Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion
Popular Topics
>
Which LIST book did you just finish?
message 7551:
by
Tyler
(new)
May 28, 2021 05:46PM

reply
|
flag
The Iron Heel by Jack London
Quite good! Written in 1908, future history/dystopian novel of the rise of the corporate oligarchy in America and the Socialist resistance.
Quite good! Written in 1908, future history/dystopian novel of the rise of the corporate oligarchy in America and the Socialist resistance.

Methinks that as Angie noted about Thomas of Reading "this book needeth not be read before one dies (quoth she). Prithee goodman Boxall, why didst thou put it on the list? Fie!" While the language is not quite that bad it was written in the 19th century so shouldn't have been written this way at all. I assume Boxall put it on the list as it was the first written in Flemish but please....

I can't recommend this one, and I can't say I'm glad I read it.


I loved this book! I hope you enjoyed it, too, Nocturnalux!

Solaris by Stanisław Lem. This one was a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me. I certainly kept track and wanted to know how it would end. However, I found aspects of both the science and the characters wanting, and those are the two main aspects of the book. It was a very ambitious book, and I can see some people loving it more than I did!
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. I treated myself to an audiobook version read by Elliot Gould. Gould did a fantastic job reading the book, and has a perfect voice for the part. He played the character in a 1973 film of The Long Goodbye. The character is very much a man of his time and place, and there are a number of casually sexist, racist and homophobic statements. That said, the writing is amazing, and we can thank this book for having novelist Walter Mosley decide to become a writer. See The Two Raymond Chandler Sentences That Changed Walter Mosley's Life.
Freidia wrote: "I finished Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich just now."
This is not a Boxall List book.
This is not a Boxall List book.

I have a book that includes Midaq Alley, The Thief and the Dogs and Miramar, all by Mahfouz. The middle one is not a list book, but I'm going to read it next, and the Miramar.

I loved this book! I hope you enjoyed it, too, Nocturnalux!"
I enjoyed it greatly, it was like a punch to the gut.

But I do feel that Arthur Conan Doyle took things up a notch with Sherlock Holmes. It's really neat to read these Dupin stories and see how much they influenced Sherlock Holmes. But I definitely prefer Sherlock.
Finished Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset of Norway. This is a trilogy composed of The Wreath (aka The Mistress of Husaby), The Wife and The Cross. About 1100 pages total but a worthy endeavor to read this early Nobel laureate.

A quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald, posted in Wikipedia, convinced me I had to read this book. Fitzgerald is said to have " observed how within the novel's ambiguous form Huxley created structures and then demolished them 'with something too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony.'"
my review

Interesting time of year for that one! :D It's one of my favourites of all the list books I've read.
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky of France (but born in Ukraine). It was written in 1941 but not discovered and published until 2004.
Hubert wrote: "Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. Brilliant!"
Yes it is. I'm fortunate to have an autographed copy.
Yes it is. I'm fortunate to have an autographed copy.

The story features some very complex issues and whilst it is undoubtedly well written it failed to really grab me somehow meaning that I found it an OK read rather than a good one.
The Once and Future King by T.H. White. My copy consisted of 5 books, although the most common edition only has 4. I went ahead and read the 5th book since I wasn't clear which edition was the list edition.
After going almost 3 weeks between finishing List books, I finished two on consecutive days, the 2nd being Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Very good (and short).

Books mentioned in this topic
Auto-da-Fé (other topics)Walden or, Life in the Woods (other topics)
Max Havelaar, or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (other topics)
Catch-22 (other topics)
Blue of Noon (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Elias Canetti (other topics)Henry David Thoreau (other topics)
Multatuli (other topics)
Joseph Heller (other topics)
Georges Bataille (other topics)
More...