Ph's comments (member since Sep 20, 2007)

Ph's comments from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.

What surprises me about almost this entire thread, is that very few people have commented about how poorly written these books are. Leaving what plot there is aside, leaving aside the co-dependency, and the fact that all but one of the characters is static, it's so badly written.

It took me a year to read the first three because I couldn't bring myself to read something that lacked any real writing talent...that, and every time I read a sentence it stopped me because of the horrible syntax. I'm thankful that I read them because I can mention them in class as all my students have read them.

If you haven't read them...I wouldn't recommend starting them or you're just dooming yourself to a slow, painful existence.

I've searched everywhere for the Taebeck Mountains and haven't found it anywhere other than Korean. Now, this was a year ago, so there may not have been anything related to the French version coming up.

I finished it about a year ago. Um...how do I put this? I found it very boring. I had no interest in her life or her repairing of herself after her husband's death.

And I also didn't understand the "old kid" that randomly appeared in her house...maybe I was just too bored to care...

I love Dickens, my only problem with him is that he was paid by the word and wrote serial novels. This causes a lot of his books to drag on into unnecessary directions. For example, Hard Times was good, but it was far longer than it needed to be. Same with Oliver Twist...and, while I haven't read A Tale of Two Cities in a while, I'm guessing that it's the same way.

That having been said, I truly do love his language, characterizations and plots.

What book I've hated...

"The Body Artist"

I either didn't get something, or it really was the worst book I've ever read in my life. What little conversations they had were almost so trite that they were unbelievable. Her reaction to her husbands death, I don't know, I didn't buy it. I just had no real interest in the character and in a character driven story, that makes the rest of it really tough to get into.

like has been said multiple times in various posts, a list is bound to disagree with people. for instance, why include a ten book epic series of the history of Korea that is only available in Korean? that doesn't seem fair...

i also agree with the large chunks of books by the same author. in some cases it is acceptable, though i think rarely to the extent that it was done. for example, hard times by dickens is hardly a phenomenal novel (in my humble opinion) nor does it hold a vital aspect of literary history. there are more, but i'm not going to run through them all.

i think that the diary of anne frank, night, tom sawyer, the choice for willa cather, pearl buck, etc were all big surprises. now, anne frank and night i can be lenient with given that they are "memoirs" and not necessarily fiction (but then neither is a modest proposal). tom sawyer isn't twain's best book, but it certainly is one of the most well known and read by all ages.

so again, it's a list, and up to the list makers to make the decision.

i agree with that, it was very engaging and well written. i'm just slightly confounded by the number of people that label it as one of the greatest books ever.

Has anyone completed Cloud Atlas? If so, I was curious what you thought. Everyone on goodreads has basically said it was the greatest book that they've ever read. I'm curious if everyone on here agrees.

once i add them all to my own account i'm going export them and then import them into the group account...hopefully it will be a slow couple of weeks at work so i can finish it.

At people's request, I've uploaded the list to a Google Document, which everyone should be able to view.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p...

You might also be able to import it for your own use...but I don't really know the limitations of the program.

sure. What I'm thinking of doing, is once I add them all, I'll just export them to my computer and then reimport them into the group's reading list, which, hopefully, will work.

I have a spreadsheet that has it alphabetical based on how you want it...I've added filters and things of those nature to make it easy.

I would recommend the book simply because it has why these books were chosen. Also Huck Finn is on the list, but Tom Sawyer isn't. Which is accurate, I think, since Huck Finn, while not the most well read of the two, is a much better book.

Thank you all for your help. I'm not sure if there is an easy way to transfer all the books to your own account. You could always flip through my shelves and it, but that's not much better than just doing it yourself...I have no problem with people taking it, though.

I was also having trouble finding Trawl by B.S. Johnson. Any suggestions?

Farewell to Arms...For Whom The Bell Tolls it wasn't, but it was ok.

So I'm bored at work and in the process of trying to add all 1001 books to my goodreads shelves. I came across a problem: Disobedience by Alberto Moravia. I can't find any where, even on Amazon. Is it possible that Alberto Moravia is not actually the author of this book or it has not been translated?

I'm basing this on another list since I can't really carrying my 1001 Books book around with me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.