Rate and discuss all the books I've read this year 2003.

Isagel, are you swedish? If so, how is it, living there?

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Originally Posted by AbdoRinbo

It makes perfect sense. Karl Marx did a good job of referring back to points he made earlier in the text and tying the whole thing together. Because it could have been half as long and not made any sense at all, but he took the time to logically piece his arguments together (even if it meant reiterating points he made 600 pages earlier, for example).

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Are you planning on reading the other volumes then?

Planning? Yes. Procrastinating? Fo sho.

Crisaor, what did you think of Don Quixote? I loved it - laugh out loud stuff while huddled in the tearoom at work trying to escape reality. I was very cross if someone spoke to me while I read. Is Sancho the forerunner of Pickwick's Sam and Samwise Gamgee, do you think?

[quote="crisaor"]Isagel, are you swedish? If so, how is it, living there?
Yes, I´m swedish.
I like living here- but you know what they say "No place like home".
Right now when the winter comes I would like to be somewhere else for awhile. It´s so dark, and it will stay that way for awhile. Well, even if I´m complaining I like the changes in the different seasons here. If you have any questions about living in Sweden you are most welcome to send me a pm. I´ll try to answer :)

Lee's Brother: I have The Sun Also Rises sitting a few feet away from my computer... I couldn't get into it....

All the Kings Men is great though.

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Originally Posted by Eowyn

Crisaor, what did you think of Don Quixote? I loved it - laugh out loud stuff while huddled in the tearoom at work trying to escape reality. I was very cross if someone spoke to me while I read. Is Sancho the forerunner of Pickwick's Sam and Samwise Gamgee, do you think?

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I liked it, but after a while, it became sort of annoying. I had to struggle to reach the end of it, but it was worth it. Fun and entertaining. It's a great read.
About Sancho, well, I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe in terms of balancing the protagonist, in the role they perform, I would say yes. But they're not similar characters in their behaviour. Samwise Gamgee is more or less Frodo's equal (ignoring the fact that he's his gardener), while Sancho is Quixote's perfect opposite: he's not concerned with honor, duty, or even morals, he's dumb (and proud of it), and he'd rather eat than save a damsel in distress. Furthermore, his funny responses are the counterpart of Quixote's serious remarks about life. Personally, I liked Sancho better :)

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Originally Posted by crisaor

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Originally Posted by Munro

Brave New World; Aldous Huxley
Metamorphosis and other stories; Franz Kafka

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What did you think of these?

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Brave New World was very clever, and the world that Huxley thought up was brilliant as well as scarily realistic when you think about the potential science has to regulate our society, except I hated all of the main characters except for John Savage. Bernard Marx was just a whingeing weasel, not a hero, and not even an anti-hero. But, eheh, I still like Ninteen Eighty-Four better, as far as dystopian novels go.

Now, Metamorphosis was amazing. I thought it was an exremely imaginative and poignant tale of the human condition, a world that lacks family values, and the life of a man who feels like an insect...before he wakes up, even. While Metamorphosis is the classic short story (and duly so), the 'others' were brilliant as well, and I felt immensely satisfied after reading each of them. I think you would enjoy Investigations of a Dog, In the Penal Settlement and The Burrow, the latter two were extremely vivid in their surroundings, both stories reflecting the cruelty of humanity, and the paranoia of a homemaker respectively. I'll be re-reading them some time, that's for sure.

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Originally Posted by Munro

Brave New World was very clever, and the world that Huxley thought up was brilliant as well as scarily realistic when you think about the potential science has to regulate our society, except I hated all of the main characters except for John Savage. Bernard Marx was just a whingeing weasel, not a hero, and not even an anti-hero. But, eheh, I still like Ninteen Eighty-Four better, as far as dystopian novels go.

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That's interesting. I liked Bernard at first, but he becomes someone totally different later in the story. I agree that Mr. Savage is the most likeable character (it's very possible that Huxley planned it that way). After all, he's the only one who still upholds the "old" ideals.

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Originally Posted by Munro

Now, Metamorphosis was amazing. I thought it was an exremely imaginative and poignant tale of the human condition, a world that lacks family values, and the life of a man who feels like an insect...before he wakes up, even. While Metamorphosis is the classic short story (and duly so), the 'others' were brilliant as well, and I felt immensely satisfied after reading each of them. I think you would enjoy Investigations of a Dog, In the Penal Settlement and The Burrow, the latter two were extremely vivid in their surroundings, both stories reflecting the cruelty of humanity, and the paranoia of a homemaker respectively. I'll be re-reading them some time, that's for sure.

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My thoughts exactly, although I had to read the Metamorphosis (the tale, not the book) several times before I understood it. I first read it when I was 15. Didn't make much sense to me back then, I mean, how come apples could harm him? ;)

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Originally Posted by Sindhu

You know, this just goes to show how differently people lookat things. As far as I was concerned, the whole point of putting up my list and seeing other people's lists was to get a list of things 'd like to put on my "to be read sometime list" I thought that was the whole point and I was waiting for everyone's lists to be up when we could have comments on the books also- the thread title does say RATE and DISCUSS. Maybe everyone including me were consciously/unconsciously showing off- but could my alternative interpretation also be taken into consideration?

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for sure. but i never thought that one should read a book just because someone else has already read it... :o weird.

as for rating and discussing....i do agree that later on people started actually discussing books. untill that, everyone was ust posting their lists heh.

I have read only two of the original books you wanted to rate and discuss. The first one is Metamorphosis, and I give it a big fat whopping 2 out of ten. I could not keep my eyes open the entire time. The only reason I gave it at least a two was the picture on the front of the book I recall was pretty cool.
The second one is Their Eyes Were Watching God. That I would give closer to an eight. That book was pretty interesting. I liked the story line, I did not like the ending, but for the tone of the book, it was fitting. In fact, I think the book would have been complete if she had been convicted of killing her husband. That would have been a more fitting ending.