What book from the 1001 list are you reading in SEPTEMBER 2010?

Over in this corner, it's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.

I am finishing up Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt. I'm really enjoying it - not as good as Possession, but still very good. It is making me want to go read German fairy tales.

I will read The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Guess I'll start tomorrow.

I'm about halfway through The Hound of the Baskervilles. Its different than I expected. Some parts really tickle me, and then it gets a bit tedious and just as I start to forget how charming it can be it reminds me again.

Definitely going to read some Stephen King this month and probably in October too .

Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier.
Now that summer's over, I'm going to be slowing down on my 1001 reading and trying to actually do some work...

Finishe Through The Looking Glass ****. Very funny. I loved the knight on the horse. Hillarious!!

Started listening to The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I'm really enjoying it so far, but it will take me a few months to finish listening to it.

I also started reading The Mysteries of Udolpho last night and its sucking me right in. =)

Have just picked up Frankenstein. I *think* it's a re-read!

#8> I love the White Knight too, he was always my favourite!

I finally finished Correction by Thomas Bernhard. It is from the 2006 list and I wouldn't be surprised if it got cut from later lists. I started out liking it, but towards the end the qualities that made it stand out from other books got really annoying. This book had two paragraphs, run on sentences that would go for a page, and it was so repetitive (the narrator would say the same thing over and over, just worded slightly differently). The guy who kills himself in the beginning is supposedly a genius and you are supposed to feel sorry for him because he is rich and misunderstood, and I just realized I didn't feel any sympathy because I didn't understand him, plus I didn't have the patience for his 60 page rant about his mother. Okay, now I am done ranting....

I move onto Volume 3 of The Thousand and One Nights, and I am listening to Kafka on the Shore, in which, coincidentally, Kafka reads The Thousand and One Nights.

I am about to start Absolute Beginners about which I know nothing, except that it's on The List. I've read the first couple of pages, and they didn't grab me, but I shall try again.

#4 I read The Magic Mountain when I was studying European literature at university. I can't remember a thing about it, but I got an HD for my work on it, so it must have been good. I remember The Glass Bead Game better, but that was by Herman Hesse. I may have concentrated on that. I think I found Thomas Mann quite hard going.

I just started The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. I'm a giant Hemingway fan. I would even learn to deep sea fish if it meant we could hang out. I would like him to reincarnate as a Hemingway impersonator.

Maryjane- that's very . . . interesting! ;-)

Anyway, I finished The Unbearable Lightness of Being which I mostly enjoyed. It was a quicker, easier read than I expected. Now I'm on to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.

My first posting to this group - I have been trying to read from this list in a rather lackadaisical manner for the past couple of years. At the moment I'm reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

Hi vestafan, and welcome! I hope you like Their Eyes Were Watching God, I certainly did.

I've just started The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. So far enjoyable, but it's not one of those books that has me desperately awaiting the next time I can pick it up.

The Magic Mountain is the only 1001 book that I've stopped reading with no intent to go back to it. I only had about 150 pages left, but I just couldn't take any more.

I decided to hold off on The Good Soldier but I am listening to Kim on books on tape. It's not at all what I expected. The long scene at the beginning set in the museum was fabulous.
I figured Kipling's style of writing would make a good read-aloud and that's true.

I'm about to start At the Mountains of Madness. How on earth I never read any Lovecraft through my teenage/young adult years of reading horror, I'm not sure.

I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which was a reread for me. I am about 3/4 of the way through Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison for the group read. Great book! And I just started Within a Budding Grove, which is Book 2 of In Search of Lost Time.
--BJ

#19 >> I'm half way through The Magic Mountain and I have to say it's one of the best books I've ever read (so far). Maybe your translation is not as good as the original language I read.

Ok, this book has it's length - sometimes there are 20 or 50 pages I don't like that much - but all in all it's very good. Well, at least just *my* opinion...

Just finished The Life of a Good-for-Nothing. It was a very pleasant read. One of those good, short books where everything turns out just right and they live happily ever after. The perfect way to start a week end.

I finished Cecilia by Fanny Burney. It started out strong, but towards the end Cecilia and her inability to cope with stress grated my nerves.

Reading Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton. I've never been a fan of hers (though I did like Ethan Frome in highschool) and this one is quite dreary and depressing. I can't see why it's on the 1001, either--just not that great.

My 1001 reading has fallen way off this year. I am still reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and though I like it better than any other Murakami I've read, it doesn't hold my attention very well.
I started Heart of Darkness yesterday and finished it today. I think I owe that to bookglutton. I have no idea why I signed up two years ago and never went back until this week. But, wow, what a great idea. Being able to read, comment and chat with other people while reading books?!
So I guess I'll go and concentrate on (sigh) Murakami for this month...

Currently reading The Professor's House and Myra Breckinridge. How dissimilar is that!?

I'm almost finished with The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

Great stuff! The feeling of....inevitability started out very subtle, but now is hitting like a hammer! That is the main thing that impressed me with this book, and with Wharton's adept handling of her craft.

I am still slogging through The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I really expected to like this one more than I do, but maybe by the end I'll change my mind. The main problem is that the story didn't really begin until page 96, chapter 16. The text before that was the frame of the story, some of which was mildly interesting, but I could rewrite those 95 pages into one paragraph.

I'm reading Breakfast of Champions and not really enjoying it. I'm hoping not all of the 1001 will be like this.

Also, hi! I'm new, and I'll get around to setting up a thread with my details soon. Maybe today ... or maybe not, since I'll be watching the US Open. I have an older version of the book - the first one, probably.

I'm hoping not all of the 1001 will be like this.

Well, no matter what book you're discussing, you can safely say that they are not all alike! Although some have faulted the list for favouring British and American books, the list is still tremendously diverse.

Don't worry ursula, although you will be disappointed by some of the 1001 books, I think the gems far exceed the duds.

I finished Kafka on the Shore, which happened to be my 100th book! I really liked the story that revolved around Nakata. I wish Kafka had been a bit older so less of his story would have revolved around his nether regions. But I suppose when you are destined for a fate like Oedipus, you will have a one track mind.

I am nearly finished with Moll Flanders...quite the difference between her and the Austen or Fanny Burney characters.

mygirlmaybe--I wish Kafka had been a bit older so less of his story would have revolved around his nether regions...

The age wouldn't have mattered. I'm currently reading my 3rd Murakami. Kafka was my first. One thing I've learned about this author is that he loves to revolve his male characters' stories around nether regions. It's one of the reasons I have such a hard time liking his writing style. It's not sexy stuff at all, just always somewhere between subtly creepy and embarrassingly overdone. Maybe a Murakami fan could explain the point. But I'm at a loss.

I enjoyed Kafka on the Shore, but also wished that Nakata had made up more of the story. By the last third, I liked Kafka's parts of the book more than I had, but I still connected more to the Nakata portions.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was my first Murakami, and there's a lot of focus on the nether regions there as well. I think it's just a Murakami thing.

I remember reading somewhere that his style is very flat in Japanese (translation of those two I think carried it over into English pretty well, but apparently it's even more pronounced in the original language). So while I can't begin to guess at the point of it, I feel like it's just supposed to be told in as much detail as any other fact of the story, and sometimes (often?) it is discomfiting to read with such a flat affect to it.

I finished Kafka on the Shore earlier this month. it was my third Murakami book. I loved After Dark and After the Quake, which is short stories. I find his writing very dreamish, everything makes sense when you're reading it but afterward it's hard to explain how everything fits together.

Currently i'm working on The Moonstone and really liking it!

I just started Rabbit, Run for the TIOLI. I don't think it will become a favorite, and there are 3 (or 4?) of those Rabbit books on the list...

I finished Bleak House, The Castle of Otranto and Giovanni's Room earlier this month.

I am about halfway through A Pale View of the Hills. I have liked Ishiguro before, but this one is only ho-hum for me. Maybe it'll pick up.

#37> Deern, I gave up on Rabbit, Run and have no interest in continuing the series. (Soooooo booooooring....) I'm currently heading for a 997 (or so) target. ;)

I like crossing books off the list with a "well, I tried" comment.

Currently reading The Talented Mr Ripley, which I will not be crossing off with a "well, I tried" comment. Genuinely fascinating stuff.

Tigermel, Isn't The Moonstone great? Lots of Wilkie Collins is similarly wonderful and wacky, although not on the 1001 list...

#39: I finished Rabbit, Run yesterday. It became less boring in the second half, but I found I really hated all the characters. What a bunch of irresponsible 'grown up' people!

The Talented Mr Ripley is one of my favorite crime novels, but I wasn't happy with the sequels as far as I remember (but they are not on the list anyway).

Next book is The Elementary Particles, just because it fits into the TIOLI challenge and I might otherwise never read it. I have a feeling I won't like it at all.

I decided to read Cold Comfort Farm first, don't want to make The Elementary Particles book #150.

I'm new here and have just begun reading The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble, published in 1987. So far, so good.

Just finished The Unfortunate Traveler. It was made difficult by the language. I think it may have been the translation. Good story otherwise.

Annamorphic- I loved The Moonstone. Hope to start The Woman In White soon. And I must be on a roll because I finished Beloved by Toni Morrison too!

I finally finished Les Miserables. A great epic, with many gross examples of extravagance. Things like an escape via the Paris sewers with a massive description of the sewers history/construction included.

I'm now on a non 1001 book. At Home by Bill Bryson.

Since crawling through The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is driving me crazy, I've decided to spell it off with something completely different: The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin.

Finished Myra Breckinridge * this weekend. Absolute trash. Just your basic story of greed and lust. Even the twist at the end was not a surprise. It is a shame that this was kept on the list and other high quality books have been dropped off. Obviously, someone on the committee either has an agenda or they need to do a check up from the neck up.

Deern--I read Rabbit Run in college and had the same reaction you did; however, 10 years later I could still remember a lot of the story. There are books I read last month that I can barely tell you what it was about yet I gave it a high rating. So I went back to the Rabbit series and read the rest. I did end up enjoying it. I found the characters undesirable, but pretty realistic in some ways.

Now reading Invisible Man as a late entrant to the group read - a delayed start due to my Les Miserables slogfest. So far, it's quite interesting and just a little odd.

Began reading Midnight's Children last evening. It started out kind of disjointed. I think this is because it is post colonial literature written in the style of magical realism which makes pretty strange reading for us westerners. After the first 20 pages, however, it settled down into a more modern (20th century) style of writing and has begun to flow. I am thinking this is going to be both a very interesting story and an excellent piece of literature. Within the first few pages it was evident to me that Rushdie stands out from the crowd of other authors.

Phineas Finn! It's fantastic!

Finished Candide yesterday. Very good book, however, filled with violence. Not strong on the development of characters. Good story line.

I finally finished The Thousand and One Nights, which on the whole I found pretty enjoyable. Some of the stories started to run together towards the end and I was rather mortified at many of the practices back in the day (slavery, polygamy, beheadings at the drop of a hat, to name a few). Beneath all that, there were some great stories and a happy ending.

I have started The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen. All I can say is that hopefully there is a plot to this book, because right now I am not seeing it and I am not in the mood for ramblings.

#54 - Hmmm, you may be out of luck. The Elizabeth Bowen books I've read have been pretty rambly. If you don't like ramblings, also stay away from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I finally finished. Now I'm on to Life of Insects by Viktor Pelevin.

I'm kind of stuck in Amadis of Gaul.

Carson McCullers: The heart is a lonely hunter.

I haven't read an Elizabeth Bowen for a while but I've always loved her books and never thought of them as lacking in plot. Adventure and action, maybe not, but plot, yes. I haven't read Last September, though.

I am going to keep plugging along with The Last September. The writing is fantastic, so it isn't a chore to read and I have adjusted my mindset to just enjoy the ride. I think I need to put more thought into picking when I read certain books, instead of randomly reading what falls into my hands.

I am 3/4 of the way through Invisible Man. It is both different than what I expected and different than anything that I have read. Different being good in this instance : )

I began I know why the caged bird sings yesterday. I think I'm going to enjoy this one; the writing is beautiful.

"I think I need to put more thought into picking when I read certain books, instead of randomly reading what falls into my hands."

#59-I struggle with this as well. I have taken to making a small list every year so that I at least get through a few from my bookshelf by the end of every 12 months.

I'm still reading Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I get into it and then I get annoyed. I understand why people enjoy Murakami, but I have a difficult time reading books where anything and everything can happen. Maybe I'm too narrow, but I need boundaries or the narrative just feels like one Family Guy flashback after another.

Finished The Castle of Otranto 3 1/2 stars. Very interesting Gothic tragedy. It put me in mind of works such as Romeo and Juliet. Well written. Has plenty of murder and madness