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When I was in the 6th form in school, one of our English teachers - a really good teacher he was - spoke to us about Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto". He thought it really funny that a giant hand had fallen out of the sky - with no apparent explanation - and crushed the baddie. I've kept it in mind al this time, and I now have it poised on the Kindle. Should be good.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.
1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
7. Sandman #1-8 by Neil Gaiman, et al -- 9/10. Possibly the best graphic novels that I've ever read. Good, dark story with just the right amount of black humor. I wasn't too crazy about the artist of the first 6, though. The charCter designs struck me as much too cartoony for the dark tone of the story.
Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.
1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
Comics/graphic novels:
1. Sandman #1-8 by Neil Gaiman, et al -- 9/10. Possibly the best graphic novels that I've ever read. Good, dark story with just the right amount of black humor. I wasn't too crazy about the artist of the first 6, though. The charCter designs struck me as much too cartoony for the dark tone of the story.
2. Avengers # 500-503 by Brian Michael Bendis, et al -- 6/10. Mostly read because it's a lead up to the Civil War series. Pretty common superhero stuff--the Avengers are attacked and outnumbered and they must figure out why. Good brainless entertainment.
3. Marvel's Civil War by Mark Millard, et al -- 8/10. This is probably the most hyped/talked about Marvel series/event that took place over the last decade, excepting the death of Captain America, which follows shortly. It's about the government wanting to register and emlly all superheroes--no more vigilantism. One side, headed by Iron Man is for it, another, needed by Captain America, is against it, and it culminates in an epic battle. I found the story pretty good--it wasn't a bad social commentary, of sorts.
1. The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth - 9/10...This was my first exposure to Roth, and it definitely made me want to keep going through his catalog.
2. Post Office by Charles Bukowski - 6/10...Reading Bukowski is nice because it makes me feel like a better human being. Otherwise, he kind of annoys me.
3. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - 7/10...Kind of hard to make heads or tails of it. I've heard it frequently said that this is the most accessible of Pynchon's books, but I think they meant "shortest." It seems to me that Pynchon works better when he has more space to spread his wings.
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - 8/10...I liked it a lot. It was even very difficult to put down.
5. Watt by Samuel Beckett - 9/10...Kind of like speeding down a highway in reverse on LSD with a low quality mash-up of Black Flag and Mozart blasting at top volume.
6. White Noise by Don DeLillo - 10/10...Funny, angry, creative, compelling. I couldn't find any fault with it.
7. Mercier and Camier by Samuel Beckett - 7/10...Not quite up to par with Watt, but still entertainingly disorienting.
8. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy - 9/10...Tolstoy shows about as much power and insight here in 50 pages as he did with 1,200 pages in War and Peace.
9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - ?/10...Sometimes, a good book needs to stir a while in your head before you can say whether or not you actually enjoyed it. Woolf's an incredibly powerful writer, I can at least say that much.
10. Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth - 8/10...I kind of wish that I had read Portnoy's Complaint first, as it seems that it would've greatly informed this reading. Still very good, though.
11. V. by Thomas Pynchon - 10/10...What a book! Long, rambling, hard to follow, almost perfect from start to finish. A perfect example of the word "Difficult" being thrown around callously at truly captivating novels.
So far:
finished "An Irish Country Village." It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it's cute, light, and easy. It was a nice book to read in bed before sleeping. I'd give it a 7/10.
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin- 7/10. Interesting most of the time, but it wasn't as engaging as I like my books to be. Sorry Benji Frank.
Walden- 8/10- I love my Transcendentalists. The only reason I didn't give this a 10 was because part of me feels Thoreau is a tad too "ranty" (for lack of better terms) and leans too far into the extreme. I draw inspiration from Transcendentalism, but I like to keep to the middle road.
Oxherding Tale- 9/10. Really good book that I had to read for my Black Literary Postmodernism class. It's a neo-slave narrative. I really enjoyed it.
today I just read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow- 8/10- I love Washington Irving's descriptive writing. Also, anything that lingers in the creepy side of folktales/religion really gets me. Probably why I am also such a huge Hawthorne fan.
The Canterbury Tales (Millers tale, General prologue, wife of bath, and pardoners tale)- 6/10- The only reason I give them a 6 is because of the difficulty of the English with such little time to get them all read. I would have enjoyed them more had I had more time to digest and dig through the meaning a little more. However, again, I like all things that call out religion and society on their hypocrisies and Chaucer does an amazing job at doing that. Especially in The Pardoner's Tale.
Beowulf- 9/10. I'm the girl that fell asleep every night to Braveheart when she was 6 years old. Anything about historical war in ancient Europe is a weakness for me. It's my football.
And I'm about to start Spenser's "The Faerie Queen."
so far:
Tale of Genji - 8/10 - It certainly took me longer than a month! Beautiful writing and some great scenes - it was a bit hard to get through at points, but I blame myself for reading other books at the same time. You really need to commit yourself to this on its own to get the full benefit.
Soldier of the Great War (Mark Halprin) - 8/10 - all around great story! Witty, well written, excellent characters. I took away some points for Halprin's unfortunate tendency to drag stories out longer than they need be. There's a good 100 pages that really did not need to be there.
Saga of the Confederates (Icelandic Saga) 5/10 - it gets some points for being different than any other saga I've read....but when you read an Icelandic Saga, you read it for the battles, and Viking feats....this one focuses too much on rhetoric, which seems out of place.
Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare 10/10 - one of those few Shakespeare plays I never got around to until now, Comedy of Errors has assumed a spot on my top 5 Shakespeare play list. It is brilliant in its simplicity and it is so fun to read.
The Beautiful and Damned (Fitzgerald) 9/10 - I love Fitzgerald, granted this was only the second book of his that I read (Gatsby being the other). I prefer Gatsby, but this was still great. Gloria is both a wonderful and irritating character, which is the point, and some of the descriptions are extraordinary. It does get a bit repetitive at times, but such is my only complaint.
The Faerie Queen is a long read, took me three months to finish, not because of its length particularly, but it's difficult to absorb in large chunks.
1. Aphra Behn - History of the Nun - 6/10, I get a lot of enjoyment out of how ridiculous early prose stories can be.
2. Aphra Behn - The Fair Jilt - 7/10. This one is more ridiculous than the other, and thus better in my book.
3. Eliza Haywood - Love in Excess - 6/10. Not big on amatory fiction really, but this is one of the 3 best selling novels of the 18th century.
4. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist - 9/10. Not really one of Dickens' best, but it's one of his funnier novels, and who can forget Fagin, Mr. Bumble, or Sikes.
5. Lynn Breedlove - One Freak Show - 7/10, a transcription of lesbian/trans man musician and comic Lynn Breedlove's show One Freak Show, essentially a series of humorous anecdotes about her life and the status of trans people in the LGBT community in the United States. Some parts of it are not that great, but it's a short breezy read, so the bad parts are easy to overlook.
6. Richardson - Pamela - 5/10. This is a painful read but a very influential book, the first part is much better than the "how to be a good housewife" manual that forms the final part of the novel.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle - Sign of Four - 8/10. Campy, fun Sherlocke Holmes novel that is terribly racist in parts.
8. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey - 9/10. Probably Austen's funniest novel, we all know a girl like Isabella Thorpe.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 9/10. This is a re-read, but it's always a fun light read.
10. Craig Thomson - Habibi - 8.5/10. Wonderful graphic novel, but a bit long in parts. I particularly like the tongue and cheek retelling of the Noah's arc story. I don't think it's as powerful a comment on how people relate to religion as Blankets, maybe because of the lack of personal depth that Thomson's earlier work had.
11. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews and Shamela - 7/10. A fun read. To get the most out of Shamela you have to read Pamela first.
12. Daniel Defoe - Journal of the Plague Year - 5/10. I thought I had included this since I read it in January, but oh well. It's an OK read, a lot of it is terribly boring reprinting of death statistics and Defoe's meandering philosophizing on the best way to handle a plague, but it is occasionally spiced up with Defoe's clever little "slice of life" stories. Defoe's Rebecca is a much better novel, I read it last year and it was a lot of fun.
Dreamtigers - Borges - I just love Borges. This is a delightful collection of parables, mini-stories, semi-essays and poems. Many of which I've read before, but never this author-sanctioned translation. Also I love having them at hand in one small book. I've heard some accuse Borges of coldness in the past, but I couldn't disagree more. I find great warmth alongside intellectual depth in his work. I don't think I'll ever get sick of JLB. 9.5/10
The Wasteland and Other Poems (Penguin Classics) - T.S. Eliot. My first real reading of Eliot and I found it excellent. Definitely want to check out the rest of his stuff. 8/10
Finished off The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Big, sprawling book that I felt just at times was a little too 'sprawling'. But highly enjoyable and something I must revisit later in life. 7.5/10
Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata - Excellent! Loved it. A short work of real subtlety and beauty. Probably the best thing I've read this year aside from Dreamtigers. 9/10
Macbeth - Shakespeare - It's Shakespeare, I don't need to say much. 9/10
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) - Kafka - Good intro into Kafka. The Metamorphosis was a standout but his stories overall can definitely take some getting used to, however it definitely made me want to extend my Kafka reading. I have a feeling I may end up loving him, much like Borges' gradual growth on me (Borges is now my favourite writer). 7/10
Human Chain - Seamus Heaney - Another good intro into an author of obvious considerable poetic talent. Will be reading more, without doubt. 7/10
I've also been reading bits and pieces of Montaigne, Baudelaire, Frost, Pessoa, Chekhov and a Japanese poetry collection, but I haven't finished any of them yet so I won't add them.
Also, these ratings are purely based on personal enjoyment at the time, and aren't meant to be objective statements of worth overall.
So far...
Hollywood, Charles Bukowski - 8/10
The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis - 9/10
Meltdown, Ben Elton - 6/10
The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghust - 10/10
(re-read) The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera - as always, 10/10
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis - 6/10
1. Aphra Behn - History of the Nun - 6/10, I get a lot of enjoyment out of how ridiculous early prose stories can be.
2. Aphra Behn - The Fair Jilt - 7/10. This one is more ridiculous than the other, and thus better in my book.
3. Eliza Haywood - Love in Excess - 6/10. Not big on amatory fiction really, but this is one of the 3 best selling novels of the 18th century.
4. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist - 9/10. Not really one of Dickens' best, but it's one of his funnier novels, and who can forget Fagin, Mr. Bumble, or Sikes.
5. Lynn Breedlove - One Freak Show - 7/10, a transcription of lesbian/trans man musician and comic Lynn Breedlove's show One Freak Show, essentially a series of humorous anecdotes about her life and the status of trans people in the LGBT community in the United States. Some parts of it are not that great, but it's a short breezy read, so the bad parts are easy to overlook.
6. Richardson - Pamela - 5/10. This is a painful read but a very influential book, the first part is much better than the "how to be a good housewife" manual that forms the final part of the novel.
7. Arthur Conan Doyle - Sign of Four - 8/10. Campy, fun Sherlocke Holmes novel that is terribly racist in parts.
8. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey - 9/10. Probably Austen's funniest novel, we all know a girl like Isabella Thorpe.
9. Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 9/10. This is a re-read, but it's always a fun light read.
10. Craig Thomson - Habibi - 8.5/10. Wonderful graphic novel, but a bit long in parts. I particularly like the tongue and cheek retelling of the Noah's arc story. I don't think it's as powerful a comment on how people relate to religion as Blankets, maybe because of the lack of personal depth that Thomson's earlier work had.
11. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews and Shamela - 7/10. A fun read. To get the most out of Shamela you have to read Pamela first.
12. Daniel Defoe - Journal of the Plague Year - 5/10. I thought I had included this since I read it in January, but oh well. It's an OK read, a lot of it is terribly boring reprinting of death statistics and Defoe's meandering philosophizing on the best way to handle a plague, but it is occasionally spiced up with Defoe's clever little "slice of life" stories. Defoe's Rebecca is a much better novel, I read it last year and it was a lot of fun.
13. Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otronto - 6/10. Bizarre novel that opens with someone being mysteriously crushed by a giant helmet that appears out of nowhere.
The Sisters Brothers..10/10
Doc....10/10
Note: My ratings are based mostly on enjoyment of the text.
Books:
1. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood -- 9/10. 2012 is off to a good start. This book was excellent. A compelling story that really kept me turning the pages. I loved the back and forth timeline; it was brilliantly utilized. Ths was my first Atwood book, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her.
2. Dubliners by James Joyce -- 7/10. If it wasn't by James Joyce and I didn't feel an overwhelming need to have liked it more than I did, it would have probably received a lower rating. I'm just not a huge fan of "slice of life" stories, now matter how beautifully written (and, honestly, I was expecting more in that department). I did find some of the stories charming, though, and the last paragraph of "The Dead" was particularly brilliant.
3. The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari -- 8/10. It's the story of a bet made between god and the devil on whether a kid (Joby), by the age of 40, will choose to be good and evil, and all of creation depends on his decision. I found it to be a very good read, very engaging, and I became very attached to the characters, while really hating others. One of the things that really bothered me, and something that knocked it down a point, is the author's overuse of italics. It became distracting. Still highly recommended, though.
4. Collected Fictions by J.L. Borges -- 8/10. Definitely some of the most interesting short stories I've read. I loved some, wasn't too crazy about others, and sometimes I just didn't know what the hell was going, but his originality really struck me as brilliant.
5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman --7/10. I wanted to like this book more than I did, even though I did really enjoy it. After all the praise, I was expecting too much, though. The ideas were original, but I just didn't find the main character's attitude about his situations believable.
6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontė -- 7/10. It was good. The writing was good, but I just can't say that the story intrigued me throughout. I much preferred her experiences as a child and with the mad woman over the romance stuff, which was boring.
7. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie -- 9/10. I'm becoming more of a fan of magical realism, and this book is why. Strange story, well (and unusually) written, interesting characters. What more is there to say?
Comics/graphic novels:
1. Sandman #1-8 by Neil Gaiman, et al -- 9/10. Possibly the best graphic novels that I've ever read. Good, dark story with just the right amount of black humor. I wasn't too crazy about the artist of the first 6, though. The charCter designs struck me as much too cartoony for the dark tone of the story.
2. Avengers # 500-503 by Brian Michael Bendis, et al -- 6/10. Mostly read because it's a lead up to the Civil War series. Pretty common superhero stuff--the Avengers are attacked and outnumbered and they must figure out why. Good brainless entertainment.
3. Marvel's Civil War by Mark Millard, et al -- 8/10. This is probably the most hyped/talked about Marvel series/event that took place over the last decade, excepting the death of Captain America, which follows shortly. It's about the government wanting to register and emlly all superheroes--no more vigilantism. One side, headed by Iron Man is for it, another, needed by Captain America, is against it, and it culminates in an epic battle. I found the story pretty good--it wasn't a bad social commentary, of sorts.
4. Captain America # 22-42 by Ed Brubaker, et al -- 8/10. This comprises the "Death of Captain America" saga, from the vents leading up to Cap's death, the death itself, and the story of Cap's old sidekick, Bucky, taking up the mantle as the new Captain America. It's a good story with a pretty surprising amount of emotional depth, and good art.
1. The Departure by Neal Asher. A solid sci fi about an overcrowded dystopian earth that has become ruled by a world government - with frequent references to the Eurozone - which has decided to annihilate a large portion of the billions who would die anyway. Our hero, Adam Saul, has developed an organic interface to computers and implanted it in his brain in order to overcome the military backed bureacracy. Pacy beginning to a new series. 7/10
2. The House of the Dead by Doestoyevsky. A brilliant depiction of life in a Siberian jail in the 19th century. The characterisation, the relentless drudgery described, the themed chapters that veer away from a chronological account, the events that punctuated the years in jail and the pathos of the men and animals all combine in to a life of slow horror. 10/10
3. The Battle for Crete by Anthony Beevor. An interesting and comprehensive account of the fall of Crete in WW2 when the Germans launched their first and only parachute invasion. It charts the dithering and incompetence of the British command, and how they lost a battle they nearly won. 8/10
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip Dick. Set in a dystopian, nuclear future, a Bounty Hunter is charged by the police department to "retire" 6 new androids produced by a shady corporation. It examines the relationship of man to living and non-living beings in an autopsy of empathy. A good, though provoking read. 8/10
5. Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett. This concerns the time travels and trials of Commander Vimes in Ankh-Morpork. It's a great plot, and an enjoyable read. The thing with Pratchett's books is the weak humour, often based upon tired stereotypes such as the "Aunties" that patrol certain streets and are reputedly deadly with an umbrella. We've seen this kind of thing with the Grannies in Monty Python. Nevertheless a good read. 7/10
I really need to give this a re-read. It was my first Pynchon novel, and after reading some of his other work, I think I'd get a better grasp of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation