In alphabetical order

[Isagel]

I just finished writing this answer to another thread:

"As a teenager I went to the library and decided to read i alphabetic order from the shelves I would read one author that started with the letter A , on that started on B, and so forth.

That took a lot of time. But evryone needs a hobby.

I guess this isn´t really the kind of advice you where looking for. :-) But it made me read alot of things I never would have read otherwise.

But thats how I ended up reading Burroughs "The Naked lunch"
and Truman Capote.

I can´t remember who I read for the letter Q. I think it was a spanish author. "

So , now I can´t help but wonder how a list of books made by the people here would look like. Perhaps we can choose a letter each , starting with A and going al the way Z (or to Ö for us scandinavian people).

Write the authors name, the books name and something short about the book.

That way I will get a really interesting new "to do" list :-)

[Isagel]

I will start with A

Adams, Richard
and the book : Watership Down

My grandfather gace this book to me when I was little and its´been one of my favorite books since then. I loved the story as achild, and still find this tale of rebellion inspiring.

I got this rewiew from Wikipedia, :

Watership Down was the title of Richard Adams' first and most successful novel, named after a hill in the north of Hampshire in England where Adams grew up. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1972.

It tells the story of the escape of a group of rabbits from their threatened home and their subsequent adventures. Although Adams has always stated that the book was intended to be a children's story, many fans see the book as a political allegory, attacking fascism as Animal Farm attacked socialism.

Many years after the original novel Adams wrote a series of related short stories, Tales from Watership Down.

Watership Down has become a modern classic and was made into an acclaimed animated film, directed by Martin Rosen. The film featured the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers and Roy Kinnear, among others. Art Garfunkel's No.1 hit, "Bright Eyes", was also featured, although in a different arrangement from the record version. In 1999, an animated television series under the same name was produced with Martin Rosen as coproducer.

[GapingStarling]

Oh, this will be fun!

Hmmm... How about Simone de Beauvoir's A Very Easy Death, or Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot?

I seem to be having a bit of an existential moment :)

[IWilKikU]

Noam Chomsky's Understanding Power. It's probably the most thought provoking book on modern politics ever written.

[Black Flag]

I guess I'll do an obvious one---Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. It used to be my favourite book. Kind of a trip, but it "makes you think" to use a cliche. :cool: I don't think it's really necessary to give a decription of the book as everyone ought to be familiar with it--but what the hell? It's a novel about the pyche of a murderer. While your reading it see if Raskolnikov doesn't remind you, in some way, of yourself. (God, I hope I'm not the only one! ):(

[emily655321]

LOL Black Flag. *raises hand* I was one of two people in my English class (the other being my friend) who considered Rodya the hero of that book. (He was also the only other student who absolutely despised the epilogue.) It's still my second fave.

All right, so "E." Wow, that's a toughie. I don't know if I've ever read a novel by an "E." Oh, actually, I did have Silas Marner (George Eliot) recommended to me by someone recently, but I don't know what it's about. If the next poster has a special love for another E author, go ahead and tell about him/her instead of "F." Otherwise, George Eliot. Umm...he talks... flowery.

[Black Flag]

All right! I'm not inwardly a murderer after all!:D Thanks Em. George Eliot, by the way, was a woman.

[EAP]

The Great Gatsby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby) -- F. Scott Firzgerald

Article by Wikipedia.

Relevent Paragraphs.

The Great Gatsby (1925) is a short novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald set in New York in the 1920s. It has often been seen as the epitome of American literature of the so-called "Jazz Age".

Apart from depicting life in the fast lane during the "Roaring Twenties", the novel also discusses questions of racism through the character of Tom Buchanan who, on top of his loose morals, is also a white supremacist.
I would have included an online version but apparantly it is still is copyright in USA. Or was in copyright, in December 2002. Apparantly the text doesn't full the requirew

Australians and non US people can refer to Project Guntenburg Australia for an online version.

[IWilKikU]

Faust by Goeth. The original tale of selling the soul for the sake of power. Also the inspiration for Christopher Marlow's Dr. Faustus.

[emily655321]

"George Eliot, by the way, was a woman."

:rolleyes: I know, I remembered that after I posted, but I didn't feel like editing. Hehe (Too many female Georges to remember!)

[emily655321]

"Siddhartha" --Hermann Hesse.

Short but sweet. Spans the lifetime of a man in India, focusing on his spiritual journeys; from cult follower to Buddhist to wealthy landowner to ... well, a lot of stuff happens. I found it really interesting to view a familiar pattern of symbolic life experiences and phsycological maturation from a viewpoint so different from those I'm familiar with.

[Diceman]

Originally posted by Isagel
I will start with A

Adams, Richard
and the book : Watership Down


Hey, I just finished praising this book on another thread, and here it is again! I can't recommend Watership Down highly enough. Read it, read it again, then read it aloud to your children at bedtime.

Oh heck, now I gotta think of an Author whose name starts with I...

How about I, Robot by Isaac Asimov? (Sorry, I can't think of any surnames beginning with I off the top of my head...) A collection of short stories dealing with the "humanity" of robotkind. The only Asimov book that really grabbed me.

[IWilKikU]

Ulysses, James Joyce. Uhh... Oh crap, I havn't actually read it! Someone who has, please say somthing good about it so I don't look stupid. Quick!!!

[GapingStarling]

Hmmm, I've not read it either yet -- I'm taking a whole course on Ulysses next fall though... I read Dubliners, though, and found that I really enjoyed all the digging for symbolism and meaning that you get to muck about with in Joyce.
We're up to K now? Jack Kerouac's On The Road -- another that I've not gotten to yet, but it's definately on the list.

[Black Flag]

Originally posted by IWilKikU
Ulysses, James Joyce. Uhh... Oh crap, I havn't actually read it! Someone who has, please say somthing good about it so I don't look stupid. Quick!!!

I just finished it about a month ago (yeah, I actually got through). Good read if you can follow it. Actually, what's cool about it is that scenes from the book are based on scenes from Homer's Odessy (kinda like O Brother Where Art Thou).

Oh yeah---D.H. Lawrence...Lady Chatterly's Lover. All about an upper-class wife going through early emotional menopause (that's about the fairest thing I'm able to say about her).

[emily655321]

Lady Chatterly's Lover, eh? Haven't gotten around to reading that one -- none of the people I know who've read it are on the "masterpiece" side of the controversy (the most succinct description I've gotten has been "meaningless smut." :eek: )

"Of Human Bondage" --W. Somerset Maugham

Kind of like reality television, if you think about it; like turning on the camera at age 9 (?) and turning it off at 30. I hated it all the way through, then when I finished I sat for 10 minutes with the book in front of me and realized it was one of the best books I had ever read. Because what I hated was the characters -- every single one -- and all the choices they made, then all of a sudden I smacked myself on the forehead and said "duh!" What was so incredible about the writing was just that: it was as if the characters were making their own decisions, rather than Maugham making them move around like puppets. Everything that happened was plausible and just the way real people act. (Which is also the whole point of the book and the source of the title.) So I love this book, even though I hated the experience of reading it. Does that make sense?

[atiguhya padma]

The Unfortunate Traveller by Thomas Nashe

Anybody who hasn't read this neglected Elizabethan writer, ought to read at least some of his stuff. He has a powerful imagination and a brilliant use of words.

[Kiwi Shelf]

George Orwell
Animal Farm

Something good about it? It's Animals acting out the Russian Revolution, so good for a history buff like me. But, we read it in my grade 11 English class, so it has been brutalized for me.

[Shea]

Edgar Allen Poe
There are several of his short stories that are worth reading, namely

The Fall of the House of Usher
The Black Cat (don't read that one before bed, trust me!)
Ligeia
The Maalstrom
The Murders of the Rue Morgue (I actually found that one funny for some reason)
etc...

[Sunny]

Washington Irving

one of his great works is Rip Van Winkle, which is so funny and not seems very difficult to me except for a great deal of new words. I've read an exerpt of it, and i'm determined to finish it whenever i have time.

To Shea:
I know Edgar Allan Poe, but haven't read any works of his.
I also know he is famous for his macabre novels and poems. I like reading this kind of work. Hope to read them asap.

PS: Several days ago when i was on the train to another city, i read the Signal Man of Charles Dickens, it also seems a psychological short story. It must be worth reading too.

[Shea]

Oops! Sunny, I think you misunderstood!;)
We've been listing authors in aphabetical order, so we're looking for one now who's last name begins with "Q", though off hand, can't think of one!

But I liked Rip Van Winkle too. Especially, the part when he wakes up and gets confused by all the change.

A good tip for reading Poe: read the stories at least twice. I never fully understand them in the first reading. But I really find them enjoyable after the second time!

[Sunny]

Yes! I think i'm quite wrong. So embarrassed. I can't help giggling for my stupidity,

and i could not think of one neither.

[IWilKikU]

De Quincy (?)
Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

This book is awsome because it talks all about how great opium is. It's the only book that's considered a "literary classic" that has that kind of decedent message.

[Diceman]

Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man.

A personal favourite (check my handle). A guy decides to make his life decisions by the roll of a die. Slowly his whole world descends into chaos. The story questions what it is that makes us individual, what it is that makes us "us". Suggests that each of us has multiple personalities, each of them competing for expression. The style of the novel is fantastic. It starts as first-person narrative, but varies from first person to third person, from prose to verse and even play-script, mirroring the descent into chaos of the protagonist. Some might argue that the book belongs in the "pulp" shelves, but I suggest that this book is a sublime fusion of literature with pulp: Literature with mass appeal.

[IWilKikU]

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

One of the first works of Satire. It's never lost its charm for me. I always try to figure out which part is my favorite (Lillyput, The horse guys, the giants, ect...) but I can never really decide. They're all so great.

[emily655321]

War and Peace, Tolstoy. It's been on my list for years. Will I ever get to it? Well, if not, it's always good to have a goal. Someone here said they'd read it, forget who (or maybe it was that other infamous wad of paper, Ulysses). Was it worth it? Or should I at least read it so I can be one of the people who has read it and go "nya nya nya" at everyone else? :p

[Dexter]

Ulysses - yes! Liked it so much I went to Dublin and took a bike around the locations in the book - starting with the Martello Tower.
How do I love thee let me count the ways. Brilliant writing, funny, characterization Leopold Bloom, Molly, Steven, all fantastic. If you like literature as a puzzle, great book. If you know the Odyssey, terrific comparisons. Don't worry about finding the allusions, just go with the flow. Get a trot if you need one - it'll help you enjoy the book a lot more. Stuart Davis(?) has the book on comparison with Homer. Movie made in the 50's or maybe the 60's of the book very well done, but disappeared. Worth hunting for (if you find it, let me know where). Finnegan's Wake a bit much - I need to work on it.
You need to spend some time with Ulysses, but the more time spent the more it pays off. Class would be helpful if the teacher doesn't suck the humor and the life out of it looking for symbols, allusions etc. Go for it.

[Koa]

Originally posted by emily655321
War and Peace, Tolstoy. It's been on my list for years. Will I ever get to it? Well, if not, it's always good to have a goal. Someone here said they'd read it, forget who (or maybe it was that other infamous wad of paper, Ulysses). Was it worth it? Or should I at least read it so I can be one of the people who has read it and go "nya nya nya" at everyone else? :p

There are a few threads about it around the forum... look for them, hopefully it won't be hard to find them (I think the latest one dates around last january, cos that's when I finished reading it...). Though be careful of the spoilers... I have many points of despisment for that book, but I can't say it's not worth reading cos you can't base on others' opinion...thought it might be not easy...

[IWilKikU]

I picked up a copy of War and Peace in two volumes the other day. It's going to be my summer project.

So, uh... "U". hmmm..... :rolleyes:

[Capnplank]

Beowulf, by Unknown

Imagine Dennis Miller without the 18th century to draw obscure references from. That's what The Lord of the Rings would be without Beowulf.

[atiguhya padma]

Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut

[Capnplank]

"Dawn" by Elie Wiesel.

I thought "Night" was better but I think it seems to be mostly fiction roundsabout here so I suppose I shouldn't break that barrier.

[papayahed]

Autobiography of Malcom X - Malcom X (It exists just checked Amazon.com)

[CBW]

Isagel, when I read your post it freaked me out. I used to do that every summer until I graduated high school. I still read that much, but I no longer go to the library as often because I prefer to buy them. It was so strange to read that someone else has done this.
You have given me the idea to do it again. I'll just read those that are on my shelves instead of going to the library. I have just as many as my local public library.
And it really does get you to read many authors that you would not normally consider reading.
Thanks for bringing back a very good memory of "How I Spent My Summer Vacations".

[Diceman]

Originally posted by CBW
You have given me the idea to do it again. I'll just read those that are on my shelves instead of going to the library. I have just as many as my local public library.
Were you by any chance ever an acquaintance of Jean-Paul Sartre? It sounds like one of the characters in "Nausea" was modelled after you...

[Isagel]

The Wanderings Of Oisin And Other Poems , Wiiliam Butler Yeats

"Isagel, when I read your post it freaked me out. I used to do that every summer until I graduated high school." Oh, kindred spirit! :-). I knew there had to be another one! I´m reallly glad there is a forum where I can write about this things - and not only not being called crazy and compulsive - but also finding people who thinks it is a great idea.

Now - what on earth did I read for Z?

[CBW]

Diceman, I've never read "Nausea" so I'm not too sure how to take that. :)
I have had people tell me that I make them sick (for various reasons: holding hands with my husband of more than 10 years and still kissing in public, explaining why I find this book or that book absolutely fabulous, why I am so interested in this topic in history/literature/etc...).

[Diceman]

Originally posted by CBW
Diceman, I've never read "Nausea" so I'm not too sure how to take that. :)
What better reason to get in to Sartre? :D

Nothing sinister: just that in "Nausea" there is a character - the Autodidact, or Self-taught Man - who is reading every book in the library in alphabetical order.

[faith]

This is actually a fun thread! A lot of the books mensioned are books that are on my "english litterature list" from where Im supposed to read 6 books this summer. Well, anyway: Ive got the letter M. My obvious choise would be LM Montgomery, my childhood favorite, but I just wrote about her in an other thread, and anyway shes a bit of a "childrens author" not that there is anything bad with that, adults can read her perfectly well too.

But I pic Frank McCourt and Angela's Ashes, because that is a book that I fell in love with reasently.

Its autobiographical and tells about Franks "misserable Irish Catholic childhood". I didnt consider it misserable all trooth, but he did live in the slums of Limerick. McC writes about his childhood in a litte ironic and funny way. I really loved the book. It was incredibly funny!

[Sycron]

Anyone going to make an attempt on Z? heh