2011 11-Authors Challenge

[KilgoreT]

This is a great idea. My list:

1. Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita

2. William Faulkner- "A Rose for Emily"- short story, I also plan on reading at least one of his novels this year.

This is going slower than I expected. Everything I've read is by an author I have read at least one work by. Last year would have been a cinch for me, I read so many new authors in 2010.

[the facade]

Great idea! I myself am guilty of sticking to author's I like and am familiar with and avoiding venturing with others.

1. Lord of the Barnyard - Tristan Egolf

His writing style is unconventional to some degree and the language is very rich and almost always original. I didn't like how it was structured though and the hero, who is delightfully engaging, gradually subsides from the story.

From now on I'll only be able to read the required reading for my courses. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Rores28]

I'm gonna go for 11 Non-fiction and 11 Fiction

Fiction
1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5
3) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5
4) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5
5) Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - 4.2/5

Non-fiction
1) Yes! - 4.5/5
2) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
3) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5
4) Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel - 3/5
5) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
6) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5

7)Neuroscience and Philosophy - Maxwell Bennet 2.5/5


**Currently Reading The Aeneid, The Selfish Gene, and What Would Google Do?**

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

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.

Update: Dante's Inferno: 5/5. Loved it. Can't say I understood all of it, though I didn't want to at this point. Just read it to enjoy it. I really liked the Hollanders' translation, and the notes were very good and thorough, though I skimmed a lot of them. Looking forward to the rest of Dante's Commedia.

[Rores28]

Update: Dante's Inferno: 5/5. Loved it. Can't say I understood all of it, though I didn't want to at this point. Just read it to enjoy it. I really liked the Hollanders' translation, and the notes were very good and thorough, though I skimmed a lot of them. Looking forward to the rest of Dante's Commedia.

So would you recommend the Hollanders translation... there are so many translations that I usually get discouraged and buy something else...and I want to read it right after I'm done reading the Aeneid. Thanks!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

So would you recommend the Hollanders translation... there are so many translations that I usually get discouraged and buy something else...and I want to read it right after I'm done reading the Aeneid. Thanks!

I would. The poem itself is very good--easy to read and understand (at least, understanding in the sense of the physical action of the poem) while retaining that poetic feel. Like I said, the notes are very though--almost too thorough for my tastes. When I read something for pleasure, like I did with Inferno, I'm not looking to know everything down to the most minor political allusion, which the notes do provide. Plus, the authors reference other books a lot (i.e., "If you want to know about ______, read so-and-so) which can be annoying if you do want to know more about a particular part of the poem. Like I said, I skimmed much of them. I guess another downside to all the notes (which averaged about about five pages per canto--just as much, if not more, of the book is comprised of notes as it is poem) is that it makes the book bulkier. Inferno is about 650 pages, while Purgatorio is 800, and Paradiso over a thousand I think, so that one will be very cumbersome.

Anyways, even with what I mentioned, I would recommend it. I've bought the Hollander translations of Purgatorio and Paradiso, so it was good enough to stick with their translation.

[Scheherazade]

Update:

1. Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger) - 9/10 KitKats! Would have been 10 but I really wished the book was a little longer. Loved every single page of it.

2. Barbara Vine (A Dark Adapted Eye) - 8/10 A murder/mystery written superbly. What made the story even more interesting to me is the fact that the main characters involved are female and story's told by a female narrator too. Hard to put it down.

3. Muriel Spark (Aiding and Abetting) 7/10 Had no idea what to expect before starting this book and was not familiar with the Lord Lucan affair so it was a very engaging read..

4. John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffids) - 8/10 An excellent sci-fi. Even though this is not a genre I am particularly keen on, Wyndham manages to go beyond the usual and offers more questions than answers. Reminded me of Huxley's books in some ways.

[Drkshadow03]

Update:

1. Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger) - 9/10 KitKats! Would have been 10 but I really wished the book was a little longer. Loved every single page of it.

Heh. I usually wish the opposite with half the books I read. I always feel they go on for just a tad too many pages.

[The Comedian]

Another update.

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. [edit] Fiction -- Grendel by John Gardner. Check! 4/5. I've read Fifth's praise of this book for a while. And, since I've also wanted to read Beowulf for the longest time, I thought I'd pair these two up. To this text -- I really enjoyed Grendel especially as a book that dialogues Beowulf. It was over-written in spot, which detracted from my overall rating.

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

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

1. 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.
   
2. Cervantes' Don Quixote: 4/5, for what I've read so far of what I've read so far.
   
3. 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.
   
4. Frank's Alas, Babylon: 4.5/5. A few minor gripes kept this from getting a perfect rating.
   
5. Dante's Inferno: 5/5. Loved it. Can't say I understood all of it, though I didn't want to at this point. Just read it to enjoy it. I really liked the Hollanders' translation, and the notes were very good and thorough, though I skimmed a lot of them. Looking forward to the rest of Dante's Commedia.
   
6. Update Tad Williams' War of the Flowers. 3/5. (read my super-exciting review here!)

[IceM]

For this challenge I've completed two different works this year.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. 8.5/10
The Great Gatsby 8/10

Also add Things Fall Apart from Chinua Achebe 7/10
And The Road by Cormac McCarthy 6.5/10

That has me for four in two months. I can't stop reading the authors I'm already used to.

[Rores28]

For this challenge I've completed two different works this year.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. 8.5/10
The Great Gatsby 8/10

Also add Things Fall Apart from Chinua Achebe 7/10
And The Road by Cormac McCarthy 6.5/10

That has me for four in two months. I can't stop reading the authors I'm already used to.

What are some books that you consider 10/10?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

What are some books that you consider 10/10?

I was wondering the same thing. The Great Gatsby a 8/10? Just curious.

[Rores28]

Fiction
1) Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 3.7/5
2) Night - Elie Wiesel 3.9/5
3) The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison - 4.2/5
4) Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut - 3.8/5
5) Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - 4.2/5

6) The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler - 2.0/5

Non-fiction
1) Yes! - 4.5/5
2) Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler - 3.8/5
3) Borges in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern - 2.5/5
4) Six Pixels of Separation - Mitch Joel - 3/5
5) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman 3/5
6) The Truth about the Drugs Comapnies - Marcia Angell 4/5
7)Neuroscience and Philosophy - Maxwell Bennet 2.5/5


**Currently Reading The Aeneid, The Selfish Gene, and What Would Google Do?**

[Dark Muse]

I just finished my first book for the challenge.

1.China Miéville: The City & The City - 9/10

At first I was a bit reluctant to read this book because the main focus of the plot revolved around a detective solving a murder, and in general I do not read crime fiction and detective novels, but I love surrealism and alternative realities so I was really intrigued by the concept of these two different cities coexisisting within the same location.

Over all I really enjoyed this book, though I do have some mixed feelings about certain aspects of it. On the one hand I found the realistic approach the author took to the concept was an interesting one, and the way in which it was an examination of urban life, society, politics, and so forth. On the other hand I have to admit a part of me was hoping for a bit more "fantastic" moments and perhaps hoping that it would bend the bonds of reality even further than it did.

2. H.G. Wells: The Time Machine - 9/10

Generally I am not really into sci-fi but I figured Wells is a classic, so I should give him a try and all in all I ended up quite enjoying this book. I did find that it was a bit slow at the start, but once he actually began to travel back into time and was telling of his adventures it really picked up. I have always liked those kind of adventure stories which involve traveling to strange new places and encounters with strange and new creatures/people.

3. Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie -10/10

I was a bit daunted by the size of this book but once I started reading it, it actually went by rather quickly. I found it to be quite an interesting story and I really enjoyed reading it. I really liked Dreiser's style of writing and the complexity of his characters. This really makes me want to read an American Tragedy now.

4. Nevil Shute: A Town Like Alice -9/10

Since I have posted an official review for this one I will try not to repeat myself too much again here. Only say that this book took me by surprise. I liked it a good deal more than I thought I would. I loved the narrative style and I found the story engaging to read and I loved the characters.

5. David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet -8/10

It starts out really slowly, though I did enjoy the history of the book as it is about the Dutch Trading company in Japan, which was quite interesting, because of the isolation laws of Japan there was this man made island built called Dejima which is where the traders were housed because they were not allowed to enter the country. But the first half of the book was a bit tedious to read, but it did begin to really pick up once you got into and the story took off and overall I quite enjoyed it.