Sean’s Comments (group member since Jan 30, 2019)

Sean’s comments from the Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group.

Nocturnalux wrote: "Can I use a volume in a multi-volume series for this one? Because I've had the entire Sea of Fertility on the shelf for years on end and only read the first two volumes thus far."

I'd say that qualifies!

In Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, there is a female character with a lame leg.

Remarkably, her name is Eugenia.

Becky wrote: "If I can be so informal to refer to Faulkner as Bill (BF) or use my former name (BS) for Saul Bellow or Samuel Beckett. Seems like I should read Beckett since my first name is Becky. Other suggestions?..."

Frances Burney has three books on the list.

Aubrey wrote: "This depends on how willing people are to give up personal info, but perhaps you could read something published the year you were 22."

That works well also. I like it.

Eugene and Eugenics share a common entomology: Ancient Greek for "Good Growth" or "Well-Bred."

Eugenics being the belief that we can create a superior race of humans by selective breeding and eliminating so-called "undesirable" traits.

Eugene Onegin, in addition to the meaning of his first name, is portrayed as selfish and vain. Surely, Pushkin picked this name to express that Onegin was "well-bred."

Also Taylor Swift sings a song called, "22". So anything by Jonathan Swift, Graham Swift, or Elizabeth Taylor.

or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Nine Tailors

Johnny Taylor is a character in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West has a part with a group of wayfarers in which Tarot plays a role.

Alec wrote: "The Kreutzer Sonata seems like the most obvious choice."

The Radetzky March is another obvious choice

February 1, 2019

Not quite 5 years, but I began collecting used copies of list books when I found them cheap. The first unread book I ever got is still unread.

Lord Jim

Missing from the first list and my likely candidate: The Lover

I started 2021 with 179/1318
I am currently at 227/1318
Goal: 229/1318

1/50 - Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett - 1/4/21
2/50 - The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić - 1/5/21
3/50 - Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - 1/13/21
4/50 - Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - 1/14/21
5/50 - The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth - 1/19/21
6/50 - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - 1/21/21
7/50 - Main Street by Sinclair Lewis - 2/5/21
8/50 - Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler - 2/9/21
9/50 - Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg - 2/11/21
10/50 - Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz - 2/17/21
11/50 - Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz - 3/4/21
12/50 - Chess Story by Stefan Zweig - 3/9/21
13/50 - Alamut by Vladimir Bartol - 4/18/21
14/50 - Our Ancestors by Italo Calvino - 4/27/21
15/50 - Legend by David Gemmell - 5/4/21
16/50 - Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary - 5/18/21
17/50 - The Once and Future King by T.H. White - 5/24/21
18/50 - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - 6/22/21
19/50 - Falling Man by Don DeLillo - 6/25/221
20/50 - Choke by Chuck Palahniuk - 6/28/21
21/50 - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - 7/2/21
22/50 - Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories by Flannery O'Connor - 7/8/21
23/50 - In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust - 7/18/21
24/50 - Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey - 7/25/21
25/50 - Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - 7/29/21
26/50 - Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel - 7/31/21
27/50 - Dispatches by Michael Herr - 8/8/21
28/50 - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin - 8/13/21
29/50 - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson - 8/16/21
30/50 - I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - 8/19/21
31/50 - A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz - 8/29/21
32/50 - Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters - 9/8/21
33/50 - The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann - 9/21/21
34/50 - The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - 9/26/21
35/50 - Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis - 10/4/21
36/50 - In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 10/6/21
37/50 - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson - 10/17/21
38/50 - Cataract by Mykhaylo Osadchy - 10/20/21
39/50 - At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien - 10/23/21
40/50 - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - 11/7/21
41/50 - Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy - 11/16/21
42/50 - The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky - 11/24/21
43/50 - Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren - 11/26/21
44/50 - The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa - 11/27/21
45/50 - Persuasion by Jane Austen - 12/01/21
46/50 - The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri - 12/13/21
47/50 - The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard - 12/23/21
48/50 - Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois by Alexandre Dumas - 12/28/21

Dan wrote: "2021 was another good year for knocking off some books from the list. 32 completed which brings my total to 570/1305 (43.7%).

1.) "The Devil's Pool" by George Sand: 3 stars
2.) "Chocky" by John W..."

That's fantastic Dan. And impressive.

You might consider copy and pasting this into the personal list discusstion thread so that you can keep track from year to year.

George P. wrote: "I notice that since task no. 2 requires reading two Boxall books, we need to read a total of 14 Boxall books (unless we "double-dip")."

Since the challenge is to read a book mentioned in another book you have read in 2022, only the book mentioned is the book needed for the challenge. After reading the book doing the mentioning I can still use it for another challenge since it's not really part of this challenge except it must be read in 2022.

Now, if this challenge stated "read a book mentioned in another book you read in 2022 and didn't use for this challenge..." that would be a different story.

At least that's how I'm playing it.

The Namesake mentions Dead Souls. Not surprising since the Namesake is named after Nikolai Gogol.

26/26


A - Axel - Journey to the Center of the Earth - 3/4/22
B - Axel Borg - By the Open Sea - 3/13/22
C - Joseph Conrad - The Rings of Saturn - 2/10/22
D - Owen Dunne - The Art of Fielding - 3/2/22
E - Ellen James - The World According to Garp - 2/15/22
F - Franz - The Unbearable Lightness of Being - 3/19/22
G - Giles Winterbourne - The Woodlanders - 01/17/22
H - Harry Haller - Steppenwolf - 1/27/22
I - Ivan Ilych Golovin - The Death of Ivan Ilych - 1/28/22
J - Jim - Lord Jim - 1/24/22
K - Konrad - Embers - 2/18/22
L - Linda Loring - The Long Goodbye - 1/21/22
M - Michael Campbell - The Sun Also Rises - 3/5/22
N - Ntoni Malavoglia - The House by the Medlar Tree - 3/10/22
O - Oeroeg - Forever a Stranger and Other Stories - 2/13/22
P - Phileas Fogg - Around the World in Eighty Days - 2/23/22
Q - Quincas Borbas - The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
R - Rarau - The Daughter - 3/2/22
S - Stinikov - Fathers and Sons - 2/17/22
T - Francis Marion Tarwater - The Violent Bear It Away - 1/30/22
U - Umbopa - King Solomon's Mines - 1/30/22
V - Venning - Of Human Bondage - 2/9/22
W - Weena - The Time Machine - 2/24/22
X - Xi Qiaomu - Contact -2/2/22
Y - Yanko - A Hero of Our Time - 3/18/22
Z - Zimmerman - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - 3/20/22

Challenge Accepted!

I finished Queen Margot, or Marguerite de Valois for this one.

Alexandre Dumas was descended from an African Slave in Haiti. His Paternal Grandmother.

Donzo!!! This was a lot of fun. Can't wait for the next one to start!

Welcome to the "club" Rahshek'ka. Happy to have you here. We do monthly reads that you are welcome to join and contribute. Hopefully you can also find somebody to buddy read with.