2016 Reading Nominations

[Scheherazade]

Please nominate the two books you would like to read in 2016.

[AuntShecky]

The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies and O Canada by Richard Ford


I'm in a north of the border mood (from this here geographical perspective.)

[Scheherazade]

Lonesome Dove and The Executioner's Song

[prendrelemick]

Some Faulkner, because I haven't read anything of his yet.

The idiot.

[mona amon]

Light in August, then. I love Faulkner, and I'm yet to read this one.

[Scheherazade]

I haven't read that one either and would love to read it... Or "The Fable".
Considering how much I had disliked Faulkner as a freshman, I can hardly believe that I have become such a fan girl :D

[CWolfieVan]

1: I'd like to re-read the Sound and the Fury. That was my favorite novel for a few years in high school. I finally finished As I Lay Dying, really liked it. I'm not as crazy about Light in August, though it's Harold Bloom's favorite. Absalom Absalom! I found fascinating but hard as hell; I'll have to re-read.
2: I need to finish the Divine Comedy. I want a great illustrated version but I can't find one in any bookstores.
I've read the first two parts, but I've never finished the Paradiso.

I liked the Executioner's Song a lot. The Mailer that fascinated me most was the first half of American Dream, based partly on the real-life episode where he nearly killed his second wife with a knife after a political setback. The second half of that book...urg. Several of Mailer's short stories really impress me, like the Time of her Time, and The Man Who Studied Yoga.

[Funes]

How about The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe?

[Scheherazade]

Nominations so far:

1. The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies

2. O Canada by Richard Ford

3. Lonesome Dove

4. The Executioner's Song

5. The idiot

6. Light in August

7. The Sound and the Fury

8. the Divine Comedy

9. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

10. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe


I quite enjoyed Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. Would like to read something more by her.

[Scheherazade]

Wow. For a literary forum, we sure are a bunch unwilling to make any commitment to reading!

Does anyone would like to nominate a 3rd or 4th book so that we can move this thing forward? If not, I will have to pick more books myself on October 5th.

[Kemijost]

Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life: short story collection by Sherwood Anderson

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku

and 3... TWO YEARS EIGHT MONTHS AND TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS, by Salman Rushdie

I am currently listening to "Game of Thrones" audio books as I clean out a house, Tech manuals for work at night.

I had just listened to Delores Cannon "Keepers of the Garden." I do like that far out stuff. I still haven't decided if it's entertainment or information; walking that mental line of not being sure is my role in life I guess.

[Scheherazade]

Only works of fiction, please.

[papayahed]

ok, ok. Let me think...

John Dies at the End and The Heart of Redness

[bounty]

I tried reading "as I lay dying" a couple of years ago, and just could not get through it. id be willing to try another Faulkner buy boy itd have to be with someone who loved him.

I like westerns and I have lonesome dove, but just so you all know, its about 5000 pages long!

ive been recommended "the remains of the day" by ishiguri, so I can put that forward.

[papayahed]

I tried reading "as I lay dying" a couple of years ago, and just could not get through it. id be willing to try another Faulkner buy boy itd have to be with someone who loved him.


I really like "as I lay dying", but I do like me some Faulkner.

[bounty]

I think there are some things papayhed that one just takes to naturally, and others that are learned appreciations. i think here's a good possibility if I were to read Faulkner with someone else who saw things/was effected by things in his writing that im missing, id do better with him...

[chrisvia]

Of the current nominations, I'd like to do Lonesome Dove. It has been glaring at me from its shelf for years!

[Dark Muse]

If it is not too late to contribute I will throw my hand in.

1. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
2. The Comedians by Graham Greene

[thekingrat]

I finished it over the weekend, now I am on The Sound and the Fury

[Danik 2016]

I think there are some things papayhed that one just takes to naturally, and others that are learned appreciations. i think here's a good possibility if I were to read with someone else who saw things/was effected by things in his writing that im missing, id do better with him...
Bounty, the first text of Faulkner I read, was a short story called "A rose for Emily". It read like a nightmare. I never forgot the story and only much later I discovered that creating unforgetable nightmares was his speciality. I think he is one of the greatest North American writers, but there is no positivety or hope in his writings, only violence, decadence and destruction. He shows the south of the USA in its darkest colours.
The opening chapter from "The Sound of the Fury" is peculiar. I`m not going to tell why, not to spoil the novel for those that haven´t read it yet.

[Dreamwoven]

I would like to read Mythago Wood. I missed it when it came out but will catch up on Robert Holdstock's work as soon as I can.

[heartwing]

I'm starting The Idiot and would love reading that with a group.

I love Faulkner. He is to be experienced multiple times.

I enjoy reading short stories and have likely encountered Sherwood Anderson before and would be open to that.

As for female authors, I haven't read Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House), Iris Murdoch (A Severed Head - or other), and Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea) and would like to at some point.

Oh, and I love Robertson Davies and could read some more of him for sure.

[Pompey Bum]

I'm starting The Idiot and would love reading that with a group.

If you go to the Authors' List section, click on Dostoevsky, then click on The Idiot, you will find a number of existing threads (or you could always start one or more of your own). I know that's not the same as a reading group, but it might be helpful just the same. I hope you enjoy The Idiot, which is certainly worth your time.

[heartwing]

If you go to the Authors' List section, click on Dostoevsky, then click on The Idiot, you will find a number of existing threads (or you could always start one or more of your own). I know that's not the same as a reading group, but it might be helpful just the same. I hope you enjoy The Idiot, which is certainly worth your time.

Thank you, Pompey Bum!

Oh yeah, and I forgot to add that I like Graham Greene, have read a few of his short stories, but have not read The Comedians.

[Pompey Bum]

Thank you, Pompey Bum!

Oh yeah, and I forgot to add that I like Graham Greene, have read a few of his short stories, but have not read The Comedians.

You're welcome. Try Our Man in Havanna by Greene (if you haven't read it already); also The Third Man, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and many more. I'm usually not mad about his short stories, but there was one called Under the Garden that I like more than any of his other works. Let me know what you're reading and we can exchange ideas! :)

[Dreamwoven]

Graham Greene's The Third Man, has to be my favourite. Though the film is even better, especially the Zither piece in the introduction.

[heartwing]

Try Our Man in Havanna by Greene (if you haven't read it already); also The Third Man, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and many more. I'm usually not mad about his short stories, but there was one called Under the Garden that I like more than any of his other works. Let me know what you're reading and we can exchange ideas! :)


Graham Greene's The Third Man, has to be my favourite. Though the film is even better, especially the Zither piece in the introduction.

I'm remembering now I read Brighton Rock. I thought it was pretty good. I saw just the beginning of the movie and wasn't into it at all and so didn't finish. I should check out this other movie and other books. My father always objected to Whiskey Priest because he is a pastor and doesn't like the portrayal of the protagonist. I want to read it myself, however, and hope to get to it.

Under the Garden was wonderfully bizarre and I remember it like ten years after reading it. I read a lot of short stories and he has some good ones.

[Pompey Bum]

I'm remembering now I read Brighton Rock. I thought it was pretty good. I saw just the beginning of the movie and wasn't into it at all and so didn't finish. I should check out this other movie and other books.

The film version of Our Man in Havana is still very funny after all these years. Alec Guiness plays the vacuum cleaner salesman; he is recruited as a British spy by Noel Coward, and the (far too brief) moments they share are just wonderful. The Third Man, of course, is a classic.


My father always objected to Whiskey Priest because he is a pastor and doesn't like the portrayal of the protagonist. I want to read it myself, however, and hope to get to it.

That was one we read together on the site. After you read it, you may want to see our comments (which I imagine you could find with the search function. I found it a powerful novel, but I prefer Greene when he takes a lighter approach and ends seriously through implication (as in The Third Man or Our Man in Havana). I also had some religious differences with Greene's ultimate vision, but they did not detract from the parts I found personally meaningful. (My father was a clergyman, too, by the way--PKs stick together! :) )



Under the Garden was wonderfully bizarre and I remember it like ten years after reading it. I read a lot of short stories and he has some good ones.

I liked the contrast between the mythic landscape of childhood remembered and the small and mundane version the protagonist finds when he returns home. I am trying to write about something similar these days, so perhaps I should reread that one.

[tir_na_nog]

.....

[hazelk]

Thanks for the contact, It's a long time since I posted, I shall just trawl around at the moment...Thanks again, Hazelk

[svejorange]

Light in August