piano Teacher, which I don't recommend. I really wonder why it is on the list.

The Sword in the Stone - T. H. White 5/22/13
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

I have mixed feelings about this one. I liked the tone, the matter of fact silliness and the love White obviously has for a good student teacher relationship. I was also tickled that his use of magic wasn't so much about magic as it was a means of introducing a child to natural science and ethics. I loved Merlin and while I'm not sure how much of his character was an invention of White's and how much was already there with Mallory this is all I need to know why Merlin is such an enduring character. It's no surprise that Rowlings found inspiration for Dumbledore in him.

On the other hand White runs out of ideas quickly here. Each chapter is essentially its own story and after the first few they start to lose zest and begin repeating themselves. It's charming the first time Merlin turns Wart into an animal to let him learn about the world from a different perspective. But once you realize there is seemingly no end to the transformation lessons it becomes less charming and smacks of laziness. A teacher happily passing off his teaching duties in a ludicrous series of "take your kid to work" days and an author happily recycling the same gimmick over and over to deliver shamefully obvious moral lessons (though the value of hard work and invention is oddly absent). There is just enough God-talk to be weird. I can't tell if this is meant to reflect the period or simply reflects White's own relationship with Christianity. If it is meant to be period it doesn't really feel right as White's vision of Midieval England is clearly an amalgamation of fact, fancy and a largish helping of contemporary humor and anachronism. I could have done without every mention of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. In a book entirely composed of not quite real characters, introducing them as mythic figures in an already fanciful setting left them painfully unreal, flat and twee.

Ultimately I enjoyed White's style, but found the book severely lacking in substance. This probably sounds harsh applied to children's literature, but my expectations came from the very strong opening chapters which the rest of the book just couldn't live up to.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 37
shared: 12
total: 97

House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski 6/2/13
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006)

In the introduction to Ficciones Borges explains that there is no need to write the books he imagines when he can effectively describe their purpose in a more concise format. Since reading Borges' collection of non-existant books I've been in agreement with the Argentine. Borges was brilliantly effective at packing dense philosophy, metaphor and humor into a compact if challenging short story. It almost seemed a mercy that he never wrote a novel as I suspected it might lead me to wonderful terrible labrinyths from which I could never emerge.

After reading the introduction to House of Leaves I thought, "my god, he's going to do it." This would be Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius brought to screaming life as, paradoxically, one of its own hronir. An artifact of a history that never was. A world that lives in the mind manifested in my hands, a series of other worlds impossibly nested within, simutaneously containing, contained and interpentetrating eachother. Holy fuck.

I'm not going to review this book. For one it seems redundant. What could I possibly add to a book that is endlessly self analytical? There is temptation to fall into step and emulate the obtuse and alternatingly sublime and idiotic criticism defining the Navidson report, but such an attempt would be merely cute and shallow on my part.

Instead I just want to record my experience and impressions reading the book, to help me remember when I look back on it.

Boundaries, impossible ones that defy space and reason. Do these geometries reflect another sort of space? Could this be a reflection of an internal space? Are there limits to the space in a human mind? Could the distances Navidson walks in the house reflect the distance he must travel to reconnect with his wife?

I woke up two nights in a row in the middle of the night. Grinding my teeth. I haven't done that since I was a kid. The only way to get back to sleep was to read more.

I figured out pretty early that I personally couldn't read the book in sequence. I stopped thinking of it as a novel. I used five bookmarks and sticky note and read what I wanted when I wanted. Like the house there is no beginning, middle and end here, just more explorations. They grant insight, but never the full story. If someone asks what the book is about I say "to me it is about boundaries," and then founder trying to explain the swirling eddies, how it is impossible to follow each to its conclusion and that what I find is only the product of the current I happened to be swept up by.

This would be an amazing book for a book club as I expect each member would find something different. It's not like reading a book, its like getting to know someone. It isn't linear or purposeful. You get pieces, out of order that in an imperfect manner define the boundaries of the person. And whats more, like the house people change. What you have learned in the past may no longer hold true.

And lastly a salute to my old art theory teacher. I know for a fact I wouldn't have lasted a day in the House of Leaves without him. Its strange to think that of all of the styles of text here it's the the formal report that most captivated me. It was a little nostalgic to revisit the blend of absurd and insightful all rolled together in that dry and hopelessly obscurant voice that set loves so much. All the same I'm still not planning to revisit any of that Derrida and Baudrillard you dropped on me Carmine.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 38
shared: 12
total: 98

The Once and Future King - T. H. White 8/20/13
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

As tumblr says, all the feels.

So. I first attempted to read this book many, many years ago when I was just a wee middle schooler. Maybe even younger. And this is probably the first book I can remember giving up on. I was much more of a completionist back then so it meant something that I couldn't finish it. Now that I've finished it I'm glad I couldn't finish it then. It's an odd book, far too concerned with the dearest hopes and tragedies of life for someone that's barely lived at all. And if I had finished it then I wouldn't have had reason to experience it as an adult.

Ostensibly The Once and Future King is T. H. White's take on the Arthurian legend. I have never read Le Morte d'Arthur so I can't say how faithful White is to tradition, but it seems to me he probably wrote the plot of the legends, but animated the old bones with his own passions, sorrow, flaws and hopeful ideas. It's just so beautifully, painfully human. There is no distance, no cool diffidence. I don't think I've ever read a novel before where I felt most connected, not to the characters but to the author. There were so many times I just wished I could hug White as hard as I could and tell him I knew what he meant.

You see, The Once and Future King isn't like other fantasy. It isn't particularly magical, it isn't at all adventurous either. Hell, a good bit of the action is narrated second hand to an audience in the book. It sure as fuck isn't escapist. It's literally the first book I've read where each part felt like an entirely different novel. I suppose they were, but I like them jammed together so their differences become obvious. You see, it isn't a story so much as a life. Stories begin and end over the course of the book, but Arthur's life goes on until it doesn't. You can bracket off sections of his life to make stories complete with arcs, themes, and peril overcome, but the life they are cut from goes on. The wide-eyed enthusiasm of youth grows into the determined idealism of a new monarth. The hard misteps and cruelties of life bring doubt and sadness to the King and while he still believes in his dream it seems like time takes him further and further from it no matter what he does. It is a painful thing to come to the end of one's days and wonder if your life's work was always dead on the vine. Maybe, he worries, people are simply too ugly and hateful to stop beating the snot out of eachother and just be excellent to eachother.

It's pretty clear that the book was put together on the heels of two World Wars. You can bet any reference to the canon could just as easily be swapped out for the bomb. There's a good bit of ink laid down on the matter of force, justice and pacificism. On why people go to war and the cost of it. Pages and pages trying to untangle how we might build a future truely without war. But neither Merlyn nor White have the answers we need and they know it. It is an imperfect and violent world and it kills them they can't see a way out of it. How can you ever break the cycle of violence if the only weapon in your arsenal against force is more force?

Just to be clear as much as I am gushing here (and there's a bit more in my earlier review of The Sword in the Stone) my appreciation was not always appreciative. I flat out hated The Ill-Made Knight. Much idiocy and gnashing of teeth over said idiocy (I'm certain my intial attempt was broken off shortly after starting that part). As I said earlier, it gave me all the feels, love, hate and a million things in between. And in the end I appreciate that because all those negative feelings were reflective of the stupid as bullshit that really does mess up the world. It pisses me off in real life and White was never going to spare us the sight of our own fatal flaws.

I wish White had the answers, but what he does is still a good bit braver than most attempt. Holding up the mirror.

No change to my progress as I had jumped the gun and listed the book for my previous attempt.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 38
shared: 12
total: 98

#48 You have expressed well the feelings I had when reading this book.

Thank you, I get sorta word vomity when I'm that moved. I'm glad it still made sense.

Candide - Voltaire 9/6/13
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2010)

It started out strong, but it seems to run out of steam midway through. I blame it on the fairy tale simplicity of the tone. It works well with the short punchy bits, but loses kick as the story became less episodic and more of a moron's quest.

But Voltaire does seem like he would have been a pretty awesome dude. Beats the pants off of Rousseau in sheer hangability.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 39
shared: 12
total: 99

But Voltaire does seem like he would have been a pretty awesome dude. Beats the pants off of Rousseau in sheer hangability.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're completely right.

I knew the two of them were friends for a while, actually, Voltaire was basically Rousseau's only friend. I didn't really see how it worked as Rousseau was an epic stick in the mud when it came to the arts and free expression. It turns out that's what ultimately ended the friendship unsurprisingly. Voltaire was getting shit for putting on plays in his home and the Calvinist government was on his ass about it. Dumb 'ol Rousseau had to pick that moment to confirm his continued support of government regulation and suppression of the arts.

They really were an odd couple.

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut 9/21/13
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006)

Very good, and sorta surreally realistic. I think at some point Kurt decided breaking the fourth wall was a bit passé and decided to break the other three. I can't really bring myself to write a proper review though as I've already been spending too much time angsting about the subject of the book and while my angst is no where near tapped out the thought of talking about it anymore right now exhausts me.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 40
shared: 12
total: 100

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 2/3/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

At this moment I'm having a hard time commenting on The Wasp Factory in any further detail than to declare it "bloody madness". I have read a fair few of pretty messed up novels and I have no problem ranking this one as a good fit for that company. But I haven't really figured out what I actually think about it yet.

Obviously there is a lot of hideous stuff happening, but the writing is good and I don't think it's just just the parade of pointless violence and gore that some denounce it as. You can't quite take it seriously as the bizarre characters and outrageous crimes go just far enough to be fantastical, and, in a really twisted way, occasionally beautiful. Seriously, the way Frank murders Esmerelda and the sheep's demise at the end are down right cinematic, and not in a torture porn sort of way either, just really cinematic. The wasp factory itself sounds like something out of an animation by Svankmeyer or the Quay Brothers.

If I had to write a paper on it I'd need to re-read some or all of it. I'd be paying closer attention to how concepts of masculinity and gender are represented. In terms of the actual writing my only real criticism is that the voice in the last chapter didn't ring true. It reminded me of the last chaper of Brave New World where Aldous explains what his painfully obvious metaphor of a book meant. Whether or not there was a moral to this story, it definitely wasn't one of Aesop's Fucking Fables so he really should have just left that off. You don't put a bow on The Wasp Factory.

Progress:
children's: 72
Boxall's: 41
shared: 12
total: 101

At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft 2/13/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

AHAHA! This is on the list? On three versions of it? This painfully over wought novella of the cardboard-cutout characters, laughably oversold monsters and the purplest goddamn prose you ever saw? Seriously. What's the literary equivalent of a Razzie? This man deserves one.

Late addition because, I read this in a collection of HP's work (a few stories were better, but few were worse), and only just now realized some divine joke had put the story on the list.

Progress:
children's : 72
Boxall's: 42
shared: 12
total: 102

A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh 3/9/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006)

This is so far from the sort of thing I usually read and not at all what I expect from British upper class social drama. For one thing it was really easy to read and for another the customs and behavior were so bizarre I might as well have been reading sci-fi. It was all so alien. The thing is since I'm not at all familiar with that culture and it is a satire I literally have no idea where reality stops and parody begins. I find it unbelievable that husbands would hire detective to watch them conduct a sham affair in the name of acquiring an a divorce, but I've actually run across the "spare man" (a fellow that makes a job of accepting invitations to parties to ensure the number of men and women is matched) before so who the hell knows what's too rediculous to be a real thing.

The people and their actions are unfailingly pointless and rediculous which I suppose makes reading this a bit like watching a train wreck. Albeit a fairly bloodless, literary one. Waugh is a capable writer with a knack for sliding sly humor in when you're not expecting it. It might sound bats, but the book I'm most reminded of reading this is American Psycho. It might lack the bloodshed, but it has that same ruthless view of the vapid, aimlessness of class and culture defined by wealth.

Also the bits in South America are pretty racist.

It's interesting to note that this book was written about the same time as Tropic of Cancer, but while the people and events of that book felt strangely contemporary, this book could have easily been taking place in another galaxy for my ability to comprehend the culture and characters.

Progress:
children's : 72
Boxall's: 43
shared: 12
total: 103

#56 - I believe Lovecraft is on the list because he was an early and important influence on the modern horror genre. Or something like that.

Love Evelyn Waugh, but I haven't read A Handful of Dust yet. It sounds similar to the ones I read--great fun.

Complaining about Lovecraft's purple prose is a bit like complaining that Proust was long-winded and self-centered :)
But anyway, the man has a whole literary subgenre named after him, Lovecraftian horror is a thing (but I'd argue there are better stories by him than the one selected).

I found A Handful of Dust mostly depressing...

>56 fundevogel: "laughably oversold monsters" is what killed me about every Lovecraft story I read. The "oh no, I can't tell you what horror we witnessed" thing about did me in. And "cyclopean." Everything is cyclopean.

>60 ursula: I Know! It's like he's not only not going to "shew" you, he isn't going to tell you either. For a man that so clearly loves words he doesn't really get much bang for his buck does he?

>59 hdcclassic: I suppose, but but it doesn't make it any less true does it? From the collection I read the Case of Charles Dexter Ward was the strongest, though that might actually be because it's unfinished. If he'd gotten that Lovecraft polish on there I bet I'd have at least another five eyerolls in there.

My husband says that the better stories are the ones where he doesn't ever tell you exactly what they saw. Makes sense to me, since he likes to build them up to such a degree that it's pretty hard to live up to the suspense.

>63 andejons:
I agreed with your husband. My favourite is The music of Erich Zann, which is probably the one where the unspeakable horrors remain most unspoken.

The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon 4/11/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008 & 2010)

Somehow, despite my love of books and Halloween I have never had a book-based costume. But that ends this year! This year I will be a Trystero courier, or maybe even the potsmaster.

I added this book to my queue after one of the other readers here, upon completing the book wrote simply, "what did I just read?" That comment excited me, here I could expect something unusual. And this is true. I'm not really sure how proper it would be to call this a novel (or novella if you prefer). It is fiction and it's page count would make it one or the other of those if these things were defined by their bindings. It just doesn't follow the rules.

On starting the book I immediately had to adjust how I read. Apparently there is an element of natural anticipation of English sentence structure that Pynchon does not conform to. Expecting a normal structure and then tripping down a Pynchon sentence meant subjects and verbs were often well divided with clause upon clause. You come to the end disoriented and unsure how you got there. There were some sentences I gave up trying to make any grammatical sense of whatsoever (though this was rare). And yet, it wasn't actually hard to find Pynchon rhythm. By the end of the first chapter I almost never had to double back to follow the text.

As for the content of the book...it almost doesn't seem proper to disclose as the book itself seems in extricable from it's themes regarding the power held by those that facillitate communication and information dispersal and those that would undermine or usurp such power. Fittingly the book gives us a merry and circuituous chase and a boatload of bizarre narrative of undetermined legitimacy. Is it a conspirary? A hoax? What does this say about history, public, private, secret and revised?

Pynchon is clearly not a man interested in simple answers, and I expect he's not a man that even believes there is such a thing as a simple answer. And I approve. If there were a war waging secretly for control over the movement of information there is a deftness in his witholding all certainty in how Oedipa's discoveries should be taken.

Lot 49 seems particularly relevant in these days of the internet and concerns about net neutrality. Honestly, we could use a Trystero to Comcast and Timewarner's Thurn and Taxis.

In the meantime, report all obscene mail to your potsmaster.

Progress:
children's : 72
Boxall's: 44
shared: 12
total: 104

>64 fundevogel: Excellent review! I just finished this a week or so ago and am at a complete loss for words for a review.

>65 ELiz_M: Thanks! I hope you enjoyed it too. It's funny. I never join the group reads, but a tiny one seems to have developed involuntarily for this one. I think I'm the fifth one here to read the book in a month's time.

The Crying of Lot 49 certainly has been sweeping the group! It's been funny to open threads and see it's so many people's most recent read. Nice review!

>64 fundevogel:: Great review of The Crying of Lot 49. Makes me want to read the book even more.

Thanks!

Animal Farm - George Orwell 9/11/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

Ubiquity means I don't feel obligated to say much about the content about this one. But I will say, that that same ubiquity in no way took away from the effectiveness of the book or its enjoyment. It does exactly what needs to be done. The fairytale structure is executed with a skill and panache I have rarely seen in modern efforts in the genre, especially in a text so much longer than the typical fairytale. Of all the books I've read that have a history of appearing on school reading lists none is more deserving of its place than this one.

Progress:
children's : 72
Boxall's: 45
shared: 12
total: 105

I share your thoughts on Animal Farm!

Yay!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 10/18/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006 & 2008)

This was an easy enough read but I liked it less and less the more I read. And that was because the character grew less and less sympathetic as the story went on. At first it was interesting seeing events through a lens and logic pretty removed from my own. But ultimately it's just so hard to sympathize with someone so helpless when the scope of their relationships with other people seems limited to dependence, fear, anger and indifference.

I just can't handle people who are their own worst enemy. And seeing how destructive they are not just to themselves, but to those that try to help them is wretched.

Progress:
children's : 72
Boxall's: 46
shared: 12
total: 106

Aesop's Fables - Aesop 10/25/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006) and
from "1001 Children's Books to Read Before You Grow Up"

I remember somone around here remarking on how many of the fables don't have a clear meaning. I would add that many of them, while clear in meaning, promote shrewd cynism far more than morality. Hell, one of them actually ended by saying lazy people deserved to die. More than a few cautioned slaves that it was better to serve the master you had than risk the unknown. And despite a self-assured intro by G. K. Chesterton about the necessity of animals in fables I think almost half of these didn't actually have animal characters. Which makes me wonder if Chesteron had actually read the same body of work he was intro-ing. Any who, it reminded me of Epicetus' Handbook which was also easy to read and just as stuffed with stoic life advice of wildly disparate merit in terms of modern morality.

Ultimately I think the best thing to be said of this book is that while it does show alot of common ground between modern and ancient peoples, it also exposes some pretty dramatic differences.

It was nice reading this after having heard both of Aesop's appearences on The Dead Authors Podcast. Multiple times I would finish a fable and hear Aesop declare "AESOP!" before dropping the mic.

Progress:
children's : 73
Boxall's: 47
shared: 13
total: 107

The New Annotated Dracula - Bram Stoker 11/16/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

I thought that the conceit that the book was a collection of letters, articles and journal entries would make this an interesting read, but ultimately Stoker didn't have the chops for his framework. The voice remains the same no matter who is supposedly writing. The only time he even attempts a different voice is when Lucy or Mina is writing. Ultimately though he doesn't change the voice so much as he opines the piety, virtue and weakness of women in the first person rather than the second. It's really just a first person novel told by various interchangeable characters with diary headings and letter headings jammed in.

The story is painfully drawn out and, despite the tortuously documented planning and scheming, the supposed heroes are infuriatingly dumb. I swear the were three chapters where Lucy was just lying in bed being pale. It reminded me of the "deletions" William Goldman notes making in Morgenstern's Princess Bride. You know, where he cut out 15 pages about the currency of Florin and Guilder and 20 pages about hats and a whopping 40 pages about wedding preparations. That's the sort of puffed up idiocy that makes you root for the monster. Dracula knew how to get shit done. Those other guys were just puff and bluster.

How to kill a Dracula:
1. Put down the journal.
2. Quick stake to the heart.

As for the annotated edition, Neil Gaiman wrote a pleasant intro and Lesie wrote a lot of useless footnotes. First off, keep your fanfic about Dracula being a real guy out of my margins as well as your speculation that the differences between the canon text and the manuscript point to a cover up. If that's your head canon, fine. But it doesn't belong here. Save it for the message boards or write your own book on it, just don't clutter this one. For that matter I also don't need to know what the Victorian train schedule was or every single sentence that was expunged from the abridged copy. It's also pretty lame when you lift foot notes from another author's annotations.

Progress:
children's : 73
Boxall's: 48
shared: 13
total: 108

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams 11/29/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

Eh. I liked the bit about the sofa being stuck in the hall and how that was resolved. The rest was wildly random and only mildly amusing. I suspect the haphazardness of the plot is meant to reflect the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated craziness...but it rings hollow when the whole thing has been authored to demonstrate just that. And yet, Gordon Way's phonecall is a pure deus ex machina as there is no reason for him to even know the vital information he shares at the critical moment.

Progress:
children's : 73
Boxall's: 49
shared: 13
total: 109

A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift 12/14/14
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

Someone else mentioned this was a quick, interesting read so I thought I'd give it a go. It is. If Cracked were around in the 18th century they might have run this.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 50
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 119

Edited: Updated progress after adding a couple books I read long ago.

Love your Dracula review, though I haven't read the book yet! "Dracula knew how to get shit done"....still chuckling.

Thank you! It was definitely one of those where the best part of reading it was sassin' off about it. I am strongly considering always rooting for Dracula wherever he may pop up.

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco 2/16/15
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

The Name of the Rose is a far cry from what I hoped it would be. I blame the deliciously meta prologue and the obvious Borges influence. But Umberto Eco's novel is a far cry from the Library of Babel. While the novel isn't bad per se it is undeniably wanky, and not in a fun way. The book takes place over the course of seven days, but it took me four weeks of dogged reading to get through it. Do you have any idea how thoroughly a day must be documented for it to take four days to read at that sort of pace? It's absurd. It might as well be 24 with scribes.

So there's the first problem, it's conspicuously and pointlessly drawn out.

I'm more ambivalent about the content. There is much here on heresy, political power plays, religious minutiae, logic and that manner of intellectual fappery. None of that bothers me and on many occasions Eco (or his mouthpieces Adso and William) had rather erudite and poetic observations on various matters. But while I appreciated this, nothing Eco came up with was anything I hadn't come across before or figured out myself years ago. Additionally as an atheist, indifferent to the minute sectartian differences that get people burned in this book, I simply couldn't relate to the passions that drove the violence and machinations. They were pretty much all just stirring up a shitstorm for nothing in my opinion.

Argueably the best part of the book is the story that isn't on the page. This is set up in the prolog, but is untouched for the rest of the book. Or at least it is never explicitly returned to. You see, the prolog establishes a framework for the following novel. Ostensibly the author, Eco I suppose, came into possession of a French translation of a Latin manuscript while travelling. He takes upon himself to translate the manuscript into Italian. However, before long he loses the original manuscript (mistakenly taken by a travelling companion he seems to have had a falling out with). And so he is now left with just his Italian translation and whatever notes he made.

After his journey he attempts to track down another copy or at least learn more about the manuscript. He tracks down the materials that he had noted as being sourced in the French translation, but the references to the manuscript they are supposed to contain simply do not exist. Tlön, Ukbar and Tertius Minor anyone? At this point Eco leaves us to speculate if the manuscript was a fraud, a forbidden text expunged from history in some diabolical and sweeping conspiracy, or simply a figment of his imagination. Though a more difficult question might be how we can be expected to believe that the following complete, 611 page novel could possibly be the incomplete Italian translation he supposedly tootled out in his down time while on holiday.

At the very least this translation of a translation of a ostensible translation of a lost text excuses the fact that Eco's prose (or to be fair, the English translation of Eco's prose) in no way resembles 13th century writing. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've read enough 12th and 13th century texts to know this text doesn't even try to emulate them. And that's fair, we all know what a transformative effect a few turns in google translate can produce. But the real potential lies in the conclusion the reader draws about the nature of the book itself.

Do you accept that the manuscript was originally written by Adso documenting the events he describes? If so, is he reliable? How could he possibly deliver such an agonizingly detailed account so many years after the fact? Or was Adso a pseudoepigraphical invention? To what end? Typically pseudoepigraphical religious texts have very specific political and religious goals. What ends might this text been written to serve? And if either of these are the case what does it mean that any other trace of the book has been purged from history? While there is something oroborusesque about the suppression of a text obsessed with the supression of another lost text, what are we to think about the possible suppression of this book? What of it's content would be considered so offensive or threatening to inspire such action? Perhap the sex scene where a woman's breasts are compared to a clump of grapes?* Or was it simply a hoax or a fit of meta delirium? This is the story I hope to continue chewing over now that the dreary task of actually reading The Name of the Rose is behind me. In between rolling my eyes at the idea that a book about a labyrinthine library featuring a blind monk named Jorge merits having other books published to explain it. Of course.

Seriously. Just read Ficciones. It's on the list.

*Actually, in my head canon the breasts like clumps of grapes would indicate that the text was not written by Adso as no man that has ever seen a breast could ever make such a description. However it would imply a certain sexual naivete or simulated sexual naivete on the part of the actual author. I favor the second possibility as it takes a staggering amount of credulity to conceive of a person that, even never having seen a naked breast, could think they probably resemble a clump of grapes.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 51
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 120

The Stranger - Albert Camus 2/18/15
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

Reading this made me dislike The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time even more. Both stories center on characters with significant social handicaps, but only Camus dealt with the matter with the craft, intent and even-handedness to make it work. With Camus we are given a means of understanding and empathizing, without infantilizing. His narrator is socially handicapped in that he understands and intereacts with the world in a manner that conflicts with the expectations society has of him. He gets on in his own way as best he can with a certain amount of ignorance of how the rest of the world works. Ultimately it is this ignorance that dooms him as he fails to avoid dubious situations and is ultimately judged not for his actions, but for his irregularity.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 52
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 121

Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs 4/13/15
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

Reads like poetry, but I got the feeling it was going a bit long when it starting feeling less like Henry Miller and more like Bertold Brecht. I'm not sure if that was a shift that happened in the text or in how I read it. In general I'd say it was a good ride, though I wasn't particularly concerned with trying to find sense in it. Mostly I just enjoyed the extravagent language, surreal imagery and debased characters. Burroughs really did have a way with words. And while it's easy to write the whole thing off as gibberish he has a way of dropping sharp, stinging insights when you aren't expecting.

Well, as one judge said to the other, "Be just, and if you can't be just be arbitrary."

I've got the fear.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 53
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 122

I ilke your review of Naked Lunch and share the feeling that I might not be concerned with what I read but rather with how it's written. I guess that's why I haven't got around to reading it.

I ended up really enjoying it although it shell shocked me a bit at first. I agree that he had a real way with words.

>83 OscarWilde87: & >84 M1nks: I suspected that Naked Lunch would be invigorating in it's strangeness so I put it off a good while. It was nice to look at my book shelf, see Naked Lunch and know I had something to look forward to. And I was not disappointed :)

The Monk - Matthew G. Lewis 8/24/15
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

I'd have a hard time calling is a good book, (a comment I'd extend to most 18th and 19th century novels), but it was a much easier and more enjoyable novel than any of the other old gothic lit I've read. It was overly long for sure but I was impressed with the level of grotesquery and even more so by the lack of moralizing. I really couldn't say what the author expected me to think of his characters or what his audience was expected to think. I was just happy to be left to draw my own conclusions without being told what to think.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 54
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 123

The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett 4/6/16
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2006, 2008, 2010 & 2012)

It's been a long time since I've read any mystery and this was a good return to the genre as well as my first proper noir novel. The writing and characters were over the top in a beautiful/silly literary sort of way, as you want with noir. I enjoyed the twists and turns, but the plot never seemed ludicrous. The resolution was totally satisfying without being unbelievable.

Nick and Nora are pretty awesome.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 55
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 124

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy 2/26/17
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (2008, 2010 & 2012)

So. Blood Meridian. It's pretty violent, violent enough that I'm not even shocked that it's based on true events. I didn't like it as much as The Road, which isn't even on the list, but I respect what McCarthy is doing.

There's just enough hint of superhuman malevalence with the Judge to push the question of why people do evil things. The monsterous Judge clearly acts as a corrupting figure, rallying lost souls and energizing them with a violent purpose, but his own preternatural qualities deny such abdication of personal responsibility. Because the Glanton band really did collect a bounty for Apache scalps with indescriminate murder and they didn't need a demon to egg them on.

So is the judge really the source of their evil or merely the handy excuse for their loss of human empathy? Our point of view character, the kid, while hardly an angel is one of the few who seems to abstain from gross acts of barbarism. But he still won't leave the butchering horde until it's crimes finally catch up with it.

And without the gang he is aimless, he is forced to confront the judge twice but can not back up his words with actions. In fact the Judge claims he was always his favorite and he was never like the others. Perhaps because he knew his guiltiness but lacked the animus to do anything else.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 56
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 125

The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov 3/4/26
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (I don’t know which edition/s)

It’s been a long time since I added one to my list. And a long time since I’ve written my thoughts on one. So I’ll be brief.

I enjoyed the book, but the second half more than the first. There’s a chaotic and enigmatic energy that tantalizes and teases. I think I’d have to do more research on the USSR and give it second read to properly unpack the technicolor layers of the story. But I think it could be worth it. There is a liveliness and sincerity to the characters that strikes a chord even without unpacking text.

I’ll hold on to my copy for when I’m ready for a second look.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 57
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 126

>89 fundevogel: I'm impressed you remembered we were still here after 9 years. Welcome back.

>90 puckers: thank you! I discovered that book through the challenge so it helped me remember :)

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair 3/26/26
from "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" (I don’t know which edition/s)

I haven't read anything this old in a while and I was worried it might be a slog. I couldn't have been more wrong. It functions as a narrative exposé of the predatory labor and living conditions in America at the time. This book is known for generating outrage over the squalid and dishonest conditions of the meatpacking business that lead to the establishment of federal food safety laws.

The story follows a family of Lithuanians that immigrate to America where they heard there was good paying work. They don't ever find good paying work, but they discover new and dehumanizing ways they can be exploited. Initially I noted that the characters weren't especially fleshed out, nor was there much to their backstory. Initially I though this was a shortcoming, but I quickly changed my mind.

Each chapter focuses on some fresh new capitalistic hell the family encounters. It's things like predatory morgages designed to be impossible to pay off, a work place injury and the peril it brings, the absolutely disgusting nitty gritty of the various parts of the meatpacking business and even hoboing. The fact is that the author uses his characters to dramatize every danger he wanted to expose in American society and those characters are so consumed just trying to survive America they have no time or energy to be anything more than just surviving.

It feels like a pretty timely read. There's a really optimistic call for socialism towards the end that feels very bittersweet. There was alot of momentum behind socialism at the beginning of the 20th century and the wealthy and powerful weaponized the government to cut the knees out beneath the party and labor power in general.

Progress:
Children's : 75
Boxall's: 58
Comics: 9
shared: 15
total: 127