Which LIST book did you just finish? Showing 6,451-6,500 of 10,248

[Sean]

Finished my re-read of George Orwell's 1984.

[Bob]

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburō Ōe

[Diane]

Watt by Samuel Beckett.

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

I had a hard time with that one. I can't say I got much out of it.

[Sean]

Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "I had a hard time with that one. I can't say I got much out of it."

After reading Worstward Ho then reading your reply, I am starting to wonder if "that one" for me might just be read "Beckett".

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Sean wrote: "After reading Worstward Ho then reading your reply, I am starting to wonder if "that one" for me might just be read "Beckett"...."

Ha! Me too, probably, though I did find some of the stage adaptations interesting. There was a series a few years ago that filmed all of Beckett's plays--the one I remember the best was Waiting for Godot and another one which was just a mouth speaking a monologue. I can't really say that I 'got' them, but I thought I came closer than if I was just reading it on the page.

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[Karina]

Finally finished one of the four books I have going from the list: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

[Diane]

Luís wrote: "My experience was very personal. With "Waiting for Godot", for me, it was a truly funniest experience. "...."

Waiting for Godot is my favorite of his. I wish it was on the list in place of some of the ones that are.

[Diane]

Finished The Book About Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist.

[Bob]

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

[Joy D]

Experimental metanarrative fiction published in 1979:

If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino - 3 stars - My Review

[Nina]

I finished Germinal by Émile Zola.

[Diane]

Finished Heartbreak Tango by Manuel Puig.

[George P.]

I apparently didn't note that I finished To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf earlier this month. Not an easy read but worth it.
I've just finished Matigari by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing, two novels set in Africa.
I didn't like Matigari as much as I did his The River Between. This was my 1st Lessing and it was excellent.

[Bob]

Passing by Nella Larsen. I also recently finished Quicksand by the same author. I enjoyed Passing more of the two by Larsen.

[Mia]

The Castle by Franz Kafka.

[Diane]

Finished The Gathering by Anne Enright.

[Joy D]

Took me quite a while, but I finally finished:

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - 3 stars - My Review

[Ellinor]

Down Second Avenue: Growing Up in a South African Ghetto by Ezekiel Mphahlele

[Diane]

Finished Vertigo by W.G. Sebald.

[S.L.]

The Grass Is Singing

[Tim]

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

[Diane]

Finished Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber.

[Gayle]

I finished The Children’s Book by A S Byatt which was excellent and am about to start her novel Possession.

[Sean]

The Grass Is Singing. More in the group read thread.

[Karen]

Pastoralia by George Saunders.
Saunders is well known for his short stories which have won many awards. He was only on the 2006 Boxall list and then was dropped. Interestingly, his debut novel Lincoln in the Bardo was a New York Times bestseller and won the Man Booker prize in 2017.

[Mia]

I finished The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. My first Pynchon and it was weird.

[Kirsten]

Mia wrote: "I finished The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. My first Pynchon and it was weird."

Yeah, the one Pynchon I read was strange too. But did you like it?

[Kayla]

Nathanael West Miss Lonelyhearts

How this novella ended up on Boxall’s list of books to read before you die, I don’t know. These books make me question my own intelligence- am I just “stupid” and don’t “get it” or is this novella just really horrid? I found the characters extremely unlikable, which likable characters isn’t a prerequisite for a good book, but I couldn't get past their unlikeableness, but I also found them confusing as well. Like I mentioned it's either me and the fact that I thought myself to be more intelligent than I actually am, or it could be that this story really just sucks. Who knows haha. Here’s hoping I can pick a better book to conquer on this list next time...

[James]

Because too many people over the years including many really great authors have found Miss Lonelyhearts to be a great novel (Harold Bloom considered it his favorite 20th century novel) I don’t think you can say it’s a bad book. On the other hand, it is very much a modernist work and I don’t think that just because you don’t “get it” that you are stupid or even a bad reader. Books like this require a certain mind set and some of us simply don’t have the required mind set. That’s just the way it is.

[Diane]

Finished The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbor and If The Old Could by Doris Lessing.

[Nocturnalux]

Luís wrote: "Mia wrote: "I finished The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. My first Pynchon and it was weird."

weird is a non-sense word. I think that's more than that."

That depends on context, though; weird is also a subgenre, as in, 'weird fiction', so it is already applied without disparagement, to literature.

Meanwhile, I finished The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Absolutely loved it.

[Mia]

Kirsten #blacklivesmatter #keeppoliceaccountable wrote: "Mia wrote: "I finished The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. My first Pynchon and it was weird."

Yeah, the one Pynchon I read was strange too. But did you like it?"

Very good question, I'm not quite sure did I like it or not. Some parts made me laugh, but some parts made me just confuse. I do want to read more of him, though. So it wasn't awful.

[Fran]

Finished Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Some parts were really good, like when Gulliver explains why countries go to war, but overall did not really enjoy the story

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Finished The Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset, first part of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. Kind of soap-opera-y

[Karen]

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre
What to say -- this is some very dark humor. The first part of the book is narrated by Vernon Little, a 16-year-old student who has witnessed a horrific school shooting. His narration in Part 1 reflects the mental trauma he has suffered and how he is dealing with the event with little help from the adults around him. Part 2, still narrated by Vernon, is much more calm and easier to follow. Though dealing with a very difficult subject, Pierre skewers American culture -- particularly the media's rush to judgment, our obsession with food, media bias, and more. Though I felt like abandoning the book at several points, I kept on and it is an addictive read -- the ending is worth the persistence.

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Karen wrote: "the ending is worth the persistence. ..."

You did better than me then. I tossed it after the first chapter.

[Tim]

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

[Birthe]

There but for the by Ali Smith

Warmly recommend it!

[Kayla]

James wrote: "Because too many people over the years including many really great authors have found Miss Lonelyhearts to be a great novel (Harold Bloom considered it his favorite 20th century novel) I don’t thin..."

You make some very good points- it very likely just wasn't my cup of tea, though it is always very frustrating to find it difficult to understand the point of a book on this list when the reason it's on the list is that it's so widely regarded/enjoyed/respected. You almost assume that you MUST like everything on the list even though logically you know, especially with how extensive it is, that statistically it's just not possible. I think another important consideration that we must remember, is that a lot of the books were written in different time periods and we must also try to adapt our brain and not compare it and expect it to follow today's standards- that is one consideration that I must continually remind myself of when tackling this list as it's also probably very likely why I have an easier time getting into and reading more of the current releases from the 80s through today. I've lived through those decades and thus have a better understanding of the world in which they were written so to speak...

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Just finished listening to an audio edition of The Circle by Dave Eggers. I thought it was okay, but I have a hard time seeing it on a list of must-reads.

On the subject of Miss Lonelyhearts, I thought it was the closest thing to Dostoyevsky anyone in America ever got to, or, at least, that I ever read. That doesn't mean a person ought to like it though. That's one thing about a list this big--no one's going to like everything on it. I'd probably vote out at least half of what I've read of it so far.

[Mia]

The Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev.

[Ellinor]

I just finished Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn, the first of the Patrick Melrose books. it is not on the list but it will eventually lead me to Mother's Milk. Very dark humour.

[Diane]

Finished The Journey to the West, Volume 2 by Wu Cheng'en.

[Mia]

I finished The Breast by Philip Roth.

[Kayla]

Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Just finished listening to an audio edition of The Circle by Dave Eggers. I thought it was okay, but I have a hard time seeing it on a list of must-reads.

On the subject of Miss Lo..."
Very valid points on Miss Lonelyheart, I haven't made my way over to Dostoevsky yet so now I'm curious to see my thoughts when I read some of his...It's easy to assume that since these are books that everyone should read before they die, that we SHOULD like/enjoy them all, but the sheer number of books on the list plus revisions, not to mention all the many different personality types in this world, we must remember that that just isn't going to be the case (as much as it frustrates me haha)

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Dostoyevsky looms large in my mind as a struggle between one's nature and a desire for a nearness to divinity. He seems to exist in the gap between our human frailties and an angelic ideal. Miss Lonelyheart seemed to live in that same space.

[Sean]

Here's another thought on the "you must read and enjoy and love these 1001 books".

Many of these books were written in languages that are not your own. When you read one of those, you are probably reading a translation and some, if not a lot, of the spirit will be lost in that.

One example is The Devil to Pay in the Backlands vs Grande Sertão: Veredas. I am currently reading it, and while I am enjoying it immensely, I have come to understand that it was added to the list due to it's regard in Brazil and in the colloquial mode and nuisances of the Portuguese in which it was originally written. And that it may not (or may) have been added to the list if it had been written as translated in English. It has been heralded as the "Brazilian Ulysses".

I don't know if there is a translation of Ulysses to Portuguese, but is it possible that it could be translated and yet still keep all that is special in it? I don't know. But if not, I could imagine a Brazilian reading his/her Portuguese edition of Ulysses and wondering why in the heck it was added to the list.

[Nocturnalux]

Sean wrote: "I don't know if there is a translation of Ulysses to Portuguese, but is it possible that it could be translated? and still keep all that is special in it? I don't know. But if not, I could imagine a Brazilian reading his/her Portuguese edition of Ulysses and wondering why in the heck it was added to the list."

It very obviously has been translated into Portuguese, both European Portuguese and its Brazilian counterpart.

Surely you did not think that Ulysses would not have been translated into Portuguese by now?