So what did we read in April then?

So what did we read in April, then?

April is over, having done its 'breeding lilacs out of dead land' etc. It wasn't a very fruitful month for me as far as reading is concerned. I finished reading The Sun Also Rises. Wasn't impressed by it. For most of the book nothing happens. There are some memorable passages but it can't be Hemingway's best. Will move on to For Whom the Bell Tolls very soon.

Read Nabokov's Lolita. Mind-blowingly beautiful, witty, gross, obnoxious, in short a masterpiece. I loved the breathless style.

Back to non-fiction now, I am reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and I love it. My kind of book indeed. All you Malcolm Gladwell and Levitt & Dubber fans, please have a look at this one. You will love it.

So what did we read in April then?

This is what I read in April:

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Høeg
Butterfly Burning - Yvonne Vera
100 ways to save the world - Johan Tell
Ten Little Niggers - Agatha Christie
Candide - Francois Voltaire

I have really enjoyed this month because I have read a lot of novels, I barely speak to anyone, I was really happy and absorbed in my reading. I wonder how people can live without reading.
Well I have read:
Veronika decides ti die by Paulo Coelho
Eleven minutes
By The Piedra River I sit and cry. All for the same writer too above.
Carmen by Prosper Mérimée
IL VICOLO DI MADAMA LUCREZIA
Lokis
Arséne Guillot
FEDERIGO
The Blue Chamber. All for the same writer

North and south by Gaskell
The foundling and other stories by Alexander
The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by MaCall Smith
one Manuscript for Publishing house (remain nameless)
Candide by Voltaire
Daddy Long Legs by Wesbter
Ruth by Gaskell
And started That they may face the rising Sun by Gahern

To be honest,I didn't read much in April.I did read Wisdom of the West by Bertrand Russell,but that's about it.I'll have even less free time in the following couple of months,but after that,I'll be back to my usual ways.:)

I fit in

Republic
Symposium
Gorgias
Apology and
Crime and Punishment

Mostly Contemporary verse. A few novels, and a lot of literary criticism. Read also a couple Anthologies from Alice Munro which are of note, as is the novel Fifth Business, which was mind blowing.

Swann's Way and the first half of The Red and the Black. I read some books of criticism but nothing really worth noting. That's not true. C.S. Lewis' Preface to Paradise Lost was excellent, but I couldn't get a hold of the whole book. Very frustrating. I think Kafka's Crow was the one who recommended it, on the Epic thread. I've managed to find a few of the essays scattered here and there, but the libraries and bookstores I've checked don't carry it. I miss my university library.

I finished Meeting the Fox-The Allied Envasion of North Africa. The next book in my stack was Ths Sun Also Rises so I have started that one.

I spent my April without internet, TV and other distractions in the middle of nowhere, so I had lots of time to read. This is the result:

El alcalde de Zalamea by P. Calderon de la Barca
Morenga by U. Timm (a novel about the war 1904 - 07 in German-Southwestafrica (today's Namibia), quite interesting)
Нос by N. Gogol (I really wonder why I haven't read this little story earlier...)
La locandiera by C. Goldoni (great comedy, I intend to read much more Goldoni)
Обломов by I. Gontscharow (re-read)
Leopardens öga by H. Mankell (my first Mankell, I'm not interested in his crime novels, but I might pick up another of his African novels)
Germinal by E. Zola (re-read)
El hablador by M. Vargas Llosa (great novel!)
Die Spoorsnyer by P. van Rooyen (ugh, that was bad)
Le scaphandre et le papillon by J.-D. Bauby (they filmed it lately, so I wanted to know the book before I watch the film)
Haru no Yuki by Y. Mishima (the first Japanese novel I've ever read, I quite liked it)
Die Hermannsschlacht by H. von Kleist (so far I only knew the version by Klopstock, but I liked this one even more)
Diamantenfieber by G. W. Hoffmann (bad historical novel)
Бедная Лиза by N. Karamsin (somehow I never read Karamsin before)
Матрёнин двор by A. I. Solschenyzin


A great reading month for me! :)

I was away on a voyage so was able to read a couple of books only:
Une canne à pèche pour mon grand-père by Gao Xingjian
Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow

I read the Cirque Du Freak series by Darren Shan, which consists of about 12 books.

I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and one short novel by Ivo Andrić (Bosnian Nobel prize winner) I believe the translation would be The Cursed Yard.

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Originally Posted by Castalian Girl

I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and one short novel by Ivo Andrić (Bosnian Nobel prize winner) I believe the translation would be The Cursed Yard.

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The translation is actually The Damned Yard,but it's pretty much the same:) A great book by a great author,how come you know about him(I mean,how come you've read this),Castalian Girl?Are you from the Balkans perhaps?

I read:

Candide - Voltaire
Sense and sensibility - Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Austen
Bacchae - Euripides

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erichtho

I spent my April without internet, TV and other distractions in the middle of nowhere, so I had lots of time to read. This is the result:

El alcalde de Zalamea by P. Calderon de la Barca
Morenga by U. Timm (a novel about the war 1904 - 07 in German-Southwestafrica (today's Namibia), quite interesting)
Нос by N. Gogol (I really wonder why I haven't read this little story earlier...)
La locandiera by C. Goldoni (great comedy, I intend to read much more Goldoni)
Обломов by I. Gontscharow (re-read)
Leopardens öga by H. Mankell (my first Mankell, I'm not interested in his crime novels, but I might pick up another of his African novels)
Germinal by E. Zola (re-read)
El hablador by M. Vargas Llosa (great novel!)
Die Spoorsnyer by P. van Rooyen (ugh, that was bad)
Le scaphandre et le papillon by J.-D. Bauby (they filmed it lately, so I wanted to know the book before I watch the film)
Haru no Yuki by Y. Mishima (the first Japanese novel I've ever read, I quite liked it)
Die Hermannsschlacht by H. von Kleist (so far I only knew the version by Klopstock, but I liked this one even more)
Diamantenfieber by G. W. Hoffmann (bad historical novel)
Бедная Лиза by N. Karamsin (somehow I never read Karamsin before)
Матрёнин двор by A. I. Solschenyzin


A great reading month for me! :)

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wow thats a lot of reading!

candide by voltaire---i can't believe i am the 4th person on this thread to have read this!
the black swan by who knows---everyone needs light reading once in awhile
the captive by proust---5 down and only 2 to go

Well I have been doing a lot of reading for school, so here is what I have read for the month of April:

From The Dubliners:

The Sisters
Araby
Eveline
The Boarding House
The Dead

To the Lighthouse ~ Virgina Woolf

The Blithedale Romance ~ Hawthrone

From Melville:

Bartleby
Billy Budd
Benito Cereno

The Turn of the Screw ~ Henry James

And acutally got one thing from my own personal reading finnished

Anna Karenine ~ Tolstoy

What did you think of To the Lighthouse? I confess I love Woolf

It was interesting, overall, I enjoyed the story.

This thread has just made me realise that I didn't read anything in April... I bought lots of books, but never read any. 100 pages of Anna Karenin and that's about it. Been playing the dreaded PS3 games. Oops

hi every one
i read in April only two works
they are Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
and Oliver Twist by Dickens

You people read such serious books....

Like KyleBennett, the thread has made me realise that I have read very little in April - worked my way through a pile of Michael Connelly Harry Bosch books that a friend gave me to recycle to a charity shop (I usually read the recycles before passing them on) and that was about it. So I asked myself what had I been doing, for goodness sake and realised I've spent most of my spare time organising my trip to South Africa for later in the year and have been reading a lot about SA in the process, I've had visitors, I've been to the opera - referred to the Pushkin thread here for background to Eugene Onegin, thanks to everyone who contributed, it helped my understanding of the opera considerably - did some background reading for a future visit to Stratford to see The Taming of the Shrew - again, thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread - I've been to visit a friend, been to the theatre to see Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, (a Local No-Good Boyo) and struggled with my Welsh homework.

So, on the reading front - Must Do Better in May.

Malone Dies by Beckett
First Love by Turgenev
Macbett by Ionesco
Green Hills of Africa by Hemingway
and just finishing The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

Quote:

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The translation is actually The Damned Yard,but it's pretty much the same A great book by a great author,how come you know about him(I mean,how come you've read this),Castalian Girl?Are you from the Balkans perhaps?

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Yes, from Croatia. And your signature quote caught my attention, too :p As for great Andrić works, I liked The Bridge over the Drina better. I do know that people in Europe know about Andric and read his works (well, people with interest in good literature, certainly not Big Brother die hard fans) in England and Italy, for example. After all, he DID win a Nobel prize.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Castalian Girl

Yes, from Croatia. And your signature quote caught my attention, too :p As for great Andrić works, I liked The Bridge over the Drina better. I do know that people in Europe know about Andric and read his works (well, people with interest in good literature, certainly not Big Brother die hard fans) in England and Italy, for example. After all, he DID win a Nobel prize.

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Very,very few,unfortunately.And only because he won the prize.Chances are that the same people won't know about Selimović,Krleža,Matoš etc.,let alone reading their works.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mark F.

Malone Dies by Beckett
First Love by Turgenev
Macbett by Ionesco
Green Hills of Africa by Hemingway
and just finishing The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

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Wow! Now that's an impressive reading list. You had a very productive month indeed!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KyleBennett

This thread has just made me realise that I didn't read anything in April... I bought lots of books, but never read any. 100 pages of Anna Karenin and that's about it. Been playing the dreaded PS3 games. Oops

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That is the point and purpose of these monthly threads, a little review of last month's, how should I put it....., effort just to keep us going and improving our future performance. I didn't have a good month either.