slow man by J Coetzee

Hmm, either Never Let Me Go, or Stranger in a Strange Land.

ooo...Never let me go is the next one on my list. =)

Just finished The Vicar of Wakefield. Never Let Me Go was one I enjoyed, found Slow Man a bit harder going.

Book #245 White Noise, Don Delillo

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. On to Gargantua and Pangruel next, taking a quick detour for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha on the way ...

The Sea by John Banville. I give it an "eh."

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble.
Blah-tedious and stuffy.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Somehow rose above the cliche and sterotyping the plot could have easily succumbed to.

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood was the most recent I've read. I just found out about 1001 Books through this site and ran out and got a copy. I have only read 11 of them, a little disappointing after seeing others have read so many. I have about 4 others in my 'to be read' pile beside my bed.

Just finished The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Makes a change to read a book that's completely plot driven.

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, I didn't enjoy the book at all, but finished it. I have the strange need like many people to finish a book once I've started it.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru - I was far from overwhelmed but I see how it could really appeal to some readers.

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

The Adventures of Huck Finn

Vanishing Point by David Markson - probably not for everyone, but I found it immensely satisfying and a terrific departure from traditional prose.

Just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now on to The Sound and the Fury.

Just finished The Blind Assassin by M. Atwood. One of the best things I have read in years. Am working through the delectable Old New York by E. Wharton, which is not on the list. Hypothetically thinking, could we give up a little Joyce Carol Oats and add a few other things? Obviously, the list is the list.

I just finished The Remains of a Day by Ishiguro. Loved it!

Any opinions of Lessing's Martha Quest (Children of Violence series)?
I'm considering reading that next.

Disgrace-J.M. Coetzee
I was continually exasperated by the choices the characters made. Despite this or perhaps because of it, they have definitely stayed with me.
I recommend it as a compelling, thought provoking read.

I am almost finished with Disgrace.
I am still digesting it, so to speak. It is a thought provoking story, no doubt!

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The man of the house, a sci-fi buff, picked it up first and threw it down after 10 pages. I quite liked the first ten pages but became increasingly frustrated by the style as time went on. The story, however, was one of those amazingly prescient social pieces.

I read Their Eyes were Watching God over the weekend. I enjoyed it, but didnt think it was great.

The Master by Colm Toibin - I was more interested in the correct pronunciation of his name than the plot...

Slow Man here I come.

Yelena,
I have Slow Man in my pile of "to reads". Maybe I'll read that one next. I'm curretly reading a off the list book by Kazuo Ishiguro - When We Were Orphans,

This month: The Music of Chance - Paul Auster (really enjoyed this one); Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (wonderful, but not quite as good as The Handmaid's Tale); Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy - Douglas Adams (hilarious, I look forward to more by him); and On The Road - Jack Kerouac (wanted to re-read this one for its 50th anniversary - definitely didn't love it as much as I did 15 years ago when I was still in high school and aching to get out into the world!) Next I'm going to try some Martin Amis.

Barbara, I had 6 hours of plane ride to read, and I chose to read...eek...magazines. So I'm still only a handful of chapters into Slow Man.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland. I read this in high school and didn't like it but I like it a lot better now.

The Shining- Stephen King.
Though it is hard to read without conjuring images of Jack Nicholson, it's still scary and unnerving- a great spooky Halloween read.

Last week it was Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais - very dense, but the sheer exuberance of Rabelais' prose and his anarchic humour makes it worth it - reminded me somewhat of the Maquis de Sade ...

Also put away The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. Loved this, it's absolutely chilling and heartbreaking, and the slow transformation of Francie from Dennis the Menace to Jack the Ripper ... *shiver* Talk about a slow burn. Couldn't sleep all night after I finished this one.

Taking a break to read The Second Sex again, not sure when I'll come back to the list, maybe with Don Quixote which has been sitting on my shelf for months now.

Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans. It's not on the list, but love the author. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to read more my Ishiguro.
I've just started Slow Man.

Slow Man - I'm finding that the 5-star system is wholly inadequate when it comes to rating books. Or perhaps I'm wholly inadequate when it comes to describing how I felt about a book.

I don't think I liked this book, but I read it in its entirety. Is that a 2-star review?

I wanted to see how it ended, but was disappointed with the story throughout. Onto The Red Queen.

The last one I read on this list was Ghost Road by Pat Barker. I liked it quite a bit.

Now I'm reading 3 from the list, Beloved, Independent People and Empire of the Sun. I count about 225 that I've read on it so far. Of course, I disagree with many of the books being on the list, but it has introduced me to some books I hadn't considered before this.

Like the Modern Library list, most of the books are worth reading. I've tried all 100 of the Modern Library list but could only complete about 80 of them, because some I couldn't get into.

Where can I find this Modern Library list?

Meredith,

It's at: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary...

Thanks, Mark - Interesting contrast between the two ML lists - though quite a bit of overlap too. Oddly, perhaps, I've read exactly 15 from each list, not of course precisely the same 15. And I was surprised how many (on both lists) I've seen as movies as well as (or often instead of) reading.

Has anyone/is anyone reading The Red Queen? If so, does anyone have any motivating incentive for me to continue reading it? I'm in 100 pages and, well, I'm not sure I find many redeeming qualities.

Ugh, I finished it but I have to say this was one book that I did not like. It does pick up a bit in the second half when the professor starts reading the queens memoirs on her way to Korea. However,if you are only 100 pages in, you have a long way to go before that happens. Good luck!

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble. Yeah, it didn't get better; it may have gotten worse.

I'm not a steel-toed boot wearing agro-feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but the ladies in this book protested way too much. A woman of intellect, culture and wit spends little time talking about how intelligent, cultured, and witty she is - these things should be self-evident. That the heroines of this novel constantly took such great pains to assure me of their merits rendered them meritless in my mind.

Coupled with their actions which seemed to embody none of the characteristics they prized and claimed as their own and the book simply devolved into one giant mess of hypocrisy.

Didn't mean to get into full review mode here, sorry.

The last book on the list that I finished was Howards End by E.M. Forster. I absolutely adored this book, and can't wait to read other E.M. Forster.

Of course, that was finished about three weeks ago, and have since peppered in about 5 books not on the list... Well, I just discovered it today, so I have an excuse!!

Currently, I'm reading Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. I remember a time when I hated Hardy, until I finished all of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Now, I can't get enough of him!

I just finished Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. I really enjoyed it a lot. The only problem now is that I want to read all the other Sherlock Holmes books and stories.

Currently, I'm working on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Huckleberry Finn is going pretty well, but Les Miserables is stalled for the millionth time. I made the mistake of buying the unabridged version, so it's taking me forever. I keep losing interest in between all the long descriptions and unnecessary details. Still, I will prevail! (Eventually...)

Was nearly finished with Cloud Atlas, and then forgot to pack it. I'm away for a week and realized I had left my next three list selection on my desk. The airport was no help, though I did get Middlesex which I guess I'll start next - then had to settle for 3 non-list books - sigh.

Cloud Atlas (through the penultimate chapter) is terrific. I strongly recommend it!

Tani,
I have had the same trouble with Les Mis. so many times and I truly want to read this book.
And I want to read the unabridged version. Someday, somewhere, it will happen :-)

Barbara,
Best of luck on reading Les Mis. I'm sure you'll be able to do it! And when you do, it'll totally be an accomplishment to be proud of. I know that when I finally finish it, I'm going to brag to everyone I know. ;)

Don DeLillo's "Libra" .

George Elliot's Middlemarch and about to finish Bel Canto. I LOVED Middlemarch and found it to be a revelation. The jury is still out on Bel Canto.

The Picture of Dorian Gray. I liked it. Wilde's prose loses focus at times but overall a good read.

the Looming Tower was a great book - gives you insight into history of how Osama etc corrupted and misrepesented true meaning of Islam, US involvement with various terrorist groups and how CIA/FBI ineptitude and lack of communication increased chances of success of 9/11.

Ijust finished The Shining by Stephen King.