2011 11-Authors Challenge

[Big Dante]

1. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
2. The Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
3. The Invisible Man – H.G Wells
4. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
5. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonneign
6. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
7. 1984 - George Orwell
8. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
9. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
10. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

What will be number 11? I will decide tomorrow.

[KilgoreT]

Updated

1. Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita

2. William Faulkner- 'A Rose for Emily'

3. Voltaire- 'Micromegas'

4. W. Somerset Maughaum- The Moon and Sixpence

5. James Joyce- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

6. Hermann Hesse- Steppenwolf

[Dark Muse]

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.

6. Marguerite Duras: The Ravishing of Lol Stein-9/10

This is a beautifully lyrical, haunting and somewhat bizarre little book which really does provide the reader with a very unique reading experince. I was spellbound by the story as it started to unweave itself.

[Big Dante]

1. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
2. The Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
3. The Invisible Man – H.G Wells
4. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
5. Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonneign
6. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
7. 1984 - George Orwell
8. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
9. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
10. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
11. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

Challenge complete with 7 months to spare.

[KilgoreT]

Updated

1. Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita

2. William Faulkner- 'A Rose for Emily'

3. Voltaire- 'Micromegas'

4. W. Somerset Maughaum- The Moon and Sixpence

5. James Joyce- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

6. Hermann Hesse- Steppenwolf

7. Kazuo Ishiguro- An Artist of the Floating World

[TheFifthElement]

I've done my 11, but I'm still going. Some extras:

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
5. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
6. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
7. Abigail's Party - Mike Leigh
8. Hay Fever - Noel Coward
9. Talking Heads 2 - Alan Bennett
10. Hitting Town - Stephen Poliakoff
11. The Burial at Thebes - Sophocles (Antigone - translated by Seamus Heaney).
12. The Immoralist - Andre Gide
13. Boy Meets Girl - Ali Smith

The Immoralist I didn't really enjoy, though it hasn't put me off reading more by Andre Gide. What I didn't like about it was the approach - there was too much 'telling' involved in giving the protagonist's viewpoint and despite this they still came across as quite two dimensional and without depth. As regards the other characters they were even more two dimensional, which is probably right if taken from the perspective of this particular protagonist who lacked depth and his interest in other people was at best superficial. So I'd say it was a well written book, quite clever really, but because I didn't feel any connection to the protagonist (and that doesn't mean I have to like him because I'm not too bothered by that, but rather that there was nothing to connect to) it wasn't an enjoyable read.

Boy Meets Girl on the other hand was a really enjoyable read. I found it a little difficult to get into at first, but soon found myself carried away and my conclusion is that it's a beautiful little book. It's part of the 'Canongate Myths' series where contemporary writers take a well known myth and give it their own twist - this was a reimagining of the tale of Iphis and Ianthe from Ovid's Metamorphoses. I'd now like to read the original, so don't be surprised if I add Ovid to the list some time later this year

[Veho]

Update:

1) D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover. I liked it very much, a flaw would be its repetitiveness, however it's a flaw that doesn't affect my appreciation of the book and the ideas that are narrated. 8.5/10

2) Caryl Churchill, Top Girls. An interesting feminist play, slightly disjointed but worth the read. 5.5/10

3) Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. Mixed feelings - the story kept me enthralled but I never really felt a connection towards the characters. 7/10

4) Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca. Good plot, although fairy predictable; nice descriptions of Manderley; good read overall. 7/10

5) Seamus Heaney/Sophocles, The Burial at Thebes, Sophocles' Antigone. Excellent; first thing I've read of this type of literature and I'll be reading more. 8.5/10

6) Daniel Defoe, Roxana. 7/10

7) Franz Kafka, The Trial. 6.8/10

[KilgoreT]

Updated

1. Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita

2. William Faulkner- 'A Rose for Emily'

3. Voltaire- 'Micromegas'

4. W. Somerset Maughaum- The Moon and Sixpence

5. James Joyce- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

6. Hermann Hesse- Steppenwolf

7. Kazuo Ishiguro- An Artist of the Floating World

8. Gordon Mathieson- Hook Island

[Veho]

Update:

1) D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover. I liked it very much, a flaw would be its repetitiveness, however it's a flaw that doesn't affect my appreciation of the book and the ideas that are narrated. 8.5/10

2) Caryl Churchill, Top Girls. An interesting feminist play, slightly disjointed but worth the read. 5.5/10

3) Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. Mixed feelings - the story kept me enthralled but I never really felt a connection towards the characters. 7/10

4) Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca. Good plot, although fairy predictable; nice descriptions of Manderley; good read overall. 7/10

5) Seamus Heaney/Sophocles, The Burial at Thebes, Sophocles' Antigone. Excellent; first thing I've read of this type of literature and I'll be reading more. 8.5/10

6) Daniel Defoe, Roxana. 7/10

7) Franz Kafka, The Trial. 6.8/10

8) Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides. 7.5/10

[manolia]

Update

1."Swann's way" by Proust 10/10
2.Checkov's short story collection 10/10
3."The red and the black" by Stendhal 8/10

4."All quiet on the western front" by E.M Remarque 10/10 (loved it)
5."The member of the wedding" by Carson McCullers 6/10

6."The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair 7/10 (liked it but thought it was a bit repetitive)
7."Lisa of Lambeth" by W. Somerset Maugham 9/10

8."Never let me go" by Kazuo Ishiguro 9/10 (I liked it very much although i'd like it even more if the author had made a more powerful comment about the society he describes, instead of just describing it)

9."The wind-up bird chronicle" by Haruki Murakami 9/10 (Very interesting and Lynch-like book but a bit repetitive in some parts hence the 9)

The Remains of the Day is really, really good.

Thanks Fifth! Will do!

[Dark Muse]

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.

6. Marguerite Duras: The Ravishing of Lol Stein-9/10

This is a beautifully lyrical, haunting and somewhat bizarre little book which really does provide the reader with a very unique reading experince. I was spellbound by the story as it started to unweave itself.

7. Hillary Mantel: Wolf Hall-8/10

I love historical fiction, and only recently started really getting into Tudor history and this book was all the rave and very hyped up. I have to say I have rather mixed feelings about it. I was not quite as blown away by it as I would have expected from everything I heard, yet I cannot say that I found it to be a disappointment either. It did have its interesting points and I liked the perspective for the story, telling it from Cromwell's point of view which I thought was quite a unique way to approach the story. But I did not altogether agree with the way in which she went about trying to portray Cromwell as a sympathetic character, as I think there was a heavy author bias in the story. Also I did not care that much for the narration style of the book which at times was difficult to follow, confusing, and for me failed to truly explore the depths of the characters so that I never really got completely drawn into the story.

8. Michel Faber: The Crimson Petal and the White -8/10

An exploration behind the veneer of the Victorian age, and most particularly focuses upon the issue of prostitution of that time, and with the freedom of the modern age explores into the subject of the sexual oppression which bred hypocrisies and depravity and addresses the way in which in many ways both men and women were victims of the age.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Recently finished The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset Maugham.
Prior to that:
Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans"
Ian Fleming's "Goldfinger"
Anton Checkhov's "Ward No 6" and "On the Road".

Still making my way through the "Inferno" and Cicero's "On Moral Duties"

.

[Venerable Bede]

For this summer I have a lot of authors lined up to read that I haven't read before. So far:

1. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness

2. Stephen Lawhead - Hood

3. Jane Austen - Emma

4. Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

5. Mark Twain - Adventures of Tom Sawyer

6. Cormac McCarthy - The Road

Up next I will be reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose

[stlukesguild]

Now this would surely be a challenge for me. Eleven different authors by whom I have yet to have read anything before. But I think I shall give this a try. Right next to me a see what might be a first book of choice, Pierre Cornielle's The Theater of Illusion. After that...? I'll need to carefully browse my shelves in search of someone by whom I've yet to read anything... and yet someone by whom I want to read something. A challenge, indeed!

[Drkshadow03]

Now this would surely be a challenge for me. Eleven different authors by whom I have yet to have read anything before. But I think I shall give this a try. Right next to me a see what might be a first book of choice, Pierre Cornielle's The Theater of Illusion. After that...? I'll need to carefully browse my shelves in search of someone by whom I've yet to read anything... and yet someone by whom I want to read something. A challenge, indeed!

Have you read any Kelly Link?