Books you've read in the past year?

[StayGolden]

I read a story on Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070821/ap_on_re_us/reading_habits_ap_poll) a few minutes ago that says that 1/4 (adult) Americans read no books at all last year. That got me to thinking...how many books have you read in the past year? What were their titles? Did you discover a new favorite author in the past year?

I haven't really read that many books over the course of the year, as reading everything I can get my hands on is a recent development :p but so far I think I've read around 20 novels and plays, but my favorite has been Macbeth.

I've discovered quite a few authors whom I love (James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and Fyodor Dostoevsky), but my absolute favorite is, and probably always will be, Shakespeare.

Now, your turn. ;)

[Bakiryu]

You want a list or just a skimming of favorite authors?

[StayGolden]

Whichever you prefer. ;) Just over the past year, though.

[malwethien]

I've read 15 books this year...

Perfume
Harry Potter 7
American Gods
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Sin
Jane Eyre
Wide Sargasso Sea
Neverwhere
The Awakening
Brideshead Revisited
Freakonomics
The Inheritance of Loss
The Golden Compass
My Name is Red

[pellegrino]

I just finished a dissertation so I've read enough through the past year but precious little for pleasure -
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
Legends of the Grail - Folio Press
Omnibus - Roald Dahl
The Inklings - Humphrey Carpenter
Song of Solomon - Tony Morrison
My friends awful dissertation - my friend
La Divina Commedia - (always, always)
I began Don Quixote in Spanish - wondrous
Collected Poems - George Herbert
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

[tudwell]

Hmm... I don't know if I can remember all of them (or exactly when I read some of them), but I'll try.

Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground and The Double
DeLillo: Americana, White Noise, Libra, Mao II, and Underworld
Nabokov: Lolita
Pynchon: V., Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm reading Mason & Dixon at the moment
Heller: Catch-22
Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying, The Wild Palms and Go, Down Moses
Steve Erickson: Arc d'X and The Sea Came in at Midnight
Beckett: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Waiting for Godot, Endgame
Dickens: Oliver Twist
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker series
John Irving: The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire
Jack Kerouac: On the Road
Chuck Palahniuk: Haunted
Harry Potter 7
David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest
Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-5
Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything is Illuminated
Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Medea
The Aeneid
Kafka: The Metamorphosis
Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Parts of various short story anthologies
Mark Danielewsky: House of Leaves
Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House

That makes at least 49, but I'm sure I'm forgetting some...

I wasn't really disappointed with any of the books, but there are definitely some I like more than others. Nabokov, Pynchon, Faulkner, Beckett, they're miles ahead of the rest. Definitely my favorites (I can't pick just one).

[Virgil]

Pellegrino, welcome to lit net. I think you're going to like it here, based on your reading list. You should introduce and tell us a little about yourself. There is an Introductions thread.

[pellegrino]

Thank you Virgil! Most kind. I do indeed like it here. As you know, its hard to get passionate about Cecco d'Ascoli and Propertius at dinner parties!

[tudwell]

By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

I vote the third one (Prisoner of Azkaban). Once you get to the later ones in the series, the plots are too heavily ingrained with the earlier ones, and of the first three, I definitely like Prisoner of Azkaban best.

[StayGolden]

By the way Harry Potter fans, which one should I read if I had to read just one?

It's always good to start at the beginning. ;) Otherwise, my favorite in the series was Goblet of Fire.

[pellegrino]

Thanks tay Golden and Tudwell -
I've heard Azkaban bandied about as the holder of the laurels but I'm green to Potter, so I appreciate any input. What about the latest installment?

[tudwell]

The latest would also be the last, and it ties up all the loose ends that the rest of the books left unanswered. If you start there, you'll be utterly perplexed.

[StayGolden]

The latest is the last in the series, and probably best left unread until you read the previous books, otherwise you'll have no clue what's going, why it's going on, etc. ;)

Oops..a bit late. :P But yeah, stick to one of the first books, as they introduce the series and the world JKR created.

[pellegrino]

Thanks friends.
Have either of you read anything by Ugo Tarchetti?

[syiah]

Well, there's no way I can remember everything I've read in the past year, so here are the ones that stuck :D :

Honey for the Bears - Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Wanting Seed - Anthony Burgess
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Faust - Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Interview With a Vampire - Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice
The Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice
The Devil Memnoch - Anne Rice
Macbeth - Shakespeare
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Sickness Unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
Ivanov - Ivan Chekhov
The Seagull - Ivan Chekhov
Uncle Vanya - Ivan Chekhov
Three Sisters - Ivan Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard - Ivan Chekhov
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Flowers of Evil - Baudelaire
Alphabet of Thorn - McKillips
Apprentice - Feist
Master - Feist
The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzche
Mein Kampf - Hitler
Antichrist - Nietzche
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Juliette - Marquis De Sade
120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade
Philosophy of a Bedroom - Marquis De Sade
Venus in Furs - Sacher-Masoch
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Diary of a Madman - Gogol
Dead Souls - Gogol
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Demons - Dostoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Warriors Don't Cry - Beals
Criminal Defense - Cicero
Digital Fortress - Brown
Angels and Demons - Brown
Twilight - Meyers
Eclipse - Meyers
Genesis
Exodus
Deuteronomy
Numbers
The Odyssey
And I was forced to translate the Illiad in school...>.> That DEFINETLY stuck.

I live in books...
And yes! I did discover a new favorite author: Anthony Burgess. :D

Ugo Tarchetti? Never heard of him. :blush: Sorry.

[aeroport]

Well! Hiya, syiah! Welcome to the Forum. Quite a list...

Well, here's what I can remember at the moment:

Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien translation)
Goodbye, Columbus - Philip Roth
When She Was Good - Roth
Portnoy's Complaint - Roth
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
On Becoming a Novelist - John Gardner
The Art of Fiction - Gardner
Prelude to Foundation - Asimov
The Sacred Fount - Henry James
'The Figure in the Carpet' - James
'The Lesson of the Master - James
'The Beast in the Jungle' - James
'Daisy Miller' - James
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams (audio version w/ Stephen Fry)
The God Delusion - Dawkins
Malloy - Samuel Beckett
The Unnameable - Beckett
some Beckett plays
The Hundred Secret Senses - Amy Tan
Oroonoko; or, the Royal Slave - Aphra Behn
A History of Western Society - McKay/Hill/Buckler
How to Study in College - Pauk Owens
Hamlet
Macbeth
King Lear
Othello
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Romeo and Juliet
Titus Andronicus
Richard III
Henry VI
Righto Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Hard Times - Dickens
The Belle of the Belfast City - Christina Reid
'Bartleby, the Scrivener' & Benito Cereno - Melville
The First Booke of the Faerie Queene - Edmund Spencer

[Mark F.]

I used to make a list of what I read, last year I was up to about 60 books. I think I read a little less this year but probably around 40 books sounds right.

These are the best ones :

"Sentimental Education" by Flaubert
"No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
"A Scanner Darkly" by P. K. Dick
"Ask The Dust" by John Fante
"Women" by Bukowski
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner
"The Fall" by Camus
"Endgame" by Samuel Beckett (drama)
"Les Amours jaunes" by Tristan Corbiere (poetry)

I also reread "L'Etranger" by Camus and "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky.

[aabbcc]

According to my reading journals, in the past year (2006) I have read:

Literature
Gogol', N.V. - Dead Souls (which I was reading at the end of 2005, according to the journal, but formally finished in 2006)
Shakespeare, W. - Othello
Shakespeare, W. - Hamlet
Shakespeare, W. - A midsummer night's dream
Brodsky, J. - Less than one
Selimović, M. - The Death and the Dervish (which I, as my favourite work, re-read every year :D)
Yourcenar, M. - Le coup de grace
Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Sand Child
Calderón de la Barca, P. - Life is a dream
Kertész, I. - Fateless
Baudelaire, Ch. - Les Fleurs du Mal (re-read, in original this time :D)
Andrić, I. - The Bridge Over Drina
Krleža, M. - The Return of Filip Latinovicz
Anthology of Serbian poetry
Anthology of Czech poetry
Mácha, K. H. - Poetry (May)
Kertész, I. - Kadish for a child unborn
Correspondances of the famous people (excerpts)
Dickens, Ch. - A Tale of Two Cities
Lucian of Samosata (?, attributed to) - Loukios ê Onos
Anthology of Bulgarian poetry
Hamvas, B. - Hungarian huperion
Canetti, E. - Die gerettete Zunge. Geschichte einer Jugend (translated in Italian as La lingua salvata)
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Brothers Karamazov
Šantić, A. - collected works by
Kostova, E. - Historian
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Notes from the Underground
Crnković, Z. & Kušan, I. - correspondance, collected letters
Nafisi, A. - Lolita in Teheran
Sládkovič, A. - Marina
Gogol', N. V. - The Overcoat
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Podrostok (which I, for reasons which elude me, failed to finish, as the note in the journal says)
Pamuk, O. - The White Castle
Schiller, F. - The Robbers
Gundulić, I. - Suze sina razmetnoga
Selimović, M. - Memoirs
Andrić, I. - Ex ponto
Balzac, H. de - Father Goriot
Bettiza, E. - Exile
Maraini, D. - Bagheria
Pontiggia, G. - Il giocatore invisibile
Baricco, A. - Castelli di rabbia
Тјutchev, F. I. - Lirika
Aeschyles - Prometheus Bound
Njegoš, P.P. - Gorski vijenac
Cesarić, D. - selected poetry
Calvino, I. - Invisible cities
Pushkin, A. S. - Evgeny Onegin (re-read)
Byron, G. G. - Childe Harold (re-read)
Malerba, L. - Le maschere
Mori, A. M. - Nata in Istria
Kranjčević, S. S. - Iza spuštenijeh trepavica - izbor iz djela
Lermontov, M. Ju. - The Hero of Our Time
Slovo o polku Igoreve
Pushkin, A. S. - Selected poems, fairy tales, dramas
Longfellow, H. W. - The Complete Poetical works by
Svevo, I. - Senilita'
D'Alessandro, G. - La puttana del tedesco
Tugovanje za Srbijom - antologija drugih srpskih romantičara
Druzhnikov, J. - Viza v pozavchera
Maupassant, G. de - short stories
Goethe, J. W. - Faust (re-read)
Gaarder, J. - Vita brevis
Ahmatova, A. A. - poetry
Pasternak, B. L. - poetry
Makine, A. - The French testament
Leopardi, G. - poetry
Alighieri, D. - Purgatorio
Sto rokiv junosti - 20th century Ukrainian poetry anthology
Gazdanov, G. - An Evening with Claire
Pamuk, O. - Istanbul
Eco, U. - Il nome della rosa
Zamyatin, E. I. - We (which I did not finish)
Robinson, E. A. - Children of the Night
Ilić, V. - poetry
Dostoevsky, F. M. - Poor Folk (re-read)
de Quincey, Th. - Confessions of an English opium eater
Goldoni, C. - La locandiera
Zola, E. - Therese Raquin
Gogol', N. V. - Revizor

Other
Maalouf, A. - In the name of identity
Zeldin, Th. - Intimate history of humanity
Daun, A. & Janson, S. - Europeans - culture and identity
Weinrich, H. - Linguistics of lies - can language hide thoughts
Haag, E. van de - The Jewish Mystique
Winner, E. - Gifted Children - myths and reality
Bon, G. de - Psyhology of the masses
Chesterton, G. K. - The Everlasting Man
Vrkić, J . - I u Sibiru žive ljudi - putovanje Čehovljevim putopisima
Pavičić, J. - Beneath the language - comments on the language and Croats
Zaid, G. - So many books
le Goff, J. - Medieval Civilisation
Fernández-Armesto, F. - So you think you're human
Mead, G. H. - Mind, person and society
Ware, T. - Orthodox Church
Camus, A. - The Myth of Sisyphus

I do not have all of my reading journals from that period next to me right now so the list is bound to be incomplete, but it should give the basic idea of what a mess my reading repertoire in the last year was. :D
I tend to read a lot and keep reading journals, so it is generally easy to remember what I read when by going through those notes (*hint, hint... do some of you also keep reading journals?) ;)

[kitten]

i've been keeping lists of what i read every year for a few years now. i want to know i have read at least a book a week. i'm at about 48 so far this year. it sounds like that isn't much compared to some (most) of you, and i will admit that i am EXTREMELY intimidated by the reading lists on display. therefore, i won't be putting up my list.:blush: :blush:

[Mark F.]

I forgot to mention "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" by Thoreau.

[NickAdams]

Elephant Vanishes (horrible)
Ernest Hemingway's Collected Stories (again)
The Sun Also Rises
Sanctuary
The Manticore
The Oedipus Trilogy
Gotham Writer's Workshop (again)
Hamlet
A book G. B. Shaw one act plays (one jewel, the rest tedious)
A Light in August
Waiting for Godot
Faulkner and Cowley's Files
Jung's Essays
Molloy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (horrible)
A Clockwork Orange
A Moveable Feast (currently reading)
Midnight's Children (currently reading)
Don Quixote (currently reading)

[StayGolden]

Wow...y'all all have some rather large reading lists, there. :p

Kitten, almost 50 books in the course of a year is amazing, and definitely something you should be proud of!

[kitten]

thank you, SG. i was proud of myself. sorry. i AM proud. :)

reading the posts in the forum makes me want to try W&P though...

[grace86]

I've read more than I personally thought I would this past year, so this is a long list, for me anyway.

I will reflect a bit and then post. :)

[grace86]

Okay from August 06 to August 07, I think I am missing a few more:

The Oresteia
Civil Disobedience
Letter from Birmingham Jail
The Iliad
The Odyssey (sp?)
The Aeneid
Epic of Gilgamesh
Hamlet
The Inferno
The Decameron (only parts)
Cantebury Tales (only parts)
Pygmalion
Metamorphosis (Ovid)
Lysistrata
Electra
Sappho poetry
Chinese poetry
Ethan Frome
Women in Love
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Book of Lost Things
The Thirteenth Tale
The Ivory Child
Heart of Darkness
Kreutzer Sonata
Don Quixote (will be finished this August)
Crime and Punishment (edited in)

I know I am missing a couple. I might update later. ;) Didn't think I read as much as I did. Cool.

[Niamh]

I'd started a log in january about how many i was reading and what i'd read but i'd lost track and forgot to log....
I've spent this year reading and rereading alot. For example i've read the bitter bynde saga twice this year already.
Eldest-Christopher Paolini
Should have got off at Sydney Parade- Ross o' Carroll Kelly
Ill Made Mute- Cicelia Dart Thornton x2
The lady of Sorrows- Cicelia Dart Thornton x2
Battle of Evernight-Cicelia Dart thornton x2
After Eight-Meg Cabot
The Iron Tree- Cicelia Dart Thornton
Persuasion- Jane Austen
Howls Moving castle- Wynne Jones
Blue Shoes and Happiness- Alexander MaCall Smith
Good Husband of Zedbra Drive- Alexander MaCall Smith
The Queen and I- Sue Townsend
Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost stories
Madame Bovery- Gustave Flaubert
Sabriel-Garth Nix
Lirael-Garth Nix
Abhorsen-Garth Nix
The Third Policeman- Flann O'Brian
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas- John Boyne
The Magicians Guild- Trudi Canavan
The Novice- Trudi Canavan
The High Lord- Trudi Canavan
Artemis Fowl-
A.F. And the Artic Incident-
A.F and the Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer
A.F. And the Opal Deception-
A.F. and the lost Colony-

H.P. and the Philosophers stone-
H.P. and the chamber of Secrets-
H.P. and the prisoner of azkaban-
H.P. and the goblet of fire- J.K.Rowling
H.P. and the order of the pheonix-
H.P. and the half Blood Prince-
H.P. and the Deathly Hallows-

started reading but didnt finish Shalamar the Clown-Rushdie.
and thats all i can remember!

[NickAdams]

Well! Hiya, syiah! Welcome to the Forum. Quite a list...

Well, here's what I can remember at the moment:

Beowulf
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien translation)
Goodbye, Columbus - Philip Roth
When She Was Good - Roth
Portnoy's Complaint - Roth
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
On Becoming a Novelist - John Gardner
The Art of Fiction - Gardner
Prelude to Foundation - Asimov
The Sacred Fount - Henry James
'The Figure in the Carpet' - James
'The Lesson of the Master - James
'The Beast in the Jungle' - James
'Daisy Miller' - James
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams (audio version w/ Stephen Fry)
The God Delusion - Dawkins
Malloy - Samuel Beckett
The Unnameable - Beckett
some Beckett plays
The Hundred Secret Senses - Amy Tan
Oroonoko; or, the Royal Slave - Aphra Behn
A History of Western Society - McKay/Hill/Buckler
How to Study in College - Pauk Owens
Hamlet
Macbeth
King Lear
Othello
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Romeo and Juliet
Titus Andronicus
Richard III
Henry VI
Righto Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Hard Times - Dickens
The Belle of the Belfast City - Christina Reid
'Bartleby, the Scrivener' & Benito Cereno - Melville
The First Booke of the Faerie Queene - Edmund Spencer

How helpful are the Gardner books to a writer?

I posted a question, on Beckett's Trilogy thread http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25658&highlight=beckett, and would like to see if you can answer it.


I used to make a list of what I read, last year I was up to about 60 books. I think I read a little less this year but probably around 40 books sounds right.

These are the best ones :

"Sentimental Education" by Flaubert
"No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
"A Scanner Darkly" by P. K. Dick
"Ask The Dust" by John Fante
"Women" by Bukowski
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner
"The Fall" by Camus
"Endgame" by Samuel Beckett (drama)
"Les Amours jaunes" by Tristan Corbiere (poetry)

I also reread "L'Etranger" by Camus and "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky.

How is Women by Bukowski? I was reading a little of Pulp in B&B today.


Okay from August 06 to August 07, I think I am missing a few more:

The Oresteia
Civil Disobedience
Letter from Birmingham Jail
The Iliad
The Odyssey (sp?)
The Aeneid
Epic of Gilgamesh
Hamlet
The Inferno
The Decameron (only parts)
Cantebury Tales (only parts)
Pygmalion
Metamorphosis (Ovid)
Lysistrata
Electra
Sappho poetry
Chinese poetry
Ethan Frome
Women in Love
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Book of Lost Things
The Thirteenth Tale
The Ivory Child
Heart of Darkness
Kreutzer Sonata
Don Quixote (will be finished this August)

I know I am missing a couple. I might update later. ;) Didn't think I read as much as I did. Cool.

There are a number of early works on your list. Are you researching, studying, or just enjoy them?


Well, there's no way I can remember everything I've read in the past year, so here are the ones that stuck :D :

Honey for the Bears - Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Wanting Seed - Anthony Burgess
War and Peace - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Faust - Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
Interview With a Vampire - Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice
The Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice
The Devil Memnoch - Anne Rice
Macbeth - Shakespeare
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Sickness Unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
Ivanov - Ivan Chekhov
The Seagull - Ivan Chekhov
Uncle Vanya - Ivan Chekhov
Three Sisters - Ivan Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard - Ivan Chekhov
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Flowers of Evil - Baudelaire
Alphabet of Thorn - McKillips
Apprentice - Feist
Master - Feist
The Birth of Tragedy - Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzche
Mein Kampf - Hitler
Antichrist - Nietzche
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Juliette - Marquis De Sade
120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade
Philosophy of a Bedroom - Marquis De Sade
Venus in Furs - Sacher-Masoch
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Diary of a Madman - Gogol
Dead Souls - Gogol
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
Demons - Dostoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Warriors Don't Cry - Beals
Criminal Defense - Cicero
Digital Fortress - Brown
Angels and Demons - Brown
Twilight - Meyers
Eclipse - Meyers
Genesis
Exodus
Deuteronomy
Numbers
The Odyssey
And I was forced to translate the Illiad in school...>.> That DEFINETLY stuck.

I live in books...
And yes! I did discover a new favorite author: Anthony Burgess. :D

Ugo Tarchetti? Never heard of him. :blush: Sorry.

I discovered Burgess this month. I read A Clockwork Orange and enjoyed it. Not so much for the story, but for Burgess' use of language. I've been looking into his linguistic works. What an interesting fellow. I've been looking for Quest for Fire, because he invented a kind of prehistoric language, but I don't know if it was just for the movie.:(

[grace86]

There are a number of early works on your list. Are you researching, studying, or just enjoy them?

Some of the earlier works, well most of them were for my world literature course last fall. I was interested in the parts we read for class, so I almost always went back to pursue the rest of the works. Have to admit I didn't get through all of them completely (for lit class anyway - my personal readings I finished), but I was happy to get through the ones I did...hence the current reading of Don Quixote.

Some how lit class always gave me just the right taste and intro into a piece that it fueled a lot of late night readings and pure enjoyment readings.

Never quite appreciated the Iliad and the Odyssey as I do today. They are fantastic.

[NickAdams]

Never quite appreciated the Iliad and the Odyssey as I do today. They are fantastic.

Prose or verse translation. Which do you prefer?

[grace86]

If I remember correctly it was verse. Can't remember the translator but he was pretty good...I know though it wasn't Fagles' translation (hmm or maybe it was), I do remember the verse however. I will check when I get to my apartment and have access to the books.

Can't say I actually knew there was a prose version.

[aeroport]

How helpful are the Gardner books to a writer?

I posted a question, on Beckett's Trilogy thread http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25658&highlight=beckett, and would like to see if you can answer it.


Gardner's awesome. Thing is, I haven't actually read any of his novels. I think he wrote upwards of twenty, though. (The James Bond books are written by a different JG.) I've read a few books on writing, and so far he's the only one who appears to approach the subject with anything like honesty. I just started his On Moral Fiction; it seems comparatively abstract so far, but The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist are definitely both worth reading - multiple times.

I'll try the Beckett thread, but... :(

[NickAdams]

Gardner's awesome. Thing is, I haven't actually read any of his novels. I think he wrote upwards of twenty, though. (The James Bond books are written by a different JG.) I've read a few books on writing, and so far he's the only one who appears to approach the subject with anything like honesty. I just started his On Moral Fiction; it seems comparatively abstract so far, but The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist are definitely both worth reading - multiple times.

I'll try the Beckett thread, but... :(

Gardner wrote quite a few, but The Sun Dialogues and Grendal are the ones that come to mind. I haven't read either and his other two books, we've already discussed, are in my draw, on top of Mailer's Spooky Art, waiting to be studied. I skimmed through Art of Fiction, there's a lot of good stuff. I found a copy for a dollar at my favorite used bookstore; I figure it would make a nice gift for a writing friend.

Grendal sounds interesting, but I would like to read Beowolf first before I get to the monster's P.O.V.

[aeroport]

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure we even covered Part II. Our professor talked about it a bit, but I think that we only were assigned Part I, and only an early bit of The Unnameable. We were covering quite a bit of stuff, and the prof was kind of trying to stress the later stuff - Godot, Endgame, etc. so we didn't do any of the novels in their entirety - four chapters of Murphy, I believe, and the first few chapters of Watt. Those two I'd like to go back to, though. The beginning of Murphy is hilarious.

[aeroport]

Grendal sounds interesting, but I would like to read Beowolf first before I get to the monster's P.O.V.

I thought the same, but now that I've read it I have no excuse... I have that and October Light sitting here, waiting for me...
Jason and Medeia is another.

[NickAdams]

Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure we even covered Part II. Our professor talked about it a bit, but I think that we only were assigned Part I, and only an early bit of The Unnameable. We were covering quite a bit of stuff, and the prof was kind of trying to stress the later stuff - Godot, Endgame, etc. so we didn't do any of the novels in their entirety - four chapters of Murphy, I believe, and the first few chapters of Watt. Those two I'd like to go back to, though. The beginning of Murphy is hilarious.

Beckett is a suprising funny. But I don't suggest you look at the thread then, becaus I posted a spoiler that has to do with the second part. If you get a chance to go to the second half, please do; it's extremely rewarding.

I'm well versed in scripture or much literature, so I don't get Beckett's allusions, but there is so much in there that you could have read nothing else and still enjoy his work.

I would be interested in what you found, or the Prof pointed out, in the first part. Of the many things I read into it, I read it as a commentary on literature. There is a great reality to the first part, because there is no dialogue and the conversations that happened are summed up in a conclusion by the narrator- who remembers conversations in verbatim?

Faulkner said he wrote a sprawling as he did, because he wanted to get the world in a sentence. I think Beckett achieved that with so much less.

This is getting way off the thread.

Are you a Joyce fan?

[aeroport]

Well, is anyone really a Joyce fan? He's almost impossible to like as an author - one just sort of reads through it, trying to halfway understand, coming away just sort of marveling at the guy's intelligence... We read a few of the Dubliners stories, 'Portrait', several chapters of 'Ulysses', and "Anna Livia" from the Wake. I actually think it's all pretty cool, but Ulysses tires me a little. I was surprised to find that bit of the Wake actually understandable. I certainly couldn't get all of it, but the meaning was more or less..."clear" isn't quite the word...let us say "sorta gettable". Interestingly, in one of the Gardner books, when he's talking about "mannered" writing (i.e., when the author's voice is intruding on the fictional world, or "dream" as he calls it), he mentions Joyce's regret, late in life, that he hadn't stuck with the earlier style from 'Portrait' and 'Dubliners'... Yeah, altogether I think he's alright. You?

[Mark F.]

How is Women by Bukowski? I was reading a little of Pulp in B&B today.



If you like Bukowski you should like it, I pick it up you're a Hemingway fan and their writing style seems very close, at least to me. I'd only read Post Office and Factotum before this, and Women contained more humour than those other two. It's a nice, easy read, with a lot of tenderness for the characters.

My only problem with Bukowski is that he tends to retell a lot of episodes of his life in different novels, short stories and poems, so if you start binge reading his work, it gets slightly repetetive.

[ThousandthIsle]

I definitely like Prisoner of Azkaban best.

Agreed, Tudwell. Harry Potter #3! - although I haven't actually had the chance to sit down to #7 yet.

[carina_gino20]

Over the past year, I've read:

The Prestige - Christopher Priest
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Hard Times - Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
The Tempest - William Shakespeare
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of my Melancholy Whore - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Veronika Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling (also reread GoF, OoTP and HBP)
Once and Always by Judith McNaught
Unchained Melody by Norberto Mercado
Makamisa: the search for Rizal's third novel by Ambeth Ocampo
Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

currently reading - Man of the Century (The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II) by Jonathan Kwitny, and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

[NickAdams]

Well, is anyone really a Joyce fan? He's almost impossible to like as an author - one just sort of reads through it, trying to halfway understand, coming away just sort of marveling at the guy's intelligence... We read a few of the Dubliners stories, 'Portrait', several chapters of 'Ulysses', and "Anna Livia" from the Wake. I actually think it's all pretty cool, but Ulysses tires me a little. I was surprised to find that bit of the Wake actually understandable. I certainly couldn't get all of it, but the meaning was more or less..."clear" isn't quite the word...let us say "sorta gettable". Interestingly, in one of the Gardner books, when he's talking about "mannered" writing (i.e., when the author's voice is intruding on the fictional world, or "dream" as he calls it), he mentions Joyce's regret, late in life, that he hadn't stuck with the earlier style from 'Portrait' and 'Dubliners'... Yeah, altogether I think he's alright. You?

Joyce's regret, as you said or as Gardner said, is interesting. I haven't read any of Joyce, but he regret that he moved away from mannered writing or that he applied it? I want to be familiar with old and middle english, before I read Joyce.


If you like Bukowski you should like it, I pick it up you're a Hemingway fan and their writing style seems very close, at least to me. I'd only read Post Office and Factotum before this, and Women contained more humour than those other two. It's a nice, easy read, with a lot of tenderness for the characters.

Thanks. I'll put Women on my book list.


My only problem with Bukowski is that he tends to retell a lot of episodes of his life in different novels, short stories and poems, so if you start binge reading his work, it gets slightly repetetive.
Like Woody Allen.

[aeroport]

Joyce's regret, as you said or as Gardner said, is interesting. I haven't read any of Joyce, but he regret that he moved away from mannered writing or that he applied it? I want to be familiar with old and middle english, before I read Joyce.


According to Gardner - and I think I sort of agree with him - the "mannered" stuff comes later. Definitely in Finnegans Wake, and in Ulysses as well. You don't really need to know much about Old and Middle English to read Dubliners or Portrait of the Artist. And of course, if you're reading the other works...it won't help you anyway.
No one reads the Wake comfortably without being familiar with English, Russian, French, Swahili, Norwegian, German, probably Icelandic, and about fifty other languages - not an exaggeration.

[bibliophile190]

No one reads the Wake comfortably without being familiar with English, Russian, French, Swahili, Norwegian, German, probably Icelandic, and about fifty other languages - not an exaggeration.



Yet another book I'll have to fight my way through.

[Takeahnase]

Books I've read this year so far, minus the odd few which may have slipped my mind...

Lolita
Crime & Punishment
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Notes From the Underground
The Bell Jar
Steppenwolf
The Red and the Black
Wuthering Heights
A Wild Sheep Chase
Three Men in a Boat
Northanger Abbey
Animal Farm
The Double
A Brief History of Time
Letters to Lily
Perfume
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Lovely Bones
The Selfish Gene
1984
Me Talk Pretty One Day
On the Road
The Hobbit
Fight Club
And I'm reading 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' at the moment, along with Vladimir Nabokov's 'Glory'.

Too many books, so little time!

[Bakiryu]

I've read more but I don't have enough time to type! :blush:

Harry Potter 7
The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The Golden Compass
Dickens: I hate pip!
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell- Susanna Clarke
John Irving: The Cider House
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
Interview With a Vampire - Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
Queen of the Damned - Anne Rice
The Tale of the Body Thief - Anne Rice
The Devil Memnoch - Anne Rice
Angels and Demons - Brown
Twilight - Meyers
New Moon-Meyers
Eclipse - Meyers
Romeo and Juliet
Tithe-Holly Brown
Eldest-Christopher Paolini
Howls Moving castle- Wynne Jones
Sabriel-Garth Nix
Artemis Fowl-
A.F. And the Arctic Incident-
A.F and the Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer
A.F. And the Opal Deception-
A.F. and the lost Colony-

H.P. and the Philosophers stone-
H.P. and the chamber of Secrets-
H.P. and the prisoner of azkaban-
H.P. and the goblet of fire- J.K.Rowling
H.P. and the order of the phoenix-
H.P. and the half Blood Prince-

[aeroport]

Yet another book I'll have to fight my way through.

Don't fight it! You'll hate it if you do. You have to sort of let go while you read it and let the meaning present itself (or sort of roughly sketch itself, anyway). I found it helpful, given a particular stretch of text, simply to go through it once without stopping and see how it works out, then - if you must - go back and look over the passages you're (more than reasonably) uncertain about. It doesn't help that much to review like that, though, from what I can see. It only intensifies that feeling that some critic or writer (maybe Beckett) described of diving into a stream only to find yourself a moment later completely dry back on the ground where you started...

[bibliophile190]

Don't fight it! You'll hate it if you do. You have to sort of let go while you read it and let the meaning present itself (or sort of roughly sketch itself, anyway). I found it helpful, given a particular stretch of text, simply to go through it once without stopping and see how it works out, then - if you must - go back and look over the passages you're (more than reasonably) uncertain about. It doesn't help that much to review like that, though, from what I can see. It only intensifies that feeling that some critic or writer (maybe Beckett) described of diving into a stream only to find yourself a moment later completely dry back on the ground where you started...

Well, I tried this with Faulkner and it didn't work too well, but I'll try it again. If it's worked for others I don't see why I can't make it work for myself. Thanks for the advice.

[captlillyhook]

I've read a whole bunch...I probably average about 5 books a week...So I'll just list give my favorite three at the moment.
~Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Rowling) (Omg...best book EVER)
~Eclipse (Meyer)
~Loving Will Shakespeare ( Carolyn Meyer, a different one)

[Virgil]

According to my reading journals, in the past year (2006) I have read:

Literature
Gogol', N.V. - Dead Souls (which I was reading at the end of 2005, according to the journal, but formally finished in 2006)
Shakespeare, W. - Othello
Shakespeare, W. - Hamlet
Shakespeare, W. - A midsummer night's dream
Brodsky, J. - Less than one
Selimović, M. - The Death and the Dervish (which I, as my favourite work, re-read every year :D)
Yourcenar, M. - Le coup de grace
Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Sand Child
Calderón de la Barca, P. - Life is a dream
Kertész, I. - Fateless
Baudelaire, Ch. - Les Fleurs du Mal (re-read, in original this time :D)
Andrić, I. - The Bridge Over Drina
Krleža, M. - The Return of Filip Latinovicz
Anthology of Serbian poetry
Anthology of Czech poetry
Mácha, K. H. - Poetry (May)
Kertész, I. - Kadish for a child unborn
Correspondances of the famous people (excerpts)
Dickens, Ch. - A Tale of Two Cities
Lucian of Samosata (?, attributed to) - Loukios ê Onos
Anthology of Bulgarian poetry
Hamvas, B. - Hungarian huperion
Canetti, E. - Die gerettete Zunge. Geschichte einer Jugend (translated in Italian as La lingua salvata)
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Brothers Karamazov
Šantić, A. - collected works by
Kostova, E. - Historian
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Notes from the Underground
Crnković, Z. & Kušan, I. - correspondance, collected letters
Nafisi, A. - Lolita in Teheran
Sládkovič, A. - Marina
Gogol', N. V. - The Overcoat
Dostoevsky, F.M. - Podrostok (which I, for reasons which elude me, failed to finish, as the note in the journal says)
Pamuk, O. - The White Castle
Schiller, F. - The Robbers
Gundulić, I. - Suze sina razmetnoga
Selimović, M. - Memoirs
Andrić, I. - Ex ponto
Balzac, H. de - Father Goriot
Bettiza, E. - Exile
Maraini, D. - Bagheria
Pontiggia, G. - Il giocatore invisibile
Baricco, A. - Castelli di rabbia
Тјutchev, F. I. - Lirika
Aeschyles - Prometheus Bound
Njegoš, P.P. - Gorski vijenac
Cesarić, D. - selected poetry
Calvino, I. - Invisible cities
Pushkin, A. S. - Evgeny Onegin (re-read)
Byron, G. G. - Childe Harold (re-read)
Malerba, L. - Le maschere
Mori, A. M. - Nata in Istria
Kranjčević, S. S. - Iza spuštenijeh trepavica - izbor iz djela
Lermontov, M. Ju. - The Hero of Our Time
Slovo o polku Igoreve
Pushkin, A. S. - Selected poems, fairy tales, dramas
Longfellow, H. W. - The Complete Poetical works by
Svevo, I. - Senilita'
D'Alessandro, G. - La puttana del tedesco
Tugovanje za Srbijom - antologija drugih srpskih romantičara
Druzhnikov, J. - Viza v pozavchera
Maupassant, G. de - short stories
Goethe, J. W. - Faust (re-read)
Gaarder, J. - Vita brevis
Ahmatova, A. A. - poetry
Pasternak, B. L. - poetry
Makine, A. - The French testament
Leopardi, G. - poetry
Alighieri, D. - Purgatorio
Sto rokiv junosti - 20th century Ukrainian poetry anthology
Gazdanov, G. - An Evening with Claire
Pamuk, O. - Istanbul
Eco, U. - Il nome della rosa
Zamyatin, E. I. - We (which I did not finish)
Robinson, E. A. - Children of the Night
Ilić, V. - poetry
Dostoevsky, F. M. - Poor Folk (re-read)
de Quincey, Th. - Confessions of an English opium eater
Goldoni, C. - La locandiera
Zola, E. - Therese Raquin
Gogol', N. V. - Revizor

Other
Maalouf, A. - In the name of identity
Zeldin, Th. - Intimate history of humanity
Daun, A. & Janson, S. - Europeans - culture and identity
Weinrich, H. - Linguistics of lies - can language hide thoughts
Haag, E. van de - The Jewish Mystique
Winner, E. - Gifted Children - myths and reality
Bon, G. de - Psyhology of the masses
Chesterton, G. K. - The Everlasting Man
Vrkić, J . - I u Sibiru žive ljudi - putovanje Čehovljevim putopisima
Pavičić, J. - Beneath the language - comments on the language and Croats
Zaid, G. - So many books
le Goff, J. - Medieval Civilisation
Fernández-Armesto, F. - So you think you're human
Mead, G. H. - Mind, person and society
Ware, T. - Orthodox Church
Camus, A. - The Myth of Sisyphus

I do not have all of my reading journals from that period next to me right now so the list is bound to be incomplete, but it should give the basic idea of what a mess my reading repertoire in the last year was. :D
I tend to read a lot and keep reading journals, so it is generally easy to remember what I read when by going through those notes (*hint, hint... do some of you also keep reading journals?) ;)

Wow! You read all that in a year Ana? That is some accomplishment. :thumbs_up

[Pensive]

Wow! You read all that in a year Ana? That is some accomplishment. :thumbs_up

Yes, indeed. And many of these are pretty long too! :)

[papayahed]

oh, I keep a reading journal, a spreadsheet actually. After too many times of buying a book and getting halfway through then realizing I've already read it I decided I needed to keep track. I keep a spreadsheet of title, author, year and month read, my rating, my review, and who recommended it. I also keep track of how many I've read each year and the average rating based on author and year.


ya know it didn't seem overly anal when I started......

[Nightshade]

oh, I keep a reading journal, a spreadsheet actually. After too many times of buying a book and getting halfway through then realizing I've already read it I decided I needed to keep track. I keep a spreadsheet of title, author, year and month read, my rating, my review, and who recommended it. I also keep track of how many I've read each year and the average rating based on author and year.


ya know it didn't seem overly anal when I started......

That does seem like a good idea, Id like to keep track of what Ive read.....:idea: :D

[Virgil]

oh, I keep a reading journal, a spreadsheet actually. After too many times of buying a book and getting halfway through then realizing I've already read it I decided I needed to keep track. I keep a spreadsheet of title, author, year and month read, my rating, my review, and who recommended it. I also keep track of how many I've read each year and the average rating based on author and year.


ya know it didn't seem overly anal when I started......

A spreadsheet? You must be an engineer. :p

[Lote-Tree]

oh, I keep a reading journal, a spreadsheet actually. After too many times of buying a book and getting halfway through then realizing I've already read it I decided I needed to keep track. I keep a spreadsheet of title, author, year and month read, my rating, my review, and who recommended it. I also keep track of how many I've read each year and the average rating based on author and year.


You must be an accountant :D

[Pensive]

oh, I keep a reading journal, a spreadsheet actually. After too many times of buying a book and getting halfway through then realizing I've already read it I decided I needed to keep track. I keep a spreadsheet of title, author, year and month read, my rating, my review, and who recommended it. I also keep track of how many I've read each year and the average rating based on author and year.

I can hardly keep exact count! Too lazy to write down the reviews especially usually whenever I complete any book. Actually I read too many magazines as well and there are quite a number of stories which I like from there and I feel like reviewing but it just takes a lot of time........to review. *lazy*


A spreadsheet? You must be an engineer.

You must be an accountant :D

This made me smile. :D

[Lote-Tree]

This made me smile. :D

So i can make people smile :D

[higley]

This is my list since January, I haven't listed any of the books I'm still reading through (which is like a dozen more. :P) or am reading for class.

Devil in the White City- Erik Larson
Thunderstruck- Larson
Isaac's Storm- Larson
The Good Guy- Dean Koontz
Tick Tock- Koontz
Seize the Night- Koontz
Geronimo! American Paratroopers in World War II- William B Breuer
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell- Susanna Clarke
The Ladies of Grace Adieu- Clarke
The Maltese Falcon- Dashiell Hammett
Red Harvest- Hammett
~The complete Sherlock Holmes series by A.C. Doyle, consisting of four novels and several story collections, numbering fifty short stories):
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Valley of Fear
A Study in Scarlet/The Sign of Four
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
His Last Bow
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

I think I've forgotten a couple but that's the main of it. Not as many as I'd like--why must life interfere!

[Alexei]

There was a similar topic in this forum few months ago and after I've read some of it I decided to start a list with the books I have read this year. I started it in March and since than I have read almost 80 books. For the newfound favorite authors I think I could say: Proust, Camus, Marquez and John Irving (the last one I found through the book club:) ).

[cbostic]

This is my first post. I am not sure why I am doing this except I like to
be challenged mentally. I watched the Jane Eyre story on TV tonight and I saw
a post that I wanted to respond to but I am not sure how to get back to
that web page. Why did Jane leave Mr. Rochester? My diagnosis that that
of a Fugue state or temporary amnesia. She was so emotional overwrought that
she momentarily lost contact with her environment. Does anyone agree or
is this my attempt to relate to those who read fiction.?:

cbostic