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.

I also finished The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I'm heading over to start up the group thread now. If you have finished it, please post your thoughts.

Amanda wrote: "I mean, her other big book is called "fingersmith""

And suddenly it dawns on me that I might not be in the same degree of darkness when I read that book.... Picture being painted...

Bucket wrote: "When I'm 70+(2054 and beyond)"

I love that you set these up all the way to 2054 (and beyond.)

Here's to hoping I'm around to actually see you add to this particular post. (I will only be 83 :P)

I hit an interesting milestone today.

With 215 read and one currently reading, I have exactly 1100 on my TBR list...

I noticed that my library had Cataract by Mykhaylo Osadchy. With only 29 ratings and 5 reviews, I just had to get it. Totally coincidental that I'm reading this immediately after In the First Circle, but I am glad that I will have that background.

I finished In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. This would make a great companion piece to Doctor Zhivago.

My "B" category was filled, but I used Dom Casmurro for this one. Set in Brazil.

I finished Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis. Very interesting style. I love reading a book that knows it's a book.

Angie wrote: "In my edition of the book Sarah Waters added an afterword in which she mentions that she found them in dictionaries of historical slang in the 19th c. pornography and added them to conjure up "an antique lesbian lingo"...."

Thank you for adding the bit about the afterword. I didn't have that. That's fun stuff.

Open for discussion

Open for discussion

Started In the First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Our bookshelf contains The First Circle. The difference being that the latter is the original censored version and the former is the uncut version with 200 extra pages.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. Not the easiest read, but when it all comes together its genius is realized. Loved it.

I finished this a little early, and I totally forgot to jump on here when the 15th rolled around.

I love that Nakanisha mentioned the title. I also did not know that it meant that. Before reading, and up until Nancy learned what it meant, I didn't know either. I had assumed it had something to do with the theatre. The velvet curtain... the velvet chairs.... discovering the truth was quite a jaw-dropping moment.

But it really goes along with my biggest thought throughout the whole book. The use of slang and slurs. I found it interesting that Waters used a lot of words that we currently use as slurs against the LGBTQ community, but used them in ways that were either their accepted meaning, or past/present unrelated slang.

Fags = Cigarettes
Gay = Prostitutes
Queer = Strange/Unusual

These words were all over this book but never used the way we hear them used today... for the obvious reason that Waters did an exceptional job making this book sound like it was written in the time period in which it took place. I don't think their use was accidental at all.

I really did enjoy this book. I had no idea where it was going to go. I thought the whole book was going to go where part 1 went. But each part was so different, each part could have been individual novellas even.

Great book. Glad this was picked because it was pretty far down my TBR list before it got voted up.

Barely got started on The Sound and the Fury, then took a trip to the library where I found Dom Casmurro so I started that one too.

Jennifer W wrote: "Sean,I wish you all the luck with Magic Mountain, and may you enjoy it more than I did!"

It took a while, but I just finished The Magic Mountain.

And I think I may have, Jennifer. I may not have understood it all, but I did enjoy the story part of it.

Time to discuss!

Finished Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. More on the group read thread when the time comes.

I had considered using In Search of Lost Time. But went with this month's group read, Tipping the Velvet since the timing fit into my plan of doing one per month.

Nakanisha wrote: "I started Kidnapped last week, but I’m sure I will finish before the 15th… I’m over halfway through now, and am already excited about September’s book. Please forgive the lateness of my comment, I’..."

Welcome Nakanisha! And don't worry about when you finish. We don't mark readers down for tardiness. In fact, within the last month, we have had posts to March's and December's books.

BTW, I am very much enjoying September's book!