What did-we read in June ?

[lupe]

"Death of a Murdered" - Rupert Thomson
"Le soleil des Scorta" - Laurent Gaudé
"Alias Grace" - Margaret Atwood
"Selected Poems" – K.Kavafis
"Les Ombres Errantes" - Pascal Quignard
"Drei Frawen" ("Three Women") - Robert Musil

[Dark Muse]

Women in Love ~ D.H. Lawrence
The Scarlet Letter ~ Hawthorne
Eleonora ~ Poe

J.D Salinger

A Pefect Day For Bananafish
Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut
Just Before the War with the Eskimos
The Luaghing Man
Down At the Dinghy
For Esme-With Love and Sqular
Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes

[grace86]

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder
Marriage on the Rock

and parts of....
Gone with the Wind
David Copperfield

[Dark Muse]

What did you think of Reading Lolita in Tehran?

I am not a huge reader of non-fiction, but I try to read it on occasion, when now and then something will strike my interest and I heard about this book, the concept sounded interesting, but then I read a lot of reviews saying it was badly done, and really quite boring and dull.

[Page Turner]

Les Misérables ~Hugo
Ender's Game ~ Card
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas ~ Boyne

[grace86]

What did you think of Reading Lolita in Tehran?

I am not a huge reader of non-fiction, but I try to read it on occasion, when now and then something will strike my interest and I heard about this book, the concept sounded interesting, but then I read a lot of reviews saying it was badly done, and really quite boring and dull.

Umm I took a history course this past quarter on the History of Iran...their constitutional revolution of 1979 and such...and had to do a term project.
This book was on the list.

I liked how Nafisi told the women's stories around the themes of the novels of different authors. She compared Iran of that time with the character of Lolita...so it's interesting how she weaves literature and history.

It could be dull if you aren't interested in the slightest on Iranian history...it might not make sense. The country at the time she did her book club was wrapped in all kinds of turmoil. But it has a kind of romantic approach because when the women came together for the book club once a week it was like a sanctuary; the women could be who they truly were without hiding their nail polish and such. She talks of how the meetings ended up taking the better part of the day and how it seemed like within her walls was a different world - the real world, while outside they were hiding.

I thought it was good. Better than reading history from the textbooks I had. It's really easy on your brain. I didn't like reading non fiction before this one. Give it a try. Even if it has dull points it's really interesting to have Nafisi dive into discussing authors and novels in depth.

[semi-fly]

As you can tell I didn't do a lot of sleeping during the month of June

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedict Erofeiev
Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
Drood by Dan Simmons
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

[Dark Lady]

Surprisingly little! I had such lofty plans and they just fizzled out. I started reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and that's it! It's not even as if I'm not enjoying it and that's why it's taking me so long; I really like it. It just seems like, with the warm weather, when I actually have a quiet moment and think I could read I just get really drowsy and have to stop. I'm not even far through it. Only one or two hundred pages. By the end of uni, depending on the text, I was getting through more than that in a day.

Look at everyone else's enviable lists.

[grace86]

Look at everyone else's enviable lists.

Awe don't cry! You'll just have to try harder for the month of July!

[meh!]

the road (written beautifully, but for some reason i didn't care about the characters.)
things fall apart (course book) (also written beautifully, really did care. made me angry.)
don juan (course book) (hilarious)
The dispossessed (course book) (ugh, slog slog slog)

[Dark Muse]

Umm I took a history course this past quarter on the History of Iran...their constitutional revolution of 1979 and such...and had to do a term project.
This book was on the list.

I liked how Nafisi told the women's stories around the themes of the novels of different authors. She compared Iran of that time with the character of Lolita...so it's interesting how she weaves literature and history.

It could be dull if you aren't interested in the slightest on Iranian history...it might not make sense. The country at the time she did her book club was wrapped in all kinds of turmoil. But it has a kind of romantic approach because when the women came together for the book club once a week it was like a sanctuary; the women could be who they truly were without hiding their nail polish and such. She talks of how the meetings ended up taking the better part of the day and how it seemed like within her walls was a different world - the real world, while outside they were hiding.

I thought it was good. Better than reading history from the textbooks I had. It's really easy on your brain. I didn't like reading non fiction before this one. Give it a try. Even if it has dull points it's really interesting to have Nafisi dive into discussing authors and novels in depth.

Thanks for the review, I will keep an eye out for it when I do go shopping for books.

[Jeremiah Jazzz]

So I'm on summer break and am going at a rate of reading more than one book at once. This was this month's result.

-Demons by Dostoevsky
-Eugene Onegin by Pushkin (both this and Demons (translated by Robert A. Maguire) were 'prep' for Petersberg (also translated by Mr.Maguire)).
-The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner
-If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
-As I Lay Dying by Faulkner (was never a fan of Faulkner until I read this and The Sound and the Fury, both incredible reads, but I favor As I Lay Dying more.)
-Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (didn't enjoy this one as much as I thought I would. I had high hopes!)
-A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens (this was more or less rushed, but I did enjoy it, again not as much I had thought I would. David Copperfield was more enjoyable.
-Don Quixote by Cervantes (started in March, finished up the last 200 pages in June)
-Pere Goriot by Balzac

so this leaves me left with an almost finished Madame Bovary by Flaubert and Petersberg by Andrei Bely, both unbelievably good reads.

[mortalterror]

Hercules Oetaeus- Seneca
Phoenissae- Seneca
On the Shortness of Life- Seneca
On the Crown- Demosthenes
The Red and the Black- Stendhal
The Sale of Creeds- Lucian
The Way to Write History- Lucian
(half)Histories- Herodotus
(half)Against Nature- Huysmans
(half)De Oratore- Cicero

[Buh4Bee]

The Other Boleyn Girl (Trash, horrible, TRASH)
Lily and the Secret Fan (Book Club)
The Shack (Bible Study)
Rousseau -Confessions (Still reading)
The Scarlett Letter (Didn't finish yet)

A rather transitional month for me, so the list is not reflective of my usual reading list.

[JBI]

"Death of a Murdered" - Rupert Thomson
"Le soleil des Scorta" - Laurent Gaudé
"Alias Grace" - Margaret Atwood
"Selected Poems" – K.Kavafis
"Les Ombres Errantes" - Pascal Quignard
"Drei Frawen" ("Three Women") - Robert Musil

What'd you think of Alias Grace? I have mixed feelings toward the text - on one hand, it is brilliant, but on another, I can't help but find Grace's ambiguity, in terms of debate over guilt, to be manufactured - my reading of history doesn't seem to have much room for an understanding of an innocent Grace - I merely assume she killed the people, whereas Atwood, by making history ambiguous, deliberately suggests, she may be innocent, which in our understanding, means she is innocent, though Atwood never satisfies a definite position within her text.