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The Prophecy by S J Parris. 7/10
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. 6/10
The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus 7/10The Persians by Aeschylus. 7/10
The Widows Secret by Brian Thompson. 7/10 (Book club choice)
Prometheus Bound. by Aeschylus
The Lost World. by Arthur Conan Doyle. 7/10
King John. By Shakespeare
The Prophecy by S J Parris. 7/10
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. 6/10
The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus 7/10The Persians by Aeschylus. 7/10
The Widows Secret by Brian Thompson. 7/10 (Book club choice)
Prometheus Bound. by Aeschylus
The Lost World. by Arthur Conan Doyle. 7/10
King John. By Shakespeare
The Voyage Out. By Virginia Woolf.
World War Z 7/10. It's as much a good read because of the convincing way in which it is put together. It reads as a journalist's account of others experiences, but it really brings the whole picture of the world together for me.
Vanity Fair. Enoying that very much so far. Exceedinly weird...
I've managed to read exactly 2 writers so far this year:
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (7/10)
2. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (8/10)
3. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (10/10)
4. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (8/10)
5. Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (9/10)
6. Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (8/10)
7. Othello by William Shakespeare (10/10)
Unholy Night Grahame-Smith, Seth 9/10
Soon I will be Invincible Grossmn, Austin 7/10
Dead Until Dark Harris, Charlaine 7.5/10
The Damned United by David Peace - A football novel based upon real people and events in the football league in 1970s England written in a stream of consciousness style with intercut flashbacks.
Snuff Terry Pratchett - Commander Vimes brings Goblin equality to the country.
Pure - An engineer from Normandy is commissioned by a French Minister to dig out and remove the bones and bodies hat have built up and begun affecting the air in the cemetery of Les Innocents in 18th century Paris. (The site of modern day Les Halles).
I'm still working on Wizards First Rule (Terry Goodkind) And, no, I havent been stuck on it since '95, LOL.
Couldn't edit for some reason. Anyway:
January
The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde 12/24/12 - 01/02/13 ***
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick 1/02 - 1/03 *** ½
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl 1/03 - 1/07 *** ½
Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl 1/07 - 1/10 ***
Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl 1/10 - 1/13 *** ½
Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl 1/13 - 1/14 ***
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion 1/22 - 1/24 ****
Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris 1/24 - 1/27 ****
Room by Emma Donoghue 1/28 - 1/29 **
February
Lust for Life by Irving Stone 1/29 - 2/6 **
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin 2/6 - 2/22 ****
Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini 2/23 - 2/26 ***
March
The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Greg Matthews 2/26 - 3/2 ****
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 3/2 - 3/6 ****
World's End by T.C. Boyle 3/6 - 3/12 ****
Summerland by Michael Chabon 3/12 - 3/15 ****
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 3/18 - 3/20 ****
John Adams by David McCullough 3/21 - 3/30 ****
April
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon 4/3 - 4/9 ** 1/2
The Angel Experiment by James Patterson 4/9 - 4/12 ** 1/2
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 4/12 - 4/17 *****
A Spell for Chameleon by Piers Anthony 4/17 - 4/24 **
Son of Danse Macabre by Bryce Wilson 4/24 - 4/27 *****
Looking for Alaska by John Green 4/27 - 4/29 **
May
Duma Key by Stephen King 4/29 - 5/9 **
The Prophecy by S J Parris. 7/10
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. 6/10
The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus 7/10
The Persians by Aeschylus. 7/10
The Widows Secret by Brian Thompson. 7/10 (Book club choice)
Prometheus Bound. by Aeschylus
The Lost World. by Arthur Conan Doyle. 7/10
King John. By Shakespeare
The Voyage Out. By Virginia Woolf.
Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna. 7/10
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spartk
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
Anna Karenina
My list so far -
1. White Teeth by Zadie Smith. 6.5/10 It was a good book, but I've forgotten what I wanted to say about it. Really should take notes.
2. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett. 9/10 Funny, tragic, endearing. Cannot imagine why people find it boring.
3. The Bostonians - Henry James 7/10 This was a really good reading experience. James is a genius!
4. A Room With a View - E M Forster (re-read) 6/10 I love E M forster, and this was a good book, though Howard's End and Passage to India were better.
5. Intruder in the Dust - William Faulkner. 7/10 Faulkner writes a murder mystery!:hurray: And it's a good one. I felt it was a bit repetitive and could have been cut down to an even shorter novel, or I'd have given it a higher rating.
6. Major Barbara - George Bernard Shaw (re-read). 8/10 Shaw at his argumentative best.
7. Bridget Jones Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding. 6/10 Like its predecessor, an engaging, entertaining fun read. :)
Uh oh, I see I've given Forster's novel and Bridget Jones the same rating. Stupid ratings...I never seem to get them right!
I'm not going to rate books, but if I feel compelled to make comments on them I will do so.
1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
The sentimental melodrama of the third part was a chore to read, but everything before that was exceptional.
2. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
Unintelligent analyses from someone with a very juvenile sense of the world. Generalisations heaped upon generalisations. No suprise as dumb books sell big. She is arrogant enough to cast aspersions on feminist academics in the introduction, before commencing four hundred pages of crass ranting. A large part of her analytic strategy is to judge the value of all female activity on whether men do them too, underlined at the end of the book when she declares, 'I just want to be one of the guys, but with really good hair'. As for the comedy, her main technique was to use hyperbolic similes that had the sophistication of a child. I might have found some passages funny had I read the book, but listening to it in audio format made it seem like a bad stand-up routine.
The Damned United by David Peace - A football novel based upon real people and events in the football league in 1970s England written in a stream of consciousness style with intercut flashbacks.
Snuff Terry Pratchett - Commander Vimes brings Goblin equality to the country.
Pure - An engineer from Normandy is commissioned by a French Minister to dig out and remove the bones and bodies hat have built up and begun affecting the air in the cemetery of Les Innocents in 18th century Paris. (The site of modern day Les Halles).
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossmann. Grossman's epic, banned after it was written, has been compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace. I would agree that the novel, which spans the months during and after the fight for Stalingrad in WW2, is a brilliant depiction the life of soldiers, commisars, civilians, old Bolsheviks, Nazi commanders, prisoners and scientists. It details the lives, loves, characters, thoughts, flaws and pressures of living under Stalin's regime.
Completed:
1 Marco Polo & Rustichello da Pisa The Travels of Marco Polo
2 John Keats - a few selected poems including first pass of To Autumn -will take a few more passes to fully absorb.
Works in progress:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn - August 1914-The Red Wheel at page 560 about 240 to go.
Plutarch Plutarch's Lives currently on Numa Pompilius
Emil Miller - A Tangled Web Chapter 5