Which LIST book did you just finish? Showing 3,751-3,800 of 10,328

[Nicola]

Villette - Probably Charlotte’s best book, at least so far as writing goes - I'm aware that Jane Eyre holds a place in many hearts beyond that of a mere book.

4 stars - my review


The Old Devils - Well written and entertaining enough but a book full of old Welsh sad sacks in various states of drunken decay was a bit much for me.

3 stars - my review


Antic Hay - Another 'society is full of pitfalls' novel although Aldous Huxley writes with a little more class given the time period. Again, pretty funny in parts but not really my thing.

3 stars - my review


All the Pretty Horses - 'A more readable Hemingway' but still close enough to the actual Hemingway that I didn't like it much. Full of manly men doing manly things - lots of blood and fighting.

2 stars - my review


Emma - The incomparable Jane Austen :-) Reading this for, oh, the 8th time perhaps?

5 stars


Summer Will Show - Surprisingly I didn't like this. I should have given my general tastes but I thought it was mostly fairly boring.

2 stars - my review


Eugene Onegin - Pure Poetry :-) Especially when you listen to the audiobook by Stephen Fry!

4 stars - my review

[George P.]

Nicola wrote: Summer Will Show - Surprisingly I didn't like this. I should have given my general tastes but I thought it was mostly fairly boring.
2 stars - my review..."

That's an obscure one- you're the first person I've ever seen read it. And your note helps explain that. It was kept in the newer Boxall edition though.
I have Eugene Onegin in my to-read list. Other friends have also given it 4 stars- I think I need to move it up in my list.

[George P.]

I finished up my reading of seven short pieces by Edgar A Poe with The Purloined Letter; very nice writing but nothing amazing about the detective story [It was dropped from the 2012 edition].

[Aileen]

I finally got round to reading 2001: A Space Odyssey which I've owned for years but tended to avoid because I thought I wasn't a sci-fi fan. Well I loved this one! Bits seemed familiar though I have no recollection of watching the movie. I'll have to remedy that. 5/5

[Eva]

I just finished Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

The "stream of consciousness" almost made me feel short of breath when reading it and I felt that I had to read faster.

If not for life in general interfering with my reading time, I would have read this in one sitting.

I have a feeling that this is a book that I will return to again in a few a years.

[Nicola]

George wrote: That's an obscure one- you're the first person I've ever seen read it..."

I try to read some of the more obscure ones every now and then - I'm reading the combined list so I'll eventually have to read them all at some point anyway.

[Diane]

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.

[Eva]

Mercedes wrote: "Emu wrote: "I just finished Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

The "stream of consciousness" almost made me feel short of breath when reading it and I felt that I had to r..."

I definitely will read The Hours + my friend gave me Mrs. Dalloway's Party: A Short Story Sequence, which is also going to the top of the tbr-pile :-)

[George P.]

Aileen wrote: "I finally got round to reading 2001: A Space Odyssey which I've owned for years but tended to avoid because I thought I wasn't a sci-fi fan...."

Did you know that movie screenplays are often taken from books, but in the case of 2001 they were written simultaneously in an unusual partnership of Arthur C Clarke and Stanley Kubrik?

[Aileen]

George wrote: "Aileen wrote: "I finally got round to reading 2001: A Space Odyssey which I've owned for years but tended to avoid because I thought I wasn't a sci-fi fan...."

Did you know that movie screenplays ..."

I didn't know this before I picked the book up, but my copy explained that they were written in conjunction. My head is still somewhere off Saturn :-)

[Diane]

The Third Wedding by Costas Taktsis.

[George P.]

Mercedes wrote: "De amor y de sombra by Isabel Allende.
I loved this book."

Do you read them in Spanish? My Spanish is just "Spanish 2" level, I wish it were good enough for reading novels.

[Jan]

House of Leaves. A bit confusing at times, but very enjoyable.

[Ellinor]

Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland. I have no idea what it is doing on the list.

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Finished White Noise by Don DeLillo. Considering I didn't much care for his Mao II, I was surprised at how much I liked this one. DeLillo seems me (at least here in White Noise) to be a strong link between Heller's Catch 22 and Palahniuk's Fight Club

[Sarah]

Finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Chilling but good. I wonder how many people believe the same. I suspect the number isn't as low as one would hope.

[Diane]

Finished Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker.

[Ellinor]

Finished Bartleby & Co.

[Diane]

Finished Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr..

[Bob]

The Devil's Pool by George Sand

[Tim]

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Mercedes wrote: "The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose by Alice Munro.

This collection is not her best, is it? I'm not impressed."

I really enjoyed The View from Castle Rock, but that was after being disappointed by some of her other stories, so it may have been a product of lowered expectations. But it was good enough to make me look forward to the next book of hers that I picked up. Perhaps I'll look somewhere besides The Beggar Maid

[Tyler]

Finally finished listening to The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I really enjoyed it!

[Karen]

The Monk by Matthew Lewis.
This was great as an audiobook -- very dramatic and spooky!

[George P.]

Finished Hallucinating Foucault, so Diane and I finished it within a week of one another. I got it on interlibrary loan, not in my local public libraries. The theme is the relationship between a writer and a reader/English lit grad student. I think I liked writing style a lot, the story somewhat less.

[Bob]

The Fox by D.H. Lawrence

[Gemma]

Finished A Christmas Carol last night.

[Eva]

I finished Everything Is Illuminated yesterday. Not my cup of tea.

[Gemma]

Haha yes thank you (: No nasty lesson learning ghosts for me !!

[Karen]

The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Excellent companion to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart though focusing more on the clash between Christianity and traditional culture.

[Tim]

Gemma wrote: "Finished A Christmas Carol last night."

My favorite Dickens.

[Gemma]

Tim wrote: "Gemma wrote: "Finished A Christmas Carol last night."

My favorite Dickens."

I have only read that one and Great Expectations so far, but keen to read more!

[Karen]

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
Consciousness-raising from the 60s -- I prefer mine without cockroaches! Love this sentence from the Goodreads summary -- "Although this idiosyncratic novel will not have wide appeal, those with academic or markedly erudite tastes should like it very much. "

[Nicola]

The Return of the Native - Classic Hardy. If you like him then you'll love it. I read this with The Readers Review: Literature from 1800 to 1910 group and we had a lot of fun.

4 stars - my review


Memoirs of Hadrian - Wonderfully written but too philosophical and with not enough historical action for me.

2 1/2 star - my review


Time's Arrow - Great fun if you don't know the spoiler (which unfortunately I did). If you don't then read it without looking at a single reveiw or even the book dust cover! (My reviews are safe, I always use spoiler tags :-))

4 stars - my review


No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories - Interesting for the details of town/country life after the revolution (which is why the extra half star) but the stories themselves didn't appeal. I like my stories to have a point to them and usually to wrap up neatly instead of always stopping abruptly.

2 1/2 stars - my review


Gormenghast - The second book and it ties up a lot of loose ends left from the first. Interesting but I'll be leaving it there.

3 1/2 stars - my review


Humphry Clinker - Quite interesting and moderately amusing without actually making me laugh. It gets an extra half star because of all of the information about the people of the day.

3 1/2 stars - my review

[Karen]

Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal

[Sarah]

Just finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It was a good book but I was ready for Anna to die at the end!

[Karen]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

[Karen]

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

[Bob]

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

[Diane]

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

[Nancy]

Sarah wrote: "Finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Chilling but good. I wonder how many people believe the same. I suspect the number isn't as low as one would hope."

Sarah, I agree. This book haunted me for a long time and confirmed by high opinion of Dostoyevsky's work.

[Nancy]

Finished Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[Jim]

Finished yesterday the Scribner Library paperback edition of Alan Paton's (1903-88) Cry, the Beloved Country. It's a tragic tale of fear, loss, faith and love.

Jim

[Bryan--The Bee’s Knees]

Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

What did you think of the Huysmans?

[Nicola]

Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

Stranger in a Strange Land isn't written by Camus. Did you put down the wrong book or the wrong author?

[George P.]

Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

Camus wrote The Stranger, which is what you probably meant to link to. It's also known as The Outsider but is not listed that way in Goodreads.

[Diane]

Nicola wrote: "Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

Stranger in a Strange Land ..."

Ha! I clicked on the wrong author! I will fix it. Oops.

[Diane]

George wrote: "Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

Camus wrote The Stranger,..."

I meant to click on Heinlein but hit Camus by mistake. I only put "Stranger" in my search so Camus' book came up first and Heinlein's came up second.

[Diane]

Bryan wrote: "Diane wrote: "Stranger in a Strange Land by Albert Camus and Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans."

What did you think of the Huysmans?"

I really liked it. It wasn't at all what I expected. I usually don't care for books with little plot and a lot of ranting, but this one was an exception.

[Karen]

Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Romance by Novalis