2011 11-Authors Challenge

[JuniperWoolf]

H'okay. Eleven works by authors who's books I have neeeever read. Here goes:

1. Choke by Chuck Palahniuk.

2. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

3. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (ugh...).

4. On The Road by Jack Kerouac (double ugh...).

5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

7. Moby Dick by Harman Melville (I'll finally trudge through that chapter on whale breeds).

8. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

9. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

10. Anthem by Ayn Rand. -scrrrratch

11. The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

I'll edit a line through the ones that I read throughout the year. Fun, fun fun!

Not sure how I felt about that one, I'm not used to ideas like that. I need to let it bounce around it for a little while.

My goodness you're reading all of those at the same time? Yikes. How do you keep it all in your head?

I'm not quite sure actually, when I get tired of one style of prose I pick up something else that looks different otherwise I can't absorb any more reading at all that day. I've always read like that, a lot of people think it's a bit weird, haha.

Why the 'ugh' over Kerouac?

Well, I have a friend who always rants about how much he hates him.

*My friend in a sarcastic tone:* "Kerouac is soooo cool, man. He knows what's going on, he's just sooooo with it. You're gonna hate it Robin, the guys a total douche."

He's usually right about what I wouldn't like, so I'm kind of not looking forward to reading On The Road.

Anyways, if you PM me your address I've got a copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe which you'd be welcome to. Nowt special, but in need of a good home.

Oooh, will do. Never one to pass up a chance at a free book.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So far this year, I've read something by Michael Chabon, Miguel de Cervantes (though, not finished yet), Jeff VandeMeer, and Pat Frank, all of which I had never read before.

Authors I haven't read before on my current to-read pile: Tad Williams, Connie Willis, Pearl S. Buck, R. Scott Bakker, Dante, John Gardner, Guy Gavriel Kay, Jorge Luis Borges, Mark J. Ferrari, Joe Abercrombie, Henry James, China Mieville, Toni Morrison, George Elliot, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Margaret Atwood, and Virginia Woolf.

So, that's 23, all of which I plan to have read by year's end.

As to what I think of what I've read so far:

Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union: 4/5. I liked it a lot, enough that I'm going to read more by Cabon, but I think my unfamiliarity with Jewish religion and culture left me not getting a lot of the humor.

Cervantes' Don Quixote: 4/5, for what I've read so far of what I've read so far.

Jeff VanderMeer's Cities of Saints and Madmen: 4.5/5. Excellent world building and wonderfully strange and dark stories, though some of the latter material in this short story collection grew tiresome.

Frank's Alas, Babylon: 4.5/5. A few minor gripes kept this from getting a perfect rating.

11. Comics -- Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski. Sounds interesting.
.

Looking forward to your thoughts on this, Comedian. I haven't read it, but I loves me some superheroes.

[Desolation]

I'm changing my list a bit, as might be expected of an 11 book reading list spanning a whole year.

1. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
2. The Beast Within by Emile Zola
3. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (if anyone would be so gracious, I would most certainly appreciate a recommendation on whether it would be better to start reading Flaubert through this or Madame Bovary)
4. Labyrinths by Borges
5. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
6. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
7. Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo
8. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
9. Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen
10. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
11. V. by Thomas Pynchon

Of course, my ability to read all of these books along with War and Peace remains doubtful. I'm such a damn slow reader these days. I should be eating books with all this free time I have, being out of work and momentarily out of school.

[The Comedian]

Just noting an edit to my list.

The list:

1. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Paul Verlaine. -- Check (4/5)
I bought this book a while ago to participate in the poetry reading group on Litnet. But work and responsibilities took me away from the thread, so I never read a word of it.

2. Fiction -- [U]Wieland[/U] by Charles Brockden Brown. --Check! (3.8/5)
I'm planning to renew/refresh my interest in early American literature

EDIT: 3. Beowulf (Heaney translation) -- Anonymous . I've never read this epic before, nor have I read anything by the Beowulf poet, I'm fairly certain.

4. Fiction -- The Third Man by Graham Greene. I've never read much detective fiction. It's time.

5. Non-fiction -- Beyond the Aspen Grove by Ann Zwinger. I love nature/environmental non-fiction. And Zwinger has been inexcusably absent from my reading habits. Time to amend that mistake.

6. Drama -- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Never read it or anything else by Stoppard. And this book was given to me by a friend in grad school. Eleven years ago I told him I'd read it. Better late than never.

7. Poetry -- Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. He's a great contemporary American poet. And I've never read a thing he's written.

8. Non-fiction -- Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Bought it in a used book store for $.75. It looked interesting and the Collins book (above) borrows its title.

9. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Giacomo Leopardi. See the reason posted for the Verlaine selection.

10. Fiction -- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. A friend told me I should read it. I said "sure". That was four years ago. Another one of those "it's about time" books.

11. Comics -- Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski. Sounds interesting.

[TheFifthElement]

EDIT: 3. Beowulf (Heaney translation) -- Anonymous . I've never read this epic before, nor have I read anything by the Beowulf poet, I'm fairly certain.

I'm reading that at the moment (along with a couple of other things. It's all getting very messy). It's really good. I got pretty absorbed by the introduction by Heaney, which is poetry in itself. He's a great man.

Of course as soon as I've read Beowulf I know I'm going to have to read Grendel. Poor me. My literature cup doth runneth over

[The Comedian]

I'm reading that at the moment (along with a couple of other things. It's all getting very messy). It's really good. I got pretty absorbed by the introduction by Heaney, which is poetry in itself. He's a great man.

Of course as soon as I've read Beowulf I know I'm going to have to read Grendel. Poor me. My literature cup doth runneth over

You know that your praise of Grendel is what helped me to make the edits to my list. (I haven't read anything by Gardner either, so his novel Grendel is going edit out one of the works on my list too). Anyway, I thought that to better appreciate Gardner's Grendel I might as well read Beowulf first, since I've long been meaning to read that too.

And oh yeah, Heaney's introduction to the poem is great. It totally made me want to go on a big poetry run.

[manolia]

Finished a collection of Chekhov's short stories. 10/10 (Especially the lady with the lapdog).

[Delarge]

Well, my list would look something like this.

1. Cormack McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses V

2. Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time V

3. Bram Stoker - Dracula V

4. Ben Franklin - The Autobiography V

5. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice V

6. John Keats - Complete Works

7. Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea

8. Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities

9. Jack Kerouac - On the Road

10. Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre

11. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Cancer Ward

I have never really gotten into anglo saxon literature before so I have decided this years reading to be mostly dedicated to works in english.

[mal4mac]

3. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (if anyone would be so gracious, I would most certainly appreciate a recommendation on whether it would be better to start reading Flaubert through this or Madame Bovary)

I read both recently, Madame Bovary first, and then Sentimental Education, after a few other novels - including the (superb!) Zola. Bovary had a "tighter" plot - I'd try that after W&P - too many "baggy monsters" back-to-back may cause indigestion.

[The Comedian]

Just updating my list. . .

Just noting an edit to my list.

The list:

1. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Paul Verlaine. -- Check (4/5)
I bought this book a while ago to participate in the poetry reading group on Litnet. But work and responsibilities took me away from the thread, so I never read a word of it.

2. Fiction -- [U]Wieland[/U] by Charles Brockden Brown. --Check! (3.8/5)
I'm planning to renew/refresh my interest in early American literature

EDIT: 3. Beowulf (Heaney translation) -- Anonymous . Check! 5/5 I've never read this epic before, nor have I read anything by the Beowulf poet, I'm fairly certain.

4. Fiction -- The Third Man by Graham Greene. I've never read much detective fiction. It's time.

5. Non-fiction -- Beyond the Aspen Grove by Ann Zwinger. I love nature/environmental non-fiction. And Zwinger has been inexcusably absent from my reading habits. Time to amend that mistake.

6. Drama -- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Never read it or anything else by Stoppard. And this book was given to me by a friend in grad school. Eleven years ago I told him I'd read it. Better late than never.

7. Poetry -- Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. He's a great contemporary American poet. And I've never read a thing he's written.

8. Non-fiction -- Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. Bought it in a used book store for $.75. It looked interesting and the Collins book (above) borrows its title.

9. Poetry -- Selected Poems by Giacomo Leopardi. See the reason posted for the Verlaine selection.

10. Fiction -- The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. A friend told me I should read it. I said "sure". That was four years ago. Another one of those "it's about time" books.

11. Comics -- Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski. Sounds interesting.

[Rores28]

1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
3) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5

4) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5
5) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5

6) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
7) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5

8) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5

9) Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel - 3/5

10) Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - 4.2

11) Yes! - 4.5/5

[TheFifthElement]

1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
3) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5

4) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5
5) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5

6) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
7) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5

8) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5

9) Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel - 3/5

10) Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - 4.2

11) Yes! - 4.5/5

Wow! Congrats Rores, on reaching 11 already. And we're only 7 weeks into the year. Phew. Impressive.

You know that your praise of Grendel is what helped me to make the edits to my list. (I haven't read anything by Gardner either, so his novel Grendel is going edit out one of the works on my list too). Anyway, I thought that to better appreciate Gardner's Grendel I might as well read Beowulf first, since I've long been meaning to read that too.

And oh yeah, Heaney's introduction to the poem is great. It totally made me want to go on a big poetry run.

I hope you enjoy Grendel, Comedian. It is an excellent book. What did you make of Beowulf?

My list updated:
1. Homer - The Odyssey
2. Gabriel Josipovici - Heart's Wings and other stories
3. Linda Grant - We Had It So Good
4. Electric Shadow - Heidi Williamson

Electric Shadow is a collection of poetry. I'm going to write a review, hopefully later in the week. First impression is that Williamson is a fantastic poet, very smooth, very accomplished and interesting to read. She combines poetry with science, mathematics and computer programming, love, loss and grief all in the same, brief, form. It's beautiful stuff. Very impressed indeed. You can read some of her poems here: http://www.heidiwilliamsonpoet.com/poems.html I especially liked Aurora and White and Mobius Strip which is a very clever use of the sestina.

[mal4mac]

Isn't 11 a bit too easy? A.S. Byatt reads one a day when she isn't writing her own...

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

I may now checkoff Chechov, as in Anton Checkhov - "Ward No. 6", "On the Road".
Still working on Cooper, Fleming and just scratching the surface of Dante.


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[kasie]

Isn't 11 a bit too easy? A.S. Byatt reads one a day when she isn't writing her own...

Remember the challenge is to read eleven authors new to you in the year, not just eleven books - that's the equivalent of one new author a month, (you get a month off for Christmas!) leaving the rest of the month to read books by authors with whom you are already acquainted and want to know better.