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. :bawling:

[grace86]

Look at everyone else's enviable lists. :bawling:

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

[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.

[*Classic*Charm*]

The Other Boleyn Girl (Trash, horrible, TRASH)

Agreed!

And yet...

I reread the first three Twilight books...again...

plus:

Cosmicomics- Calvino
The Price- Arthur Miller

I failed this month. Damn job training.

[My name is red]

Oscar Wilde-The Portrait of Dorian Gray
Samuel Beckett-Murpy
Stevenson-Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
François Sagan-Hello Sadness
Marcel Aymé-The Beautiful Image
Pascal Bruckner-The Beauty Stealers
Garcia Marquez-Leaf Storm

[My name is red]

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.
Wow!:)

[lupe]

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.

You are right concerning the ambiguity of Grace's role in the murders. However, to be honest with you, I was not very interested on the substance of the story itself, but rather on the way it's written by Atwood: I found the book brilliant, the language used is beautiful - I had to read it aloud - and fits really the time and place. The humour is omnipresent and of good taste, something not so easy in a crime story... I strongly recommend the book to all who have not read it yet. :)

[promtbr]

Jakob Von Gunten-- Robert Walser
Doctor Glas-- Halmar Soderburg
The Marquis of O and other Stories-- Heinrich Von Kleist
Tales-- E.T.A. Hoffmann
Closely Watched Trains-- Bohumil Hrabal
To Know A Woman-- Amos Oz
Miss Lonelyhearts/ The Day of the Locust-- Nathanael West
The Guide-- R.K. Narayan
Too Loud a Solitude-- Bohumil Hrabal
Vipers Tangle-- Francois Mauriac
Piano-- Jean Echenoz
Embers-- Sandor Marai
The Blue Flowers-- Raymond Queneau

some amazing novels in june,
The Hrabal, Soderburg and Marai novels were as good as any I have read. Ever. Mauriac, West and Kleist not far behind.


----

[grotto]

The Sorrows of young Werther, Goethe
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
The Educated Imagination, Northrop Frye
Niels Lyhne, Jens Peter Jacobsen
Mans Search for Himself, Rollo May
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Jose Saramago
To a God Unknown, John Steinbeck

[Dr. Hill]

Madame Bovary and The Turn of the Screw

[JBI]

You are right concerning the ambiguity of Grace's role in the murders. However, to be honest with you, I was not very interested on the substance of the story itself, but rather on the way it's written by Atwood: I found the book brilliant, the language used is beautiful - I had to read it aloud - and fits really the time and place. The humour is omnipresent and of good taste, something not so easy in a crime story... I strongly recommend the book to all who have not read it yet. :)

Heh, I had to study it for my class in Can-Lit, and while agree that Atwood knows how to right, the book is ultimately, driven by politics, as proven by her lengthy afterward where she goes about trying to debunk Susana Moody and Official history, in the vein of Linda Hutcheon's Canadian Post-Modern model of Historiographic Metafiction lade out in The Canadian Postmodern, which I am certain Atwood has read. In that sense, the metafiction is serving a purpose of critiquing the moral standards and societal functions of Victorian Upper Canada, yet at the same time, she also is seeking to debunk Freud, with constant references to his relationship with his patient Dora.

As a political force, I think it a little cheap of her to, instead of giving Grace Marks the credit of the murders, or a part, shifting the blame onto Patriarchy, and societal conceptions of gender and class, to thereby render the history useless, and ultimately blame Male Reporters, and Upper Class Female Gents, such as Susana Moody, who I would argue has been the most lasting influence on Atwood's Work, for the murders.

[Desolation]

The Basic Writings of Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols & The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann
The Wall & Other Stories by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
The Holy Terrors by Jean Cocteau
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
Guignol's Band by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

[miyagisan]

* Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
* David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
* Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
* Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
* Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe
* Arms and the Man – Bernard Shaw
* Lysistrata – Aristophanes
* A Doll’s House – Henrik Ibsen
* Major Barbara – Bernard Shaw
* Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams
* The Piano Lesson – August Wilson
* Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett
* Angels in America – Tony Kushner
* Wit – Margaret Edson

[TurquoiseSunset]

The Shack - William P. Young
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby(again) - F. Scott Fitzgerald
And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie (I just love her!)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
- I saw the movie too, very sweet, very sad...
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Unexpected Guest - Agatha Christie Play adapted by Charles Osborne
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

[mortalterror]

And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie (I just love her!)

You do know what the original title of And Then There Were None was don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None I'm not saying anything about the quality of her work. I'm just saying she was a racist.

[TurquoiseSunset]

You do know what the original title of And Then There Were None was don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None I'm not saying anything about the quality of her work. I'm just saying she was a racist.

Yes, thank you, I'm aware...and that's why I bought the "10 little soldiers" version of the book, although I can't think who will still be selling the other one. I do not condone racism in any form. The murders in the book are based on a nursery rhyme, albeit a VERY unfortunate one. I can't help they grew up with nursery rhymes like that and that their culture encouraged monstrous behaviour. I think I'm particularly sensitive to it because I grew up in South Africa.

Let's not forget that if we completely (and closed mindedly) cut out all books with offensive issues, there will be very little classic literature left.

[Thespian1975]

You do know what the original title of And Then There Were None was don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None I'm not saying anything about the quality of her work. I'm just saying she was a racist.

This was written in the 1939 when "nigger" was not as offensive as it is now or used more innocently perhaps. Agatha Christie was not racist, she was a typical middle class woman in the 1930's.
The whole idea of the book came from the Rhyme of the same name written in 1860's

We cannot judge something in the 1930's by todays standards.

[Thespian1975]

Bad Blood - Linda Fairstein
A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie
Two Gentlemen of Verona - Shakespeare

[crystalmoonshin]

The Bellmaker (Brian Jacques)
The Outcast of Redwall (Brian Jacques)
The Long Patrol (Brian Jacques)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)
Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro)
An Artist of the Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro)

[March Hare]

Savage Detectives by Bolano
Altazor by Huidobro
Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Poetry
Some Eliot
Some Neruda

[thelastmelon]

Watermelon - Marian Keyes
Chick lit: Från glamour till vardagsrealism - Maria Nilson
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Bergdorf Blondes - Plum Sykes
Grevgatan 22 - Jenny Leeb
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Confessions of a Shopaholic – Sophie Kinsella
Piece of Cake – Swati Kaushal
Queen of Babble – Meg Cabot

[andave_ya]

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun - Tolkien

[Mariamosis]

Nana - Emile Zola
Down River - John Hart
The Illuminator - Brenda Vantrease
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway

[amarna]

O Brien: At Swim-two-Birds
Van Gogh: Letters
Davis: C# for Dummies

[Lynne50]

Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud- Jonathan Foer
Collection of short stories by Willa Cather
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri by David Bajo

[Mark F.]

Sealed Time - Andrei Tarkovsky
Interviews with Werner Herzog
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
A Stranger Came to the Farm - Mika Waltari
95 Poems - e. e. cummings
Collected Poems in English and French - Samuel Beckett
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills - Charles Bukowski

[Dark Lady]

Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud- Jonathan Foer

What did you think of it? I read this for uni and absolutely loved it.

[Lynne50]

Hi DarkLady
I absolutely loved it, too. One of my all time favorites. There were times I cried and then the next page I was laughing. Have you read Everythings Illuminated by Foer? That one is a little longer, but I hope to get to it one of these days. Let me know what you liked best about ELIC. Lynne

[thomas212]

A Stranger Came to the Farm - Mika Waltari


This is a incredible novel.A little pearl,very different from others from Waltari.



Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-One day in the life of Ivan..***
Andrei Makine-The life of an Unknown man ***
Boualem Sansal-Le village de l'Allemand ****
Conn Iggulden-Genghis ***
Frank cullotta ***
Thomas Bernhard -The Looser ****
Barjavel-le voyageur imprudent-at rest
Dan Simmons-Children of the night-**
Amin Maalouf-Samarkanf ****
Manil Suri-The death of Vishnu **
Thomas Pynchon-Cry of the lot 49 ***
Malika Oufkir-Stolen Lives ***
Donald Westlake-Somebody owes me money ***
Miklos Banffy-They were found wanting *****
Yasmina Khadra-the sirens of Baghdad ****
Patricia Highsmith-The blunderer ****
Per Petterson-Out stealing Horses ****+

[Mark F.]

I enjoyed reading it, I haven't read any of his other novels though. Any recommendations?

[Joreads]

[QUOTE=*Classic*Charm*;744950]Agreed!

And yet...

I reread the first three Twilight books...again...



QUOTE]

Good Lord Charm:lol:

I read all vampire novels Dead Until Dark(My new favorite vampire novel), Living Dead In Dallas(my second favorite), Marked and Bloodlust.

[Drkshadow03]

It was a heavy young adult month for me.


James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (blog entry (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/booklist-2009-21-james-and-the-giant-peach-by-roald-dahl/))

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (blog entry (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/booklist-2009-22-the-chocolate-war-by-robert-cormier/))

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (blog entry (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/booklist-2009-23-the-city-of-ember-by-jeanne-duprau/))

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (blog entry: warning major spoiler included that has already annoyed one reader who I failed to give proper warning (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/booklist-2009-24-bridge-to-terabithia-by-katherine-paterson/))

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin (blog entry (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/booklist-2009-25-a-wizard-of-earthsea-by-ursula-leguin/))

The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (blog entry (http://beyondassumptions.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/booklist-2009-26-island-of-the-blue-dolphins/))

[thomas212]

I enjoyed reading it, I haven't read any of his other novels though. Any recommendations?

The Egyptian is excellent.Not as dark as A stranger,with different style and sometime very funny(the servant charactere is very like Sancho Pansa)
I read this twice,and love it twice.
Les Etruscans and the secret of the kingdom are also good but to be honest my memorie is not so fresh about them.
Jean le perigrin(in french)but i don't think a translation is available.Very interesting,on the same level as the best of Umberto Eco.Not a light read but one you won't regret.

Waltari is one author i shall,in time ,try to read all the book.Very curious about one called the wanderer(but maybe it is the translation of Jean the perigrin,the last word could be wanderer or pilgrim)

[Mark F.]

Thanks. I'll try reading more of his stuff when I evtually get through that huge pile of books waitin to be read...

[TEND]

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
King Lear - Shakespeare

[islandclimber]

The Saroyan Special from 1949.

I can't say I like all of Saroyan, but some of his short stories are just fascinating... Such as:

One of the Least Famous of the Great Love Affairs of History
Quarter,Half, Three-Quarter and Whole Notes
Memories of Paris
My Witness Witnesseth

and of course

The Daring Young Man On the Flying Trapeze

[andave_ya]

never mind, sorry.

[aeroport]

Madness and Civilization - Michel Foucault
Orientalism - Edward Said
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

I also got derailed about halfway through Emma; gotta get back to that one.

[brucevayne]

Let The Right One In - John Alvide Lindqvist
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - R.L. Stevenson
A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of The Baskervilles -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle