Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

I am really going to hate myself for doing this, and I know you will too, but... here I'm doing it anyway. There's a list floating out there called: Books you should read if you want to consider yourself well-read. I don't know who compiled it, and I don't care, because it puts 1001 you must blah blah in the shade. Enjoy, me hearties! Har har har - I present to you.... THE BOOK LIST to top all book lists!!!

1. Abbot, Edwin – Flatland
2. Abbott, John – Kit Carson
3. Abe, Kobo – The Face of Another
4. Abelard, Peter – The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
5. About, Edmond – The King of the Mountains
6. Achebe, Chinua – Arrow of God
7. Achebe, Chinua – Things Fall Apart
8. Achebe, Chinua – Anthills of the Savannah
9. Acker, Kathy – Blood and Guts in High School
10. Ackroyd, Peter - Hawksmoor
11. Ackroyd, Peter – The House of Doctor Dee
12. Ackroyd, Peter – The Lambs of London
13. Adams, Abigail & John Adams – The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
14. Adams, Douglas – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
15. Adams, Douglas – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
16. Adams, Douglas – The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
17. Adams, Henry – Esther
18. Adams, Henry – Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
19. Adams, John – The Portable John Adams
20. Adams, Richard – Watership Down
21. Adomnan of Iona – The Life of St. Columba
22. Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound
23. Aeschylus – The Oresteia
24. Aesop – The Complete Fables
25. Agee, James – A Death in the Family
26. Ageyev, M. – Novel with Cocaine
27. Ahn, Junghyo – Silver Stallion
28. Akhmatova, Anna – Selected Poems
29. Alan-Fournier, Henri – Le Grand Meaulnes
30. Alberti, Leon Battista – On Painting
31. Alcott, Louisa May – The Inheritance
32. Alcott, Louisa May – Work
33. Aldington, Richard – Death of a Hero
34. Aldiss, Brian W – Non-Stop
35. Alger Jr., Horatio – Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward
36. Algren, Nelson – The Man with the Golden Arm
37. Alighieri, Dante – La Vita Nuova
38. Alighieri, Dante – The Divine Comedy
39. Allain, Marcel & Pierre Souvestre – Fantomas
40. Allende, Isabel – The House of the Spirits
41. Amado, Jorge – Tent of Miracles
42. Ambler, Eric – Cause for Alarm
43. Ambler, Eric – Epitaph for a Spy
44. Ambler, Eric – Journey into Fear
45. Ambler, Eric – The Mask of Dimitrios
46. Amis, Kingsley – Lucky Jim
47. Amis, Kingsley – The Green Man
48. Amis, Kingsley – The Old Devils
49. Amis, Martin – Dead Babies
50. Amis, Martin – London Fields
51. Amis, Martin – Money: A Suicide Note
52. Amis, Martin – The Information
53. Amis, Martin – Time’s Arrow
54. Anand, Mulk Raj – Untouchable
55. Anderson, Hans Christian – Fairy Tales and Stories
56. Anderson, Sherwood – Winesburg, Ohio
57. Andri, Ivo – The Bridge of the Drina
58. Angelou, Maya – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
59. Anonymous – Alfred the Great
60. Anonymous – Beowulf
61. Anonymous – Buddhist Scriptures
62. Anonymous – Davy Crockett
63. Anonymous – Egil’s Saga
64. Anonymous – Hindu Myths
65. Anonymous – Hrafnkel’s Saga and Other Icelandic Stories
66. Anonymous – Krishna: The Beautiful Legend of God
67. Anonymous – Laxdaela Saga
68. Anonymous – Lazarillo De Tormes and the Swindler
69. Anonymous – Lives of the Later Caesars
70. Anonymous – Mahabharata
71. Anonymous – Njal’s Saga
72. Anonymous – Orkneyinga Saga
73. Anonymous – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
74. Anonymous – Speaking of Siva
75. Anonymous – Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung
76. Anonymous – The Bhagavad Gita
77. Anonymous – The Bible
78. Anonymous – The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works
79. Anonymous – The Dhammapada
80. Anonymous – The Epic of Gilgamesh
81. Anonymous – The Koran
82. Anonymous – The Laws of Manu
83. Anonymous – The Mabinogion
84. Anonymous – The Nibelungenlied
85. Anonymous – The Poem of the Cid
86. Anonymous – The Quest of the Holy Grail
87. Anonymous – The Ramayana
88. Anonymous – The Rig Veda
89. Anonymous – The Saga of Volsungs
90. Anonymous – The Song of Roland
91. Anonymous – The Thousand and One Nights
92. Anonymous – The Torah
93. Anonymous – The Vinland Sagas
94. Antin, Mary – The Promised Land
95. Apollonius of Rhodes – The Voyage of Argo
96. Appian – The Civil Wars
97. Apuleius, Lucius – The Golden Ass
98. Aquinas, Thomas – Selected Writings
99. Arbuthnot, J., Gay, J., Parnell, T., Pope, A., Swift, J. – Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus
100. Archer, Jeffrey – Kane and Abel
101. Arendt, Hannah – Between Past and Future
102. Arendt, Hannah – Eichmann in Jerusalem
103. Arendt, Hannah – On Revolution
104. Arendt, Hannah – The Portable Hannah Arendt
105. Ariosto, Ludovico – Orlando Furioso: Part I
106. Aristophanes – Lysistrata
107. Aristophanes – Poetics
108. Aristophanes – The Birds
109. Aristophanes – The Frogs
110. Aristotle – De Anima
111. Aristotle – Nichomachean Ethics
112. Aristotle – The Art of Rhetoric
113. Aristotle – The Athenian Constitution
114. Aristotle – The Metaphysics
115. Aristotle – The Politics
116. Arlen, Michael – The Green Hat
117. Arrian – The Campaigns of Alexander
118. Asimov, Isaac – Foundation
119. Asimov, Isaac – I, Robot
120. Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado de – Dom Casmurro Jaoquim
121. Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado de – The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
122. Atkinson, Kate – Behind the Scenes at the Museum
123. Attar, Farid-Ud-Din – The Conference of the Birds
124. Atwood, Margaret – Alias Grace
125. Atwood, Margaret – Cat’s Eye
126. Atwood, Margaret - Surfacing
127. Atwood, Margaret – The Blind Assassin
128. Atwood, Margaret – The Handmaid’s Tale
129. Atwood, Margaret – The Robber Bride
130. Auel, Jean – The Clan of the Cave Bear
131. Augustine of Hippo – City of God
132. Augustine of Hippo – Confessions
133. Aurelius, Marcus – Meditations
134. Austen, Jane – Emma
135. Austen, Jane – Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sandition
136. Austen, Jane – Mansfield Park
137. Austen, Jane – Persuasion
138. Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
139. Austen, Jane – Sense and Sensibility
140. Auster, Paul – Moon Palace
141. Auster, Paul – Mr. Vertigo
142. Auster, Paul – The Book of Illusions
143. Auster, Paul – The Music of Chance
144. Auster, Paul – The New York Trilogy
145. Auster, Paul – Timbuktu
146. Auster, Paul – In the Country of Last Things
147. Avila, Teresa of – The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila
148. B, David - Epileptic
149. Babel, Isaac – Collected Stories
150. Bacon, Francis – The Essays
151. Bainbridge, Beryl - According to Queeney
152. Bainbridge, Beryl - The Bottle Factory Outing
153. Bainbridge, Beryl – Master Georgie
154. Bakeless, John – Daniel Boone (1939)
155. Baker, Nicholson – Room Temperature
156. Balchin, Nigel – Darkness Fall from the Air
157. Baldwin, James – Giovanni’s Room
158. Baldwin, James – Go Tell It on the Mountain
159. Ballard, J.G. – Cocaine Nights
160. Ballard, J.G. - Crash
161. Ballard, J.G. – Empire of the Sun
162. Ballard, J.G. – High Rise
163. Ballard, J.G. – Super-Cannes
164. Ballard, J.G. – The Atrocity Exhibition
165. Ballard, J.G. – The Drowned World
166. Ballard, J.G. – Millenium People
167. Balzac, Honore de – A Harlot High and Low
168. Balzac, Honore de – Cousin Bette
169. Balzac, Honore de – Cousin Pons
170. Balzac, Honore de – Eugenie Grandet
171. Balzac, Honore de – History of the Thirteen
172. Balzac, Honore de – Le Pere Goriot
173. Balzac, Honore de – Lost Illusions
174. Balzac, Honore de – Old Goriot
175. Balzac, Honore de – Selected Short Stories
176. Balzac, Honore de – The Black Sheep
177. Balzac, Honore de – The Wild Ass’ Skin
178. Banffy, Miklos – They Were Counted
179. Banks, Iain – Complicity
180. Banks, Iain – Dead Air

Challenge here: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Challenge here: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Yes, certainly, I think many of his ideas are good, that's why I feel so frustrated at the garbled execution. I agree also with his sentiment that we should keep history in mind so that we can learn from it, though that is of course not a new idea.

To give him credit, I also liked this:

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted.

Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away."

(Though also not something new, it's still nice and worthy of remembering.)

Some of the other lists we found are more varied, if you're interested in looking at them. (Like Le Monde and Bowie)

Link to challenge here: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Karin wrote: "I've only read 85; looks like I need to get reading! Yay! I absolutely love this challenge! Can I share it with my book club? :)"

Sure, we don't have copyright over it, but we're about to create a challenge for it on this group as well, so it would be nice if you joined it! I'll post a link once done.

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "As for the 1001 books I must read before I die, I'm stopping at 1000. Take that, man with the scythe!.."
Very clever ruse, to leave one out, BUT WHICH ONE???? :o

Ruth wrote: "How did I miss the Bowie and Le Monde? I don't see it here or on the previous page..."

We might have added them in the meantime. Get an overview here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Whitney wrote: "There's no shortage of those complaining about how these kids today are lazy and won't amount to anything, I demand more of a defense!..."

No worries, Madame Whitney, I shall honor thy challenge in due course, one way or t'other! ;) The weight of the challenge rests heavily upon my soul.

Okay, let's decide on 3. I vote for the David Bowie, Le Monde and Gilmore. Anybody second me on that?

the gift wrote: "go ahead I have no idea how to do so that does not require a lt of typing!"

Ha, no problem, I will link to it once done. It's those things that appear on the front of the group, so we might want to limit their number. (I'll walk you through it once done). How about I do the David Bowie one and at least one other one - which shall it be - Le Monde or Gilmore or perhaps both?

Shame on you, Derek, why have you not made all of the books linkable, hmmm?
XD

I like the eclecticism of this mix. A bit of everything. B-)

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "She exists to be special and wake Montag up. I found her mostly insufferable, and his interactions with her also served to highlight the fact that Montag was also written as special with no plausible reason why this should be so.)."

Yes, this. I love the "special' thing, Exactly, nail on the head. I don't mind special so much, as with Harry Potter, whom you expected to be special, because, you know, the scar on his head, and fantasy wish-fulfilment genre, etc. Like I said in an earlier post, we are given -some- of why Clarisse is special, though, -honestly- "because I was punished when I needed it" ??? Yuck.

But why is Montag special?

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "I'd like to ask that anybody who adds to the LISTZS please say where they came from? What's a Rory Gilmore challenge? Radcliffe's rivals?

As for the 1001 books I must read before I die, I'm stopp..."

Ah, yes, good point. Will do.

1. The Adventures of Augie March (1953) by Saul Bellow
2. All The King's Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren
3. American Pastoral (1997) by Philip Roth
4. An American Tragedy (1925) by Theodore Dreiser
5. Animal Farm (1946) by George Orwell
6. Appointment in Samarra (1934) John O'Hara
7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970) by Judy Blume
8. The Assistant (1957) by Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds (1938) by Flann O'Brien
10. Atonement (2002) by Ian McEwan
11. Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison
12. The Berlin Stories (1946) by Christopher Isherwood
13. The Big Sleep (1939) by Ramond Chandler
14. The Blind Assassin (2000) by Margaret Atwood
15. Blood Meridian (1986) by Cormac McCarthy
16. Brideshead Revisited (1946) by Evelyn Waugh
17. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) by Thornton Wilder
18. Call It Sleep (1935) by Henry Roth
19. Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
20. The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger
21. A Clockwork Orange (1963) by Anthony Burgess
22. The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) by William Styron
23. The Corrections (2001) by Jonathan Franzen
24. The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) by Thomas Pynchon
25. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951) by Anthony Powell
26. The Day of the Locust (1939) by Nathanael West
27. Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
28. A Death in the Family (1958) by James Agee
29. The Death of the Heart (1958) by Elizabeth Bowen
30. Deliverance (1970) by James Dickey
31. Dog Soldiers (1974) by Robert Stone
32. Falconer (1977) John Cheever
33. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles
34. The Golden Notebook (1962) by Doris Lessing
35. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) by James Baldwin
36. Gone With the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell
37. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
38. Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
39. The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald
40. A Handful of Dust (1034) by Evelyn Waugh
41. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers
42. The Heart of the Matter (1948) by Graham Greene
43. Herzog (1964) by Saul Bellow
44. Housekeeping (1981) by Marilynne Robinson
45. A House for Mr. Biswas (1962) by V.S. Naipaul
46. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves
47. Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace
48. Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison
49. Light in August (1932) by William Faulkner
50. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C.S. Lewis
51. Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov
52. Lord of the Flies (1955) by William Golding
53. The Lord of the Rings (1954) by J.R.R. Tolkien
54. Loving (1945) by Henry Green
55. Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis
56. The Man Who Loved Children (1940) by Christina Stead
57. Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie
58. Money (1984) by Martin Amis
59. The Moviegoer (1961) by Walker Percy
60. Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf
61. Naked Lunch (1959) by William Burroughs
62. Native Son (1940) by Richard Wright
63. Neromancer (1984) by William Gibson
64. Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro
65. 1984 (1948) by George Orwell
66. On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac
67. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey
68. The Painted Bird (1965) by Jerzy Kosinksi
69. Pale Fire (1962) by Vladimir Nabokov
70. A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster
71. Play It As It Lays (1970) by Joan Didion
72. Portnoy's Complaint (1969) by Philip Roth
73. Possession (1990) by A.S. Byatt
74. The Power and the Glory 91939) by Graham Greene
75. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) by Muriel Spark
76. Rabbit, Run (1960) by John Updike
77. Ragtime (1975) by E.L. Doctorow
78. The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis
79. Red Harvest (1929) by Dashiell Hammett
80. Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates
81. The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles
82. Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
83. Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson
84. The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) by John Barth
85. The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner
86. The Sportswriter (1986) by Richard Ford
87. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1964) by John le Carre
88. The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemmingway
89. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston
90. Things Fall Apart (1959) by Chinua Achebe
91. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee
92. To The Lighthouse (1927) by Virgina Woolf
93. Tropic of Cancer (1934) by Henry Miller
94. Ubik (1969) by Philip K. Dick
95. Under the Net (1954) by Iris Murdoch
96. Under the Volcano (1947) by Malcom Lowry
97. Watchmen (1986) by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
98. White Noise (1985) by Don Delillo
99. White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith
100. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys

Whitney wrote: "I’m going to directly challenge this point. Technology wasn’t his interest, I quoted him in a different discussion as saying “"I don't try to describe the future, I try to prevent it". But as for his main themes, where are the examples of popular stories prior to 1953 that had already made the same points about the dangers of neglecting the imagination and avoiding things we find upsetting or challenging? ..."

In fact, I could cite C.S Lewis right now off the top of my head, but I'd have to make sure exactly when he published what, since he was a contemporary of Bradbury's and come to think of it also shared some of his sentiments.
Actually, maybe even Lord Dunsany, but once again, I'll investigate properly and prepare my case before I return. :)
Well, actually Socrates definitely predates Bradbury, so maybe I'll take him.

Whitney wrote: "Traveller wrote: "In Fahrenheit, there is nothing new, nothing interesting either technologically or in any other respect either..."

I’m going to directly challenge this point. Technology wasn’t h..."

I shall take up the challenge, madame, and I shall return to the duelling ground before/by the end of the week with new ammunition, or with a white handkerchief, as the case might turn out to be. ;) (Just really need to catch up with other books for this group and another group where I'm committed.)

Oh, but yes, I had wanted to mention that I had read and enjoyed some of Bradbury's short stories. Much richer and more imaginative than this work, for the most part.

Bradbury's politics aside, I honestly did not find this a well-written book, for reasons mentioned which I shall gather up a bit more coherently and plunk out in the form of a review.

I've been wanting to mention also, that if this is supposed to be an anti-war war book, I found a book like Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut much better in this regard.

Also The Railway Man by Eric Lomax and The Reader by Bernhard Schlink . I must still get to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Oh, and another book that Fahrenheit reminded me I still want to read, is Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.

the gift wrote: "90 read"
I think that's an excellent excuse to make a challenge for this one! *applause*