What did we read in January?

[Dori]

It's now February, and the big question is: What did you read in January?

[Mag Master 21]

The Fountainhead
Notes From the Underground
Lolita

[Dark Muse]

Pretty much all books for my class

The Wizard of Oz
Peter Pan
The Owl Service

and I am currently 5 chapters from finnishing Light in August

[Dori]

For me, this month has been my most productive month as far as reading goes. I read the following:

For School:
Oedipus Rex; Sophocles
Othello; Shakespeare
Death of a Salesman; Arthur Miller

For Leisure:
Antigone; Sophocles
Phaedra; Jean Racine
Eugene Onegin; Pushkin

Partial Reads:
The Brothers Karamazov; Dostoevsky (approximately half, or ~400 pgs)
Resurrection; Tolstoy (about 450/560 pages)

Odds are I'm probably forgetting something, but as far as I can tell, that's all that I read. Eugene Onegin was my most favorite; Death of a Salesman was my least.

[thelastmelon]

In January I read:

Värmebölja - Viveca Lärn
New Moon - Stephenie Meyer
I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere - Anna Gavalda
Åkes bok 2.0 - Kristina Lundgren
Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn
The Tales of Beedle The Bard - J.K. Rowling
Problembarnets århundrade - Mats Börjesson & Eva Palmblad
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre-Dame de Paris) - Victor Hugo

[andave_ya]

Finished the Iliad, read C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy and Jane Austen's Persuasion, and started Modern British Poetry, edited by Louis Untermeyer.

[TheFifthElement]

The Atom Station, Halldor Laxness
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
The Heart of a Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov
The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
After the Quake, Haruki Murakami
Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata
The Slow Man, J M Coetzee
and two parts of Teach us to outgrow our madness, Kenzaburo Oe

oh, and 1/2 of Finn Family Moomintroll and Comet in Moominland, and Prince Caspian. Those were for the kids though, honest ;)

[Thespian1975]

The new york Trilogy - Auster
Panic in Box C - John Dickson Carr
The Stand - Stephen King

[Jeremiah Jazzz]

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (alright started in late December but finished January first!)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry
The Aeneid by Virgil
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
I'm basically done with Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and a hundred or so pages into The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

I wanted to start the new reading year off right!

[icecreamhead]

I read:

The Favoured Child - Philippa Gregory
Beowulf - Seamus Heaney translation
The End of Harry Potter - David Langford
Catcher In The Rye - J. D. Salinger
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
JPod - Douglas Coupland
The Theban Play - Sophocles
Lolita - Vladmir Nakabov

[Wilde woman]

One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights (reread)

In the middle of Lies My Teacher Told Me by Prof. James Loewen

Wow, y'all read a lot....

[Mark F.]

Magic Lantern - Ingmar Bergman
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
Short Stories - Samuel Beckett
Ourania - J.M.G. Le Clézio
Les Enfants terrible - Jean Cocteau
Who Is Me - Pier Paolo Pasolini

[Hank Stamper]

great expectations (again)
far from the madding crowd
the dubliners
lady chatterly's lover

all for uni as usual, no time for my own reading

[LitNetIsGreat]

Tony Buzan, Use Your Head
Maeve Brennan, The Visitor (Novella)
Balzac, Sarrasine (Short Story)
Dominic O’ Brian, Brilliant Memory
Matthew Lewis, The Monk
Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer
? Essential Art History (got to strengthen my art knowledge, very enjoyable book)
Robert Hellenga, Philosophy Made Simple (novel – utter pap)

Bits of:
Wordsworth, Keats, Milton (Paradise Lost), Dante (Paradise) Shakespeare, Ocean Sea (gave up, papish), re-capping criticism for Uni and other small bits and pieces.

Currently reading “Anatomy of Criticism” Northrop Frye (just come today from the U.S.) and re-reading Milton, Paradise Lost, though got to start reading more stuff almost solely for Uni soon.

[semi-fly]

I had a rather busy month:

Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales by Thomas Hardy
The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Light in August by William Faulkner
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

[Phranchesskah]

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Really a lazy month, considering my new year's resolution is to read at least a hundred books this year, which is only too much if I continue to only read one book per week. That's not taking into consideration that I have some fairly hefty reads on my list coming up, and these were all relatively light.

Never mind. Roll on February I suppose.

[Radar009]

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Making History - Stephen Fry
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

[manolia]

"On the road" - J Kerouac
"The woman in white" - W Collins
"Giovanni's room" - J Baldwin
"The cider house rules" - J Irving

[lupe]

"Insatiability" - Stanislav Ignacy Witkiewicz
“The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time” - Mark Haddon
"Collected Poems" - C. Cavafys
"El libro de los abrazos" - Eduardo Galeano
"The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao" - Junot Diaz

[Silas Thorne]

“The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time” - Mark Haddon


That book is just wow to the Nth magic, eh?

I only read two books:
Simon Armitage 'Kid'
Jack Kerouac 'On the Road'
And I munched lines out of many others and then threw them through closed windows.

[lupe]

That book is just wow to the Nth magic, eh?


I did really enjoyed it...:thumbs_up

[promtbr]

Pere Goriot-- Balzac
The Charterhouse of Parma-- Stendhal
Onitsha-- Le Clezio
Madame Bovary-- Flaubert
Marcel Proust, A Life-- Carter

Stendhal wins by a nose...

Just started In Search of Lost Time which means I won't be posting in a "What Did We Read" thread for 2 months :(

[subterranean]

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman. Interesting 'babblings' with good points accompanied by fact based opinions

[NickAdams]

The New York Trilog- Paul Auster
The Portable Beat Reader
Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
The Manifesto of Surrealism - Andre Breton
If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino



Magic Lantern - Ingmar Bergman
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
Short Stories - Samuel Beckett
Ourania - J.M.G. Le Clézio
Les Enfants terrible - Jean Cocteau
Who Is Me - Pier Paolo Pasolini

Did you enjoy Magic Lantern?

[Hayley Zero]

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote

And a few Dutch books. Yesterday I started reading Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue (in the café of the lost youth/childhood) and was surprised how well the French reading went :)

[Mark F.]

The New York Trilog- Paul Auster
The Portable Beat Reader
Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
The Manifesto of Surrealism - Andre Breton
If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino




Did you enjoy Magic Lantern?

Yes. If you like Bergman's films you should enjoy it. He talks a lot about his work for the theater as well as television and cinema and the way he relates his relationships with his parents, children, wifes and other artists is very interesting (especially if you've seen Fanny & Alexander). It's all also pretty well written.

[Remarkable]

Notre Dame de Paris ~ Victor Hugo
To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee
The Fifth Elephant ~ Terry Pratchett
Eugene Onegin ~ A. S. Pushkin
A Rose for Emily ~ William Faulkner

And I'm still reading "A History of Science" by John Gribbin...

[*Classic*Charm*]

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman. Interesting 'babblings' with good points accompanied by fact based opinions

I studied this for a course I took last year! I don't even think I read the whole thing haha. Did you like it?\\

Most of January has been Philosophy readings for school...

I've read selections from:

Socrates (well, technically it was Plato)- The Euthyphro
Epictetus- The Enchirideon
Williams
Harman
Ayer
Epicurus
Bentham

[Dori]

Notre Dame de Paris ~ Victor Hugo
To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee
The Fifth Elephant ~ Terry Pratchett
Eugene Onegin ~ A. S. Pushkin
A Rose for Emily ~ William Faulkner

And I'm still reading "A History of Science" by John Gribbin...

Wow, you were able to fit a bunch of great reads within the month! What did you think of Eugene Onegin? of The Hunchback of Notre Dame?

Another thing: my best friend's favorite author is Terry Pratchett. Is he any good? My friend even went so far as to do a scratch board of him in art class, which turned out great. I've jokingly dubbed it "Death with a cowboy hat." :lol:

[Janine]

The Princess ~ D.H.Lawrence
The Trespasser ~ D.H.Lawrence

Commentary on each

[manolia]

The Fifth Elephant ~ Terry Pratchett


Hey i love this book..read it many years ago but still remember it :lol::lol:

[dreamscape]

hi, first post here...figured this is a good way to start :)
busy month - I've been on holiday

The Grave Thief by Tom Lloyd
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker
His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1) by Naomi Novik
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer
Cold Copper Tears (Garrett Files) by Glen Cook
Barking by Tom Holt
Sword & Citadel by Gene Wolfe
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds

[lupe]

...The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon...


I just bought this book but haven't read it yet. How did-you like it?

[Mariamosis]

Moll Flander - Defoe
Sweet Thursday - Steinbeck
Winter of Our Discontent - Steinbeck
The Red Pony - Steinbeck
Puddn'head Wilson - Twain
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
The Stranger - Camus

[Joreads]

A Mercy – Toni Morrison
Everything I knew – Peter Goldsworthy
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
We of the Never Never - Mrs Aeneas Gunn
Vampire Academy – Book 1 Richelle Mead

[dreamscape]

I just bought this book but haven't read it yet. How did-you like it?

I quite enjoyed it. It was vastly over-hyped, but I found myself drawn into it by the second half, when its nature starts revealing itself.
It is definitely endearing, but I can't help but think that some things may get lost in the translation, as I have read on other sites.
He has a new one coming soon, which I will definitely pick up.

[Delta40]

Careless by Deborah Robertson. Very Interesting book. this book shows us that an emotional trauma (a father kills six children at an outdoor playgroup and then himself) diminishes. The principal characters - the survivor for example, fazes out, as does her relationship with her mothers as other indirect and unrelated characters enter the story as it progresses until finally one is left without any real resolution and the event is left in the far distance.

[eyemaker]

Awakening- Kate Chopin
Brideshead Revisited- Waugh
Vanity Fair- thackeray
Lolita (reread)- Nabokov
Middlesex- Eugenides
Kim- Kipling
Hamlet (required reading)- Shakepeare

[mono]

Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald: beautiful, beautiful!

The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud: I got a little more attached to Civilization and its Discontents and his essays. To this work and Totem and Taboo, they did not touch me quite as much.

The Complete Plays of T.S. Eliot: not to say I did not enjoy the plays, I love his poetry a lot more.

A whole load of poetry by W.H. Auden, Pablo Neruda, and Allen Ginsberg; reviewed a few additional works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

A novel written by a friend of mine.

[thomas212]

Richard Yates-Revolutionary road
Le cleziot-Desert
Richard stark-The damsel
Honoré de Balzac-Cousine Bette
Marguerite Yourcenar-Alexis
Le coup de grace
Paul Auster-the man in the dark
Brian moore-Dark robe
Guy Gavriel Kay-Tigana
Nancy Mitford-The Sun King
Chester Himes-Real cool killer
Jeanette Winterson - Weight -Myth of Atlas and Heracles
Henry james-the siege of London

[subterranean]

I studied this for a course I took last year! I don't even think I read the whole thing haha. Did you like it?\\

First 20 pages are ok. But as I read through, I become less interested with the topics and arguments/opinions he wrote. Some of them are nothing new (IMHO).

[Allannah]

I read War and Peace, Lady Chatterley's Lover, A House of Gentlefolk, The Interpretation of Murder, and finished Villette.
Amongst others (:

[Allannah]

Oh, and An Inspector Calls for school.

[beth01081]

How did you like Jude he obscure? I kind of want to read it.

[beth01081]

Tess of the Durbervilles-Thomas Hardy
The Importance of Being Earnest- Oscar Wilde
Someone lives someone dies- lurlene mcDaniels
About half of Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
Two Princesses of Bamarre- Gail carson levine

Plus I just bought The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne and
A Passage to India- E. M. Forester

[Dori]

I knew I would forget something. I also read three essays by Umberto Eco:

"On Some Functions of Literature"
"On the Style of The Communist Manifesto"
"Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism"

And speaking of aphorisms, I'm pretty sure I've bits and pieces of Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms. For some reason I always end up reading Schopenhauer on the toilet. :lol:

[Joreads]

I knew I would forget something. I also read three essays by Umberto Eco:

"On Some Functions of Literature"
"On the Style of The Communist Manifesto"
"Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism"

And speaking of aphorisms, I'm pretty sure I've bits and pieces of Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms. For some reason I always end up reading Schopenhauer on the toilet. :lol:

Remind me not to borrow books off you please:lol:

[Jeremiah Jazzz]

I knew I would forget something. I also read three essays by Umberto Eco:

"On Some Functions of Literature"
"On the Style of The Communist Manifesto"
"Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism"

And speaking of aphorisms, I'm pretty sure I've bits and pieces of Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms. For some reason I always end up reading Schopenhauer on the toilet. :lol:

Oh I was wondering how Eco is. So how is he?

Also, I read Essays and Aphorisms last month. Schopenhauer is great anywhere, be it the toilet or sewers!

[Dori]

Oh I was wondering how Eco is. So how is he?

Also, I read Essays and Aphorisms last month. Schopenhauer is great anywhere, be it the toilet or sewers!

I really like Eco. The essays I read were certainly worth reading.

And so were Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms, though I can't boast of reading it in its entirety---yet.

[subterranean]

"On Some Functions of Literature"

I know that Eco's are absolutely worth reading. I have On Literature and I can see that On Some Functions of Literature is included as one of the chapters. I haven't got the chance to read it so perhaps you can share me some of his thoughts on this subject.

[Dori]

I know that Eco's are absolutely worth reading. I have On Literature and I can see that On Some Functions of Literature is included as one of the chapters. I haven't got the chance to read it so perhaps you can share me some of his thoughts on this subject.

Yes, that's the very same book I own: On Literature. "On Some Functions of Literature" is the first "chapter."

I shall enumerate of few of his points by quotation:

"Above all, literature keeps language alive as our collective heritage."

"Reading works of literature forces on us an exercise of fidelity and respect, albeit within a certain freedom of interpretation."

"...[T]he world of literature inspires certainty that there are certain unquestionable assumptions, and that literature therefore offers us a model, however fictitious, of truth."

"We will have to find a space in the universe where these characters live and shape our behavior to such an extent that we choose them as role models for our life, and for the life of others, so that we are clear about what we mean when we say that someone has an Oedipus complex or a Gargantuan appetite, that someone behaves quixotically, is as jealous as Othello, doubts like Hamlet, is an incurable Don Juan, or is a Scrooge."

"I believe that one of the principle functions of literature lies in these lessons about fate and death. Perhaps there are others, but for the moment none spring to mind."

The last quotation was how he ended it. I really liked that ending. :D


On another note, I was almost inspired to read The Communist Manifesto after reading Eco's essay, "On the Style of The Communist Manifesto." I really enjoyed that essay of his.

[crystalmoonshin]

I read the ff. last month:
1. Anne Rice's "The Tale of the Body Thief"
2. San Manuel Bueno y Martir (Miguel de Unamuno)
3. Life is a Dream (Calderon)
4. The Sheep Well (Lope de Vega)
5. Obasan (Joy Kogawa)

[geewiz]

Mister Pip (disappointing)
Oliver Twist (not Dickens' best plot-wise imo)
Merchant of Venice
King Lear (third read, my second favorite Shakespeare after Hamlet)
Tom Sawyer (revisited and still my favorite piece of children lit)
The Secret Agent (Conrad brilliant as usual, this book really needs more appreciation)

This and some poetry from a couple of anthologies I own. Not bad for someone doing a completely unrelated major (economics) in university :lol:

[DeadAsDreams]

Catch-22
Life of Pi
Notes From Underground

[Tallon]

Probably the most productive month of reading i've ever had.

A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemingway
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
The Sirens Of Titan - Lurt Vonnegut

and started Lolita by Nabokov.

[thomas212]

Probably the most productive month of reading i've ever had.

A Farewell To Arms - Ernest Hemingway
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
1984 - George Orwell
The Sirens Of Titan - Lurt Vonnegut

and started Lolita by Nabokov.

A farewell to arm must have felt light against those heavyweight.I must admit i hated it.

[meanmissy]

you may like to read Menaha's Discovery TERRAEM, i came across this novel a few weeks back...it is an interesting novel by Bryan Meadan targeted for kids ages 8-14...you may also like to visit the website: terraem.com

thanks

[bouquin]

LA NUIT SACREE -- Tahar Ben Jelloun
The New York Trilogy -- Paul Auster
Enduring Love -- Ewan McEwan
The Venetian's Wife -- Nick Bantock
Collected Stories -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez