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^^ Choderlos de Laclos - great choice, one of my alltime favourites in French, @bouquin!
Me, it's been "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides, somewhat less brilliant than his former books; and then "War and Peace" in the French version (been reading for 4 months now, have finished 3/4 roughly, and it's worth spending months on it!)
that's good to know. Thanks, DieterM.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John Le Carré)
Loving Living Party Going (Henry Green)
Possessing the Secret of Joy (Alice Walker)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery)
The Birds Fall Down (Rebecca West)
The House of Doctor Dee (Peter Ackroyd)
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Currently reading: Voss (Patrick White)
4 volume set of A Dance To the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, Folio Society. Why? Looks great next to my folio Proust set, but seriously, I want to read it.
The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, The Limited Editions Club. I wanted another quality seafaring book.
I bought these both for about half of what the Dance set typically goes for, so it was a steal.
I had decided not to buy books until I have finished all the books I have in my bookcase unread. but I bought three biographies last week about three poets and authors from the ice and I bought essays by Freud and short stories by an author from the ice and Jan Kott's essays about Shakespeare.
Now I just have more books I can't read until next summer.
Tenth of December by George Saunders because I love CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, and because it was by the register.
The Sirens of Titan because Vonnegut is my girlfriend's favorite other and yet she hasn't read it!
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, again for my girlfriend, but I'll be reading this one as well.
Faust, translation by David Luke, The Folio Society, gorgeous book, it's frickin hyooge, and Goethe is the man.
Burnt shadows by Kamila Shamsie.
As to the why, I really love reading about war. Plus I liked the title.
I'm also very much looking forward to reading the Wolf of wall street by Jordan belfort. I'm not sure if I'd be interested in reading a biography but still I want to read the book before I watch the movie. <and if anyone knows where I can find its ebook version, please let me know> :D
The Heat of the Day (Elizabeth Bowen)
The Monk (Matthew Lewis)
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Currently reading: La Maison aux Esprits (Isabel Allende)
L'Automne du Patriarche (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Le Chagrin des Belges (Hugo Claus)
Les Particules Elémentaires (Michel Houellebecq)
La Bête Humaine (Emile Zola)
L'Abbé C. (Georges Bataille)
La Marche de Radetzky (Joseph Roth)
Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader. Bought it at my local half-price books in near fine condition.
I am interested in the writings of intelligent black men that have had a positive influence in literature and on the education of black people and people in general. Du Bois, Ellison, Wright, and Baldwin are a few whose works I want to read. It never hurts to have greater awareness.
A Sentimental Journey (Laurence Sterne)
The Devils (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
Arrow of God (Chinua Achebe)
Moon Palace (Paul Auster)
Great Apes (Will Self)
Papillon (Henri Charrière)
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Currently reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is really good. I liked it anyway.
Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez
Two reasons:
1. Give the author another chance.
2. I enjoy road quests.
Le Procès (Franz Kafka)
Cat and Mouse (Günter Grass)
The Master of Ballantrae (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Sula (Toni Morrison)
Against the Grain (J. K. Huysmans)
Freedom (Jonathan Franzen)
The Counterfeiters (André Gide)
The Judge and His Hangman (Friedrich Dürrenmatt)
The Roots of Heaven (Romain Gary)
A Bend in the River (V. S. Naipaul)
Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard)
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Currently reading: The Last September (Elizabeth Bowen)
The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry. I loved the first part of his autobiography (Moab is my Washpot), so thought I'd give this a go!
Karl Ove Knausgaard - My Struggle 2
Bought because it's a autobiographical novel in kind of a modern Proustian style.
Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti.
I wanted to know more about Hindu goddesses.
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Why? Because I felt like reading it again, and getting my own copy of this this time. And also, I had finished it a few hours after buying it, so it's all good.
I bought two books yesterday, which was naughty of me, because I still have a big backlog of books to read.
I bought Economics, A User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang. I have watched several of his lectures on YouTube and he is great. This is one of a new series of Pelican books, which were books designed educate. A friend of mine has a clever son, who is interested in economics in school. I may ask his father to pass it on and ask him what he thinks of it, as I still have Debunking Economics by Steve Keen to read.
I also bought The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. I bought this partly because it is short; partly because it reflects social class anxieties of the Victorian/Edwardian age as highlighted by Jack London's book, The People of the Abyss; partly because I am interested to read this godfather of steampunk; and partly because I thought it might be interesting to read a bit of H.G. Wells before reading David Lodge's book about him, A Man of Parts. I remember we did study this book at school. I think our English teacher selected it in the hope it would appeal to the boys. However most of my classmates were well on the way to evolving into Morlocks themselves and not much learning got done. My school had been a girls' grammar school (i.e. you had to pass your 11+ exam to attend there) but became a mixed comprehensive (open to all) with my intake. I think some of the teachers regretted this development.
I bought "Bouvard and Pecuchet: A Novel" by Gustave Flaubert 'cause I'm worried that my projects are futile and will come to nothing...
"Criticism and Culture" by R. Con Davis and R. Schleifer, because I'm writing an essay on the evolution of the approach to the reader in literary criticism.
This book got me thinking on what it is that influences our choices in terms of deciding what to read next.
How about a short questionnaire? ;)
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7YG9ZTD
In my case the answers would be press reviews, my friends’ opinions and suggestions, and opinions of professional literary critics - mainly my Professors. How about you?
Eugénie Grandet (Honoré de Balzac)
Recently I have bought two novels by Robert Bolano. I am working on an essay, comparison of Bruni Schulz and Bolano.
The Professor's House (Willa Cather)
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Currently reading: The Awakening and Other Stories (Kate Chopin)
"The Goldfinch" by wonderful Donna Tartt because the waiting list at the library lies from here to Dover and back.
(also I was given some book tokens for my last birthday)
Wise Children (Angela Carter)
The Comfort of Strangers (Ian McEwan)
The Pianist (Wladyslaw Szpilman)
Operation Shylock (Philip Roth)
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Currently reading: Quartet (Jean Rhys)
Books : Selected works of Oscar Wilde (Oscar Wilde) and The Complete Robot (Isaac Asimov)
Why : I have always enjoyed reading the works of Wilde and I wanted to have this book for my collection. Same goes for Asimov. It was reading his stories on Robots that first inspired me to choose my field of interest.
The Thinking Reed (Rebecca West)
Harriet Hume (Rebecca West)
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Currently reading: The Public Image (by Muriel Spark)
The Folio Shakespeare-The Folio Society, this is their 1988 6 volume in 2 slip cases set. Kind of an interesting story how I came about buying it. I have a pretty clean 3 volume Heritage Press Shakespeare set, but inside one of the slipcases was the original promo pamphlet for this Folio set. I've had that pamphlet for over a year, and just this weekend I came across the set in fine condition at a local Half-Price books. Stoked.
The Fahrenheit Twins (Michel Faber)
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Currently reading: Burger's Daughter (Nadine Gordimer)
To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolfe
The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
arrived today:
bukowski, love is a dog from hell (nostalgia)
ronald johnson, ARK (curiosity)
anne carson, albertine workout (curiosity)
the anne carson, by the way, is pretty terrible. i like carson, but i see her more as an author of brilliant curios than a poet per se.
What's the difference?Quote:
Originally Posted by illiterati
Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg
because I am a 21st century wannabe beatnik hipster haha
Slaughterhouse Five. I bought it because I wanted to! And I got to flirt with the sales guy (bonus)
1. Alice Walker - The Color Purple.
This one got the Pulitzer lately and I heard tell it's a good story to read. Still sitting on my bookshelf.
2. Vladimir Nabokov - Invitation to a Beheading
I was intrigued, and I wanted to find out about that elusive and indescribable crime of "gnostical turpitude" for which the protagonist was sentenced to death by head-chopping. The narrative doesn't try to explain it and the protagonist is never beheaded. In that, disappointing.
3. E.L. James - Fifty Shades of Gray
I wanted to know how a third-rate, cliched-ridden nonsense can make so much money and who are the idiots who think it's good writing. Got plenty of answers.
The Lonely Londoners (Sam Selvon)
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Currently reading: The Ghost Road (Pat Barker)