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:eek: I was in a hurry. Must have overlooked that fact. Thanks for correcting me Scher. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I've no plans to read any new author in the next few weeks. :frown5: So will have to wait.
And I've finished Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. Would rate it as 10/10.
1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
3) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5
3 down 8 to go
I just finished "The Virgin Suicides," by Jeffrey Eugenides. It is on a list of books that I have started but failed to finish. There are at least eleven books on this list, and I hope to make my way through most of them this year.
Excellent book, by the way. I was surprised. I mean, I knew it was good, but I didn't expect to like it, but I did.
Alright here's my list in no particular order
1. The Terror by Dan Simmons
2. Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn
3. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
4. Candide by Voltaire
5. Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
6. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
7. The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
8. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
9. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
10. The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer
11. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandere Dumas
^that's alot of pages.
Now that's a pretty impressive list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Residentvampire
My list so far is
1. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
2. The Catcher In The Rye - J.D Salinger
The next one will probably be Les Miserables but I've got a few other things from authors I have already read to get through first.
Decided to switch The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer with Lilith by George McDonald, so when i finish a book I'll change the list.
My list in no particular order
1.War & Peace by Tolstoy...made a vow to read it last year and didn't
2.Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
4. Anything by Saul Bellow...recommendations welcome
5. Madame Bovary by Flaubert
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte ( I am ashamed not to have read this)
7. Anything by Edna O' Brien...recommendations welcome
8. Anything by Jeffrey Archer ditto ditto
9. Anything by Martin Amis ditto ditto
10. Anything by Edith Wharton ditto ditto
Augie March is one of the books in February books. You are welcome to vote for it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Seasider
http://www.online-literature.com/for...97#post1000797
If you start a group readings for White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Edna O'brien, I will be happy to join you.
Hmmm...That's an interesting idea. I'd like to participate, but I'm not sure if I'll have time. My big reading goals for the year are War and Peace and Ulysses, neither of which qualify for the challenge because I read Anna Karenina and Portrait last year.
I know for sure that in between those two mountains, I would like to read the following authors this year, none of whom I have read before:
- Andre Breton (Nadja)
- Italo Svevo (Zeno's Conscience)
- Jorge Luis Borges (Labyrinths)
- Thomas Pynchon (V.)
- Kenneth Patchen (Journal of Albion Moonlight)
- Lautremont (Maldoror)
- Mikhail Bulgakov (Master and the Margarita)
- Sigmund Freud (The Psychopathology of Everyday Life)
- Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers)
- Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls)
- JD Salinger (Franny and Zooey)
Hey, that perfectly worked out to 11...imagine that. I read so slowly these days that I lack confidence in my ability to read all of them along with War and Peace and Ulysses, though.
"Age of innocence" and "Ethan Frome" are both great books. Especially the first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seasider
Bellow - HerzogQuote:
Originally Posted by Seasider
Amis - The Information
Elinor Glyn? :eek6: Oh, my goodness - how did I miss this one? Do, please, let us know what you make of it. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Residentvampire
4) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5Quote:
Originally Posted by Rores28
5) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5
I think I will try to read 11 fiction and 11 non-fiction by new authors
I'm clearing my plate for the challenge by finishing a couple of reads from last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilliatt Gurgle
For the challenge I am starting off with the following three new authors:
1. Dante Alighieri - "The Inferno" (I'll at least give it the first run through, I'm sure it will require a few more passes in time)
2. Ian Fleming - "Goldfinger" (a 1964 Signet paperback from parents library)
3. Anton Chekov - "Ward No. 6" and perhaps one or two other of his short stories.
Gilliatt
I will give you candy and cookies if you can make it through "Mason & Dixon" (Thomas Pynchon). Every time I see that book at a bookstore or a library... I cringe with fear... which results to the nightmares I have of seeing that work. The moment the world ends is the moment when teachers assign "Mason & Dixon" as part of a required reading seminar in a Literature class. -_-Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
(All because you mentioned "V".)
Great idea, Scher! 11 new authors seems comfortably acheivable. :D
I've already read my first one -
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh - 10/10 . It took me only a few pages to get the dialect, and I really loved it! Saw the movie after I'd finished and feel it (the movie) was rather overated. It lacks the sincerity of the book.
Have just finished The Snowman by Jo Nesbo - I like the Crime/Detective genre and have been looking for a Nesbo book as he is highly rated as one of the top Scandinavian writers in the genre. I quite enjoyed it but don't think I will be hurrying out to look for more - not as good as Mankell, imo.
Count me in!
I have read my first Proust book, "Swann's way" which gets a 10/10
and i am currently reading "The red and the black" by Stendhal. I'll update as soon as i finish it.
1.) The City and The City - China Miéville
2.) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
Update:
1. Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger) - 9/10 KitKats! Would have been 10 but I really wished the book was a little longer. Loved every single page of it.
2. Barbara Vine (A Dark Adapted Eye) - 8/10 A murder/mystery written superbly. What made the story even more interesting to me is the fact that the main characters involved are female and story's told by a female narrator too. Hard to put it down.
My update:
Finished my first of the eleven: D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover. I liked it very much, a flaw would be its repetitiveness, however it's a flaw that doesn't affect my appreciation of the book and the ideas that are narrated.
My next author will probably be Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca).
I like this thread and reading others' posts.
I just finished my first book for the challenge.
China Miéville: The City & The City - 9/10
At first I was a bit reluctant to read this book because the main focus of the plot revolved around a detective solving a murder, and in general I do not read crime fiction and detective novels, but I love surrealism and alternative realities so I was really intrigued by the concept of these two different cities coexisisting within the same location.
Over all I really enjoyed this book, though I do have some mixed feelings about certain aspects of it. On the one hand I found the realistic approach the author took to the concept was an interesting one, and the way in which it was an examination of urban life, society, politics, and so forth. On the other hand I have to admit a part of me was hoping for a bit more "fantastic" moments and perhaps hoping that it would bend the bonds of reality even further than it did.
I just finished Wiedland, by the early American author Charles Brown. It was a good novel, told from the female perspective as an epistle to a generic reader about the build-up and conclusion to a religious dementia. A story that would greatly appeal to a modern audience -- religious delusions, slaughter, isolation. The language was strong. The plot development was tedious at times, but not poor overall. I'm glad that I read it.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
3) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5
4) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5
5) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5
6) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
7) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5
8) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5
Just finished my 3rd.
It was The Invisible Man by H.G Wells.
Next is The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Update:
1. Homer - The Odyssey
2. Gabriel Josipovici - Heart's Wings and other stories
3. Linda Grant - We Had It So Good
Still not sure about the Grant novel. I need to make my mind up. It was interesting, but in the end I didn't really care and technically the book was odd: shifting tenses and perspectives gave it a transient and bewildering and strangely distant feeling. Hmm.
Oh, I also read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight but as I don't know who wrote it I guess I can't class that one as a new author. It was very enjoyable in any event. I read the Simon Armitage version. I've definitely read him before :D
I love love love that book Qimi! I just found the language and mood of the book sadly beautiful. I haven't read it for years and am too scared to read it again in case I've outgrown it.Quote:
Originally Posted by qimissung
I really want to join this one! 11 is do-able with uni I think..
1. The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy
I'll examine my to-read pile soon for my next author.
Update:
1. Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco - 10/10
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - 6/10
3. The Monk by Matthew Lewis - 8/10. It was a real Gothic treat, full of mystery, horror, and sprinkled with a good sense of humour. I think it is highly underrated.
Next is 'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean Rhys. I've already finished the first half.
I had to change a couple of mine because of what's available to me. Damn living in a secluded area, my local library doesn't even have any Poe. Anyway, I'm about half way through the Divine Comedy and Moby Dick and I just started Joyce.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Four down now, just finished The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Number five shall be Slaughterhouse 5 which I am now halfway through.
My goodness you're reading all of those at the same time? Yikes. How do you keep it all in your head?Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Why the 'ugh' over Kerouac? I enjoyed On the Road and will pass on some advice I received from a Kerouac afficionado: read The Original Scroll it's much better than the edited version.
Anyways, if you PM me your address I've got a copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe which you'd be welcome to. Nowt special, but in need of a good home :)
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine - 9/10Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
Generally I am not really into sci-fi but I figured Wells is a classic, so I should give him a try and all in all I ended up quite enjoying this book. I did find that it was a bit slow at the start, but once he actually began to travel back into time and was telling of his adventures it really picked up. I have always liked those kind of adventure stories which involve traveling to strange new places and encounters with strange and new creatures/people.
I'm in. My first is going to be City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende, I think. Or maybe The House of the Spirits. I dunno yet.
1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
3) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5
4) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5
5) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5
6) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
7) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5
8) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5
9) Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel - 3/5
Not sure how I felt about that one, I'm not used to ideas like that. I need to let it bounce around it for a little while.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
I'm not quite sure actually, when I get tired of one style of prose I pick up something else that looks different otherwise I can't absorb any more reading at all that day. I've always read like that, a lot of people think it's a bit weird, haha.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Well, I have a friend who always rants about how much he hates him.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
*My friend in a sarcastic tone:* "Kerouac is soooo cool, man. He knows what's going on, he's just sooooo with it. You're gonna hate it Robin, the guys a total douche."
He's usually right about what I wouldn't like, so I'm kind of not looking forward to reading On The Road.
Oooh, will do. Never one to pass up a chance at a free book.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
So far this year, I've read something by Michael Chabon, Miguel de Cervantes (though, not finished yet), Jeff VandeMeer, and Pat Frank, all of which I had never read before.
Authors I haven't read before on my current to-read pile: Tad Williams, Connie Willis, Pearl S. Buck, R. Scott Bakker, Dante, John Gardner, Guy Gavriel Kay, Jorge Luis Borges, Mark J. Ferrari, Joe Abercrombie, Henry James, China Mieville, Toni Morrison, George Elliot, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Margaret Atwood, and Virginia Woolf.
So, that's 23, all of which I plan to have read by year's end.
As to what I think of what I've read so far:
Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union: 4/5. I liked it a lot, enough that I'm going to read more by Cabon, but I think my unfamiliarity with Jewish religion and culture left me not getting a lot of the humor.
Cervantes' Don Quixote: 4/5, for what I've read so far of what I've read so far.
Jeff VanderMeer's Cities of Saints and Madmen: 4.5/5. Excellent world building and wonderfully strange and dark stories, though some of the latter material in this short story collection grew tiresome.
Frank's Alas, Babylon: 4.5/5. A few minor gripes kept this from getting a perfect rating.
Looking forward to your thoughts on this, Comedian. I haven't read it, but I loves me some superheroes.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
I'm changing my list a bit, as might be expected of an 11 book reading list spanning a whole year.
1. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
2. The Beast Within by Emile Zola
3. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (if anyone would be so gracious, I would most certainly appreciate a recommendation on whether it would be better to start reading Flaubert through this or Madame Bovary)
4. Labyrinths by Borges
5. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
6. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
7. Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
8. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
9. Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen
10. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
11. V. by Thomas Pynchon
Of course, my ability to read all of these books along with War and Peace remains doubtful. I'm such a damn slow reader these days. I should be eating books with all this free time I have, being out of work and momentarily out of school.
Just noting an edit to my list.
The list:
1. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Paul Verlaine. -- Check (4/5)
I bought this book a while ago to participate in the poetry reading group on Litnet. But work and responsibilities took me away from the thread, so I never read a word of it.
2. Fiction -- [U]Wieland[/U] by Charles Brockden Brown. --Check! (3.8/5)
I'm planning to renew/refresh my interest in early American literature
EDIT: 3. Beowulf (Heaney translation) -- Anonymous . I've never read this epic before, nor have I read anything by the Beowulf poet, I'm fairly certain.
4. Fiction -- The Third Man by Graham Greene. I've never read much detective fiction. It's time.
5. Non-fiction -- Beyond the Aspen Grove by Ann Zwinger. I love nature/environmental non-fiction. And Zwinger has been inexcusably absent from my reading habits. Time to amend that mistake.
6. Drama -- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Never read it or anything else by Stoppard. And this book was given to me by a friend in grad school. Eleven years ago I told him I'd read it. Better late than never.
7. Poetry -- Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. He's a great contemporary American poet. And I've never read a thing he's written.
8. Non-fiction -- Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Bought it in a used book store for $.75. It looked interesting and the Collins book (above) borrows its title.
9. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Giacomo Leopardi. See the reason posted for the Verlaine selection.
10. Fiction -- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. A friend told me I should read it. I said "sure". That was four years ago. Another one of those "it's about time" books.
11. Comics -- Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski. Sounds interesting.
I'm reading that at the moment (along with a couple of other things. It's all getting very messy). It's really good. I got pretty absorbed by the introduction by Heaney, which is poetry in itself. He's a great man.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Comedian
Of course as soon as I've read Beowulf I know I'm going to have to read Grendel. Poor me. My literature cup doth runneth over :D